Access to Public Transportation

Access to Public Transportation

story By Janine Bertram Kemp

Lack of access to transportation has always been an issue for people with disabilities, dramatically reducing opportunities for employment, recreation, education, and inclusion in society. In the 1970s and 1980s, transportation became a flashpoint for the disability community to gather, discuss, and organize, city by city, area by area, as well as nationally. The fight for lifts on buses was gaining in the disability community. ADAPT, the grassroots activist group, was formed in 1983 to obtain a national policy on accessible transit. Thanks to its efforts and those of others who joined them, lifts on all new buses became mandated 30 days after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed.

Back in 1970, the Urban Mass Transit Act (UMTA) mandated lifts on all new buses so that people with mobility disabilities could have access to public transit. However, like many legislative mandates, it was not enforced, and lifts on buses encountered significant pushback from city transit authorities as well as the American Public Transit Association (APTA). In the late 1970s and 1980s, access to all forms of public transportation became a demand that was widespread among people with disabilities in the United States. It was an issue that helped galvanize disparate disability organizations into an enduring movement for civil rights. This happened in part because of continuous, strong resistance from APTA and transit authorities in individual urban areas.

From the beginning, people with disabilities understood that the need for transit access was a priority. For those without the significant financial resources to purchase a personal accessible vehicle (at the time, the cost of lift or ramp modifications could run between $15,000 and $30,000), public buses were the only means available to get to work and recreational activities. While the general public and some transit officials viewed those with significant disabilities as only needing transit to medical appointments, the disability community knew that there would never be societal integration without the “right to ride to work” and other activities that were a part of daily human life. While the strongest transit industry resistance centered around access for people with mobility impairments, transit officials also resisted access for people who were blind/low vision, people who were deaf, and those with intellectual disabilities.

The transit industry offered paratransit as the alternative to accessible public buses and cited cost as a reason they could not purchase buses with lifts and make fixed-route buses accessible. Paratransit systems offered door-to-door service in vans or small buses. Appointments for rides had to be made at least 24 hours in advance and many systems limited the availability of the number of rides per week or month. Paratransit rides were notoriously late or no-shows and could not be relied upon for entertainment use such as sporting events or restaurant dining, let alone for employment and medical appointments.

It was not cost that motivated a recalcitrant transit system, since surveys showed a paratransit ride cost the system approximately $25.00 compared to $1.25 for fixed-route usage (1984 costs, when the cost was amortized over the life of the bus, as was the industry standard for other cost computations). It appeared that the transit industry simply did not want to cope with change.

Yet changes were indeed on the horizon, and the laws that mandated them were being passed. In 1968, the state of California passed legislation mandating that BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) be accessible to people with disabilities. Amid mounting pressure, the Washington Metro system was sued successfully in 1972 to incorporate accessibility in their plans. After UMTA required lifts on buses, transit systems should have been moving rapidly toward access for all people with disabilities since, in 1973, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act was passed by the U.S. Congress. Section 504 required that any recipient of federal funds had to make all programs and services accessible to people with disabilities. The transit industry received hundreds of millions in federal dollars. Sadly for people with disabilities, federal regulations for the Rehabilitation Act were not issued for many years and there were no enforcement efforts on the part of the Federal Transit Administration, which was most often sympathetic to APTA rather than riders.

Disability rights activists, including members of ADAPT, stage a protest in Los Angeles, California, to bring attention to the inaccessibility of public transit and over-the-road coach companies.

Tom Olin Photography

The Surface Transportation Act set the accessibility bar very low in 1982 when it mandated that transit authorities need not spend more than 3.5 percent of their budgets serving customers with disabilities. The act specified that a transit agency needed either to operate a “van system” or put lifts on buses. Many in the disability community saw the van system option as a parallel to “separate but equal” schools from the African-American civil rights movement.

“Separate is never equal,” explained Mark Johnson of the ADA Legacy Project and a founding member of ADAPT. For example, the Surface Transportation Act set an easy bar for transit industry compliance with federal law. If a transit system spent 3.5 percent (called the 3 percent rule) of its budget on access for patrons with disabilities on either paratransit or fixed routes, then that system was within compliance.

Yet, this did not begin to provide access for riders with disabilities. A Department of Transportation (DOT) study showed that cities of fewer than 1 million people, which are at least 90 percent of the cities, could not meet the minimum service criteria for the handicapped for less than the 3 percent spending limits. According to Johnson, that 3 percent rule meant that many cities did not have to extend much service to riders with disabilities.

“This came to be known as ‘local option,’ and it meant that local transportation agencies could opt to provide only segregated paratransit for customers with disabilities, as the majority so chose,” Johnson explained.

A rider in Los Angeles, California, uses a ramp to board an LA Metro bus operated by Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Thanks to the Americans with Disabilities Act and the persistent efforts of people within the disability community, public transportation is much more accessible today, with lifts on buses that travel fixed routes rather than reliance on paratransit to serve those with disabilities.

Photograph courtesy of Metro. @2014 LACMTA

ADAPT Takes Direct Action

While accessible public transportation was one of many issues on the plate for disability leadership in Washington, D.C., no group had elevated it to their No. 1 priority. Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) under Gordon Mansfield’s leadership and Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association (EPVA) had consistently lobbied for accessible buses, trains, and airplanes. The ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia (ECNV), then led by Sharon Mistler, always had representatives negotiating accessible transit regulations. However, it was not until a grassroots group out of Denver, Colorado, began blocking buses that accessible public transit became a leading issue of the disability rights movement.

After meeting for two years, a Denver group later called “the Gang of 19” was ready to make its move. In July 1978, local transit officials had placed an order for new buses without lifts. The Gang of 19 blocked city buses on the corner of Broadway and Colfax. Subsequently the city of Denver began ordering lifts on all new buses. Five years later in 1983, ADAPT was formed.

The name then stood for Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit. It was an organization with a single mission: accessible public transportation and lifts on buses, in particular. Led by Wade Blank, a Presbyterian minister, ADAPT used negotiation, litigation, and direct action to achieve its goals. While direct action was only one tool in the ADAPT arsenal, it was seen by many outside of the organization as synonymous with the group. ADAPT grew rapidly to include several state chapters. It began holding various local actions and two national actions per year. Four hundred to 500 people with disabilities attended the national actions, following APTA conventions in order to protest, issuing demands for accessible public transit, blocking buses, and receiving significant coverage in mainstream media outlets. Washington, D.C. actions helped punctuate the need for federal laws or regulations from the DOT.

In addition to its policy and direct-action work, ADAPT was a group that took the most excluded among the disability rights movement and included them in all aspects of their community. It was a level of empowerment the disability community had never seen and was certainly unheard of in Washington, D.C. Local ADAPT chapters still hold bake sales and fun runs to raise enough money to bring their members to national actions. It is not unusual to see people on stretchers or who live in nursing homes come to ADAPT events. Empowering those who are often excluded from other groups is part and parcel of ADAPT.

A woman who uses a wheelchair is assisted at a security screening area at Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey. Though some advances relating to airport and airline accessibility were gained with passage of the 1986 Air Carrier Access Act, disability advocates say that air travel for people with disabilities is problematic and stands to be improved.

In an action report about the 2011 Fun Run, Yoshiko Dart noted, “ADAPT is the heart and blood of the disability movement. There are many people in the movement working for things in different ways. If we didn’t have ADAPT, we would go off on the wrong track and lose our energy and passion.”

ADAPT brought access to public transportation to the forefront of the disability agenda and thereby helped to build it into a movement. In 1988, ADAPT v. Dole was a seminal part of ADAPT’s litigation strategy, which was created by the late Tim Cook, a brilliant disability rights attorney who had come from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to found the National Disability Action Center in Washington, D.C. The EPVA director, Jim Weisman, also joined the suit. It was an attempt to circumvent local option by getting the court to negate the 3 percent rule and thereby stop segregation through local option. ADAPT and Cook won that case when Judge Marvin Katz ruled that the 3.5 percent rule issued by the DOT was “arbitrary and capricious.” Yet it was a shortlived victory: The DOT appealed, and while the mandate to provide transportation services to people with disabilities stood, the court did not strike down local option.

The issue was finally resolved when President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990, mandating that accessible fixedroute transit become part of the law of the land. Because of ADAPT highlighting fixed-route transit, lifts on buses became law 30 days after the ADA was signed. All other aspects of the law took effect far later.

Other Transit Modalities

Compared to accessible fixedroute buses in cities, other modes of public transit did not fare so well. Amtrak was given 20 years to provide the access required by the ADA. Yet Amtrak travelers with disabilities still cite serious problems with access in 2014.

Key Dates in Accessible Transportation

1968 – The state of California mandates that BART be built so it is accessible to people with disabilities. 1970 – The Urban Mass Transit Act mandates lifts on buses. 1978 – In Denver, Wade Blank forms an original group called the Gang of 19, which later becomes ADAPT. 1979 – The city of Seattle has lifts on buses, showing it could be done in a large city. 1983 – ADAPT is founded. 1986 – The Air Carrier Access Act is passed. 1988 – Judge Marvin Katz decides the ADAPT v. Dole case. July 26, 1990 – President George H.W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In 1988, ADAPT launched a campaign against Greyhound to highlight the issue of over-the-road accessibility. ADAPT members blocked over-the-road coaches throughout the nation. Under the ADA, overthe-road coaches, like those run by Greyhound, were also given an extended period to provide access. Larger entities were given 10 years and smaller ones 11. In 2014, some of the smaller over-the-road coach companies still do not provide buses with lifts. Yet it is required that all new buses purchased be equipped with lifts. As a consequence, by the year 2020, the 30th anniversary of the ADA, all over-the-road coaches should be accessible.

The ADA does not cover air travel. In 1986, the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) was signed into law. Washington, D.C. disability organizations were invited to participate in prolonged mediation concerning the regulations for ACAA. Pat Wright of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, David Capozzi of PVA, and James Gashiell of the National Federation of the Blind are a sample of those who participated for several months in extended meetings with airline and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) representatives.

Since 1986, the regulations have been modified numerous times, yet air travel is still problematic for people with disabilities.

Although 28 years have passed since ACAA became law, it is still common for airlines to destroy the costly power chairs they stow, injure travelers with disabilities in transfers, and even refuse to allow people with intellectual disabilities to board an airplane. Sadly, the ACAA has no enforcement mechanisms other than complaints to the FAA. Nonetheless, with two major airlines reporting more than 2,000,000 passengers with disabilities each year as customers, one can hope the market will warrant significant service improvements.

The ADA Generation, those with disabilities who have grown up with ADA protections, may be our best hope for remedying outstanding public transportation deficits. These young citizens have high expectations of compliance. Having grown up with access, they insist upon it. Because of these high expectations, they may well be the advocates that demand and compel better regulations and enforcement of access laws in all modalities of public transportation.