Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!olivea!mintaka!yale!bunker!hcap!hnews!130!10!Walter.Hart
From: Walter.Hart@f10.n130.z1.fidonet.org (Walter Hart)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: Discrimination by Transit Companies
Message-ID: <13381@bunker.UUCP>
Date: 9 Aug 90 19:59:57 GMT
Sender: wtm@bunker.UUCP
Reply-To: Walter.Hart@f10.n130.z1.fidonet.org
Distribution: misc
Organization: FidoNet node 1:130/10 - D D Connection, Fort Worth TX
Lines: 33
Approved: wtm@bunker.UUCP

Index Number: 9709

Joe, The T (local mass transit) is seeking to continue it's past 
arbitrary and discrimanatory policies.  They have refused to allow the 
users of three or four wheel power chairs to ride either Mainline or 
Mobility Impaired services. The Dallas Area has these same policies 
ineffect.  I (personally) have been the subject of a memo to each driver 
requiring that I be forced to transfer to a regular seat.  Since my 
mobility is extremely limitted (and I actually feel safer on my Amigo) I
have filed a complaint with Advocacy ,Inc in Austin and have filed a 
complaint with Dispute Resolution.  The T claims three and four wheelers 
areless safe than convwentional wheelchairs which will lock down in the
RTS buses.  As the local ADAPT organizer I have trieded working with 
them.  Their "safety director" keeps trying to ignore the fact that many 
users are absolutely unable to transfer!  Nationwide statistics compiled 
by the UMPA funded Project Action reveals this as the third highest 
complaint.  Fact is there are more modern tie down systems in effect than 
what we have here.  Both the Q-straint and Masachusetts Bay "Universal "
restraint systems are superior.  Our drivers, by and large, attempt to 
ignore the situation using the Nazi excuse "I was just following orders!"
The chairman of the local executive board over two months ago offered to 
ride with me.  He never did.  If Dispute resolution does not end this 
then 91 days from July 25,1990 I'll beg an attorney to file suit on 
behalf of all residents, as a class that are being denied access.  
I doubt that these persons even realize that under the ADA they will have 
an obligation under "paratransit" which will reqiure service comparable 
to mainline service that the current three day notice must shorten to 
no more than the length of time for mainline service.  Their apparent 
intent is to keep giving the disABLED community here what "they" want to.

--
Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!130!10!Walter.Hart
Internet: Walter.Hart@f10.n130.z1.fidonet.org