Does anyone have a beef with Pace? Blind people are being sought for the
advisory panel described in the article below. For more details, call me
at home or Jim at Blind Service.
kelly
DISABLED TRY TO BE PACE-SETTERS
By Rogers Worthington
Tribune Staff Writer
September 15, 1998
Carol Cleigh didn't have to roll too close to the curb to make her
point. As her fellow protesters looked on, a white and yellow Pace bus
approached the stop but sped on by, quickly leaving Cleigh, her
wheelchair and her angry shouts in a cloud of diesel fumes.
The bus was among the 40 percent in Pace's fleet that aren't
wheelchair accessible. So there was no reason for it to stop. But if
Cleigh wasn't just making a protest point, she could have had an
hour's wait for another bus.
It's one thing to be disabled in the city, where public transportation
is ubiquitous and frequent. It's something else altogether in the
suburbs, where distances are greater, and public transportation is
harder to come by.
"It's extremely hard for a person in a wheelchair to get through a day
or a week without having obstacles put in their way," said Josephine
Holzer, executive director of the Council for Disability Rights in
Chicago.
For months, the Suburban Access Squad, led by Cleigh, who lives in
Evanston, fellow disabled activists Sharon Lamp, of Des Plaines, and
Diane Coleman, director of the Progress Center for Independent Living
in Forest Park, have been protesting about what they say is the
suburban bus agency's poor service to the disabled. All three women
use wheelchairs.
"Our basic problem with Pace is they're not listening," said Cleigh.
She says the agency's problems include faulty hydraulic lifts on buses
that are supposed to be able to pick up riders in wheelchairs;
wheelchair-accessible routes that don't connect with other
wheelchair-accessible routes; tardiness and refusals to pick up riders
by Pace's door-to-door "para-transit" service; and rules that require
bus drivers to secure some wheelchairs by strapping them to the floor.
But Cleigh's most recent demonstration, with a dozen protesters in
wheelchairs chanting "No access, no Pace," took place at Pace's
Arlington Heights headquarters, where a new executive director had
just taken command and board members were arriving for their September
meeting.
Cleigh, Lamp and Coleman, all angry veterans of bitter struggles over
access with Metra and the CTA, wheeled into the Pace building and
threatened to sue, alleging that the bus agency has failed to live up
to the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.
Pace officials have maintained that the agency is complying with the
federal law. Yet this time, the Pace directors listened. And by the
end of the meeting, the board--against Chairwoman Florence Boone's
wishes--asked new Executive Director T.J. Ross to meet with the
protest leaders and form a committee on disabled issues that would
include the demonstrators.
"Part of our frustration is that this very simple step has been
resisted so long," Coleman said.
Pace, which operates in Cook County and the five collar counties, last
year provided 315,211 rides to its disabled customers, who constitute
less than 1 percent of Pace ridership.
The suburban bus agency spends more than $7 million annually on its
para-transit service, made up of 374 privately contracted mini buses
that deliver on-request, curb-to-curb rides to passengers who make
reservations at least a day in advance. Para-transit is a service
required by the ADA for disabled people who live within three-quarters
of a mile of a fixed bus route.
Of Pace's 240 fixed bus routes, 143 are wheelchair-accessible. The
goal is to make all Pace buses and routes accessible, said Ross.
But Ross has not set a deadline, partially because new buses are
costly--about $250,000 each--and many non-accessible buses are still
relatively new.
"You always have limited resources, and that can be a problem," said
Ross. But he called accessibility, "good public policy." And he noted
that, with an aging population, more people realize "that they're just
a slip away from being disabled."
Along with the committee to advise Pace on issues affecting disabled
riders, the Suburban Access Squad wants Pace to end its policy of
strapping down some wheelchairs on buses.
Pace requires disabled riders to secure a seat belt across their laps
and to back their left rear wheel into a claw-like locking device on
the floor. But if the wheel doesn't fit into the claw, the chair is
strapped to the floor.
Some disabled riders resent the straps because they can't secure or
release them by themselves. Some also think the bus driver strapping
them to the floor is a humiliating public expression of dependency
that interferes with the normal routine of the bus.
"It's totally humiliating; I'm the center of attention," Lamp said.
T. Anthony Welch, a disabled squad member from Arlington Heights,
questions why a person in a wheelchair needs to be strapped down any
more than any other rider.
"They don't tie down baby strollers, shopping carts or luggage. And
there's nothing to stop everyone else from flying around in an
accident," Welch said.
Ross and Pace staff members counter that it is necessary for reasons
of safety and liability.
But the squad appears to have come away with a victory in its request
to provide input. Melinda Metzger, Pace's operations director, invited
the protesters to get involved in the quarterly training of Pace
drivers and in critiquing the prototype for a new low-floor bus that
Pace is ordering.
The biggest victory, however, is the promised formation of a committee
through which disabled riders can have input to Pace policies. Ross
says the panel should be meeting by January.
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