Report finds transit for disabled inadequate
WASHINGTON -- Disabled people who need to use public trains or buses are not being well served, despite billions of dollars spent to improve transportation for the handicapped, government advisers contend.
Buses leave disabled commuters waiting at stops or may be ill equipped to handle wheelchairs, the National Council on Disability said in a report slated for release today. Wheelchairs can get stuck in the wide spaces between platforms and trains, the council said. A bus driver may forget to announce stops, affecting a blind passenger.
The council, a federal agency that advises the president and Congress, found persistent problems for disabled people who use public transportation, despite years of federal efforts to make buses and trains more accessible.
The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 helped improve access for the disabled, and 70 federal programs fund different aspects of community transportation services.
Though some public transit agencies had already provided accessible bus service, the act accelerated the trend. In 1989, 36 percent of the national bus fleet was accessible. Thirteen years later, 91 percent of the fleet was lift- or ramp-equipped.
The disability council's chairman, Lex Frieden, 56, has firsthand experience.
''In the last 30 years, I've seen amazing changes," said Frieden, who uses a wheelchair. ''The fact that I can go down the street from my home and catch a bus with a ramp on it, take the bus down to the transit center, to get on the light rail across town, go to another transit center, catch a bus, go to an airport, get on a plane."
Still, he added, more needs to be done to help the 6 million people with disabilities who have difficulties getting the transportation they need.
Major gaps exist for those who live in rural areas or rely on paratransit -- a supplemental system of transporting people from their home to work, appointments, or transit centers. The act says that where public transportation exists, it needs to be accessible to disabled people, but it doesn't address rural areas that don't have public transportation.
''It's not a matter of convenience for disabled people to have access to transportation," Frieden said. ''It's a matter of employment or not, a matter of healthcare or not, sometimes a matter of education or not. It's a matter of full participation in a community or not."
Communities across the country often put up inadvertent barriers, such as hard-to-reach bus stops, intersections without curb ramps, and pedestrian signals the visually impaired can't read, the council found. Some bus agencies use automatic stop-announcement systems, but they are not always reliable, the report said.
