WASHINGTON -- About two dozen disabled people chained their wheelchairs to entrances of the Transportation Department Monday to protest government mass transit policies they say discriminate against the handicapped.
The demonstration was peaceful and no arrests were reported.
The protest was organized by the American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit against the policies and regulations of the Transportartion Department and its Urban Mass Transit Administration.
'The policies discriminate against all Americans with disabilities by denying us the ability to go to work, school, or church on the public transit systems our taxes help pay for,' the group said in a statement. 'ADAPT's position is that all new mass transit vehicles purchased be totally accessible -- lift equipped. DOT is denying our civil rights.'
On Jan. 4, U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz ruled the Transportation Department's spending cap of 3 percent to help the handicapped use mass transit was 'arbitrary and capricious.' The government has appealed the ruling.
The longstanding controversy began 10 years ago when the Transportation Department wrote regulations requiring all new buses purchased be lift equipped and accessible to disabled people. The regulations were overturned in 1979 following a suit by the American Public Transit Association.
In 1986, after seven years of interim regulations, the Transportation Department issued new rules that required transit systems to meet six criteria of accessibility but allowed them to spend only 3 percent of their budget to meet these criteria.
Transportation Secretary James Burnley made a 10-minute visit to the protesters Monday evening and told them he would welcome the opportunity to meet with them formally in his office, if they called for an appointment.
Burnley said in a statement that he 'reaffirmed the department's commitment to forbid discrimination against people with disabilities in urban mass transportation.'
'We are fully to committed to providing mass transportation to people with disabilities,' Burnley's statement said. 'The department rules, in effect since June 1986, require each mass transit system to chose a form of service -- lift-equipped bus service, para-transit service, user subsidiaries or a combination approach -- to provide accessible service.
'This approach allows the transit system to select a kind of transit service which is most responsive to the needs of riders in its community,' he said. 'It avoids forcing all cities into a single government-mandated mold.'
It was the second demonstration in the nation's capital involving the handicapped. The protest came following the recent campus crusade of deaf students that won the appointment of Gallaudet University's first hearing-impaired president.
