Below is an article in today's Worcester Telegram and Gazette talking about a women who I personally know who was denied access to a public bus due to an operable lift. This issue of inoperable lifts have been going on for years where the bus company always apologizes but offers no compensation for these riders who are left out in the "cold." I have called on my advocates and the Office on Civil Rights and Disabilities in Worcester to address this problem as a civil rights issue. What do you think?
Robbin Miller, LMHC
Facilitator
Woman is left behind
WRTA fails rider with walker twice in one day
By Lee Hammel TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFFlhammel@telegram.com
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WORCESTER — As the No. 8 bus pulled away from Jean Bourgeois and her walker on Franklin Street on Wednesday afternoon, there was a sense of déjÀ vu. It wasn't just in the mind of the 84-year-old resident of Seabury Heights. It's something that she said happened repeatedly last summer. Five times in a month last summer, she said, lifts on Worcester Regional Transit Authority buses failed to operate, and the buses left without the driver offering to call RTA Transit Services to provide her an alternative. Last summer, RTA Transit Services, which operates the transit authority's buses, said the problem was twofold. The aging fleet of buses had finicky wheelchair lifts that sometimes broke down the same day they were fixed, and there were too few mechanics to do anything about it. It left the company with no choice but to violate not only company policy, but Federal Transit Authority requirements on how often buses can leave the garage with inoperable lifts, according to John F. Carney, general manager of the bus contractor. But by Aug. 30 the company hired another mechanic and put eight new buses on the road, retiring the worst vehicles. “After Aug 30, if the lift's not working, the bus won't go out,” he vowed last summer. Yet this week Mrs. Bourgeois was unable to get on not one, but two WRTA buses in a single day because the lifts did not work. Mr. Carney said the company knew that one of them wasn't working before it left the garage. Despite his promise last year, he said Thursday “When push comes to shove, we do” operate buses with malfunctioning lifts because “we have to make service.” The first time, about 1:40 p.m. Wednesday, the lift did not work on the No. 30 bus to Wal-Mart in West Boylston, Mrs. Bourgeois said, so she waited for the 2 p.m. bus. She and her companion, Panteles Demis, returned to Main Street opposite City Hall to transfer to the Route 8 bus that leaves from the Franklin Street side of City Hall for Seabury Heights, 240 Belmont St. There, trouble resumed when the lift could not be operated on the 4 p.m. bus. The driver of the 1:40 p.m. bus, who took over at City Hall for the employee who drove the bus earlier in the day, could not locate the key necessary to operate the lift, Mr. Carney said. He acknowledged that the lift on the 4 p.m. No. 8 also was inoperable. But he said that he was informed that the driver at least followed procedure. That would have meant calling a starter, requesting a backup van, and offering the customer a choice between waiting for the backup or walking back to Main Street to catch the No. 24 bus to Seabury Heights, which Mr. Carney said would have been quicker for the customer. Because the No. 24 driver knew that a passenger had been inconvenienced by the No. 8 bus, he delayed leaving City Hall for five minutes after he should have left, Mr. Carney said, but Mrs. Bourgeois did not show.
That's because Mrs. Bourgeois said she'd had enough. Contrary to the policy Mr. Carney outlined, Mrs. Bourgeois said the bus driver said he was told by the company that no backup van was available and he instructed her to walk back to Main Street to catch the No. 24 bus. Mr. Demis confirmed he does not recall hearing the driver offer an alternative to walking back to Main Street. She did not walk back to Main Street because “I'm handicapped. I hurt, and I just walked down there, and I get worn out.” One of the reasons she hurts, she said, is “I'm still recovering from the bus accident” — when an RTA bus driver had to slam on his brakes to avoid an accident last summer. “I took off like a missile” — out of her seat and into a pole on the bus. At the time, she had nearly recovered from back surgery, and said that 11 months after the accident “my back kills me” and “my head doesn't feel good.” Mr. Carney said there were times last year that seven or eight buses a day without operable wheelchair lifts were on the road. “Now if I have one or two on the list, that's a lot.” The day Mrs. Bourgeois encountered both of them, the company picked up, without incident, 24 other passengers needing the lifts, the general manager said. Christopher W. Bruce, head of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 22, who was critical of the company's record with wheelchair lifts last summer, said, “I believe it's much better than it was.” Mr. Carney said of Mrs. Bourgeois, “I can do nothing but apologize. We'll try to do better.”
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