The Roving Activist’s Blog

Well folks, all that Cainraising I did with Metro over the past couple of years has paid off! Dan Tangherlini, the interim General Manager of Metro responded to the invitation of the Elderly and Disabled Transit Advisory Committee (of which I am a member), and met with us for over an hour. He was very attentive and supportive, and had already instituted some positive changes. One of the things that was confirmed was that Metro has gotten rid of all of its non-lift buses, and have promised to turn their attention to the maintainence of the older lift buses. They have also committed to eventually phasing out the lift bises and replacing them with low ramp buses. I was informed that there are indeed several low ramped buses on the L2, the bus route that I use most of the time.

I was therefore very pleasantly surprised to see a low ramp L2 bus pull up at my stop downtown, as I was heading home after the meeting. The ride was nice, and when I went to alight at my stop, I was amazed at how fast everything was. I was off the bus in less than 30 seconds! I’ll have to let the Committee know that Metro has kept it’s promise.

While I must admit that I am, at the moment, savoring my victory, this will be short lived. There is more work to be done, more battles to be fought and won. This is merely the beginning.

Yesterday, I went to my monthly meeting of the Elderly and Disabled Advisory Committee (E&D) for Metro, our transit company here in Washington, DC. Since August of 2004, I had been showing up at these meetings complaining about the sad state of the buses on my route. Most had nonworking lifts, and some of the buses did not even have lifts! I would show up with my log containing all the information, letting them know that I was an ADAPT member who was uncharacteristically trying to be nice, but that I was fast losing patience, and ADAPT was ready to act.

They had all kinds of Metro muckety-mucks wanting to meet with me to discuss what could be done because they knew of ADAPT, and didn’t want to endure a protest. Finally, I was asked to join the Committee, and I warned them to be VERY careful of what they asked for because they knew that I was a hellraiser, and I wasn’t about to be merely window dressing. They unanimously elected me onto the Committee, and after a while, made me chair of a sub-committee on lift buses. Well, guess what? After months of all kinds of excuses from the muckety-mucks as to why they couldn’t put any of the new ramp buses on my route, I received a call on Friday, which was confirmed yesterday during the meeting, that there will be 35 of the new ramp buses added to my route on April 30th. I told them I would hold them to their word.

When the new buses are out on my route, I will continue my campaign to make sure that the same thing happens in other neighborhoods. I have told the Committe, as well as the higher-ups, that if this is happeneing to me, it is happeneing to others. Metro wants to encourage people with disabilities who can, to use the fixed route system instead of the paratransit system, which is horribly overburdened, and worse than useless. In order to achieve this, Metro must make sure that ALL of it’s lift-equipped buses actually work, and that drivers are properly trained in their use, and that they are sanctioned if they use shennanigans and tomfoolery to deny people with disabilities a ride. So, we shall see, and I will continue to update any progress.