Robert Coward - Transportation Speech

Greetings:

My name is Robert Coward, I am the chairman and spokesman for Capitol Area ADAPT. Capital Area ADAPT is an advocacy group that promotes the highest possible level of community integration, full inclusion, self empowerment, equal access, and civil right for all people with disabilities into mainstream society. ADAPT members are well educated on policy, legislation, and service delivery requirements and are thoroughly committed, as evidenced by years of advocacy work to promote access in transportation and to implement the ADA. It has been a legacy of this country to discriminate and deny people with disabilities full inclusion in public transportation. My senior cultural leaders have educated me on a period of time when African Americans were made to ride in the back of public transportation. My senior disability rights leaders have in addition educated me on a period of time when person with disabilities could not get on public transportation. This still goes on today.

Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has failed to provide equal access to public transportation for individuals with disabilities. Individuals with disabilities are still too often refused access to a quality and reliable transportation service provided by WMATA. I have personally encountered many of the barriers recorded in the NCD report. I am a District of Columbia resident who uses public transportation. I particularly have complained many of times about elevator outages in rail system and the bus bridging to the next subway station stop. I have had to ride my wheelchair several miles to my destination because the shuttle bus was an hour or more late or WMATA did not have a shuttle bus in the area. WMATA has wasted millions of dollars in bonuses to its paratransit contactor for on time service delivery which was later discovered to be fraud. Also WMATA has wasted millions of dollars on global positioning equipment for its service vehicles that don’t work. WMATA Chief Executive Richard A. White’s approach to solving the paratransit abysmal service delivery is to kick disabled riders off the membership for paratransit.

There are members of the legislative and judicial branch of government that state the ADA is unconstitutional and is a law of accommodation. I state that these members of both branches are misinformed. The ADA is a civil rights law for individuals with disabilities and is also a law which affords access to basic services. The transportation component to Presidents Bush New Freedom Initiative is to expand the transportation mobility options available to persons with disabilities and to provide additional tools to overcome existing barriers facing Americans with disabilities seeking integration into the workforce and full participation in society.

The National Council on Disability has done an outstanding job reporting on the barriers to private and public transportation in which people with disabilities encounter. The NCD report also includes recommendation for removal of these barriers. Far too much Federal, State and local dollars are spent on transportation without regard to whether people with disabilities can utilize the services that are offered.

As Capitol Area ADAPT and many other disability rights organization have made clear in our correspondence and meetings with Legislators, Government officials, Private and Public transportation providers, we again urge you to act to reverse an ongoing crisis which denies people with disabilities transportation services. Given the importance and necessity of mobility in lives of people with disability, the transportation industry must provide for the safety, integrity and usability of the transportation systems for all Americans.