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9/10/98, 1:16 pm
To clarify the position of DREDF and to keep you informed on what is going on with Greyhound:
September 9, 1998
FROM:
Marilyn Golden
Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund
2212 - 6th Street
Berkeley, California 94710
(510) 654-5580
TO:
Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, New York 10036-3959
SUGGESTED TITLE: Times' Error Helps Greyhound Evade the Law
Dear Editor:
In the Times' September 9 article Greyhound Unveils Its Plan To Serve the Disabled Fully, I was misquoted as saying that Greyhound would need to make at least 15% of its buses accessible to people with disabilities for its bus pooling proposal to work (rather than Greyhound's own plan for 4%). Greyhound's idea is to run a few accessible buses around the country to provide accessible trips with 2 days notice.
In fact, it is the position of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) that for bus pooling to work would require at least a third of Greyhound's buses to be accessible. However, focusing on this "battle of numbers" only assists Greyhound in its so-far successful attempts to completely evade its responsibility to passengers with disabilities and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The real issue, as many transit professionals agree, is that Greyhound's idea will never work. It would take extraordinary administrative resources which Greyhound will never expend. Greyhound promotes it in order to fool the public that there's no need for the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT's) proposed (soon to be final) regulation requiring Greyhound and similar companies to ensure all newly purchased buses are accessible. DOT's regulation will lead, over a period of years, to a fully accessible bus fleet, providing genuine accessible service. This is what all public transit agencies are already required to do, and have shown can be done.
A study done by ADAPT (American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today), which is the only study of this subject (Greyhound has done none), shows that Greyhound fails miserably to comply with what the ADA already requires of it today: to serve people with disabilities. The New York Times' biased coverage will help Greyhound further evade what the ADA will require of it tomorrow.
Marilyn Golden
Policy Analyst, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF)
The Memphis Center for Independent Living
1633 Madison Avenue,
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 726-6404 v/tty (901) 726-6521 fax
mcil@mcil.org
MCIL is a United Way of the Mid-South member Agency
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