Transportation and Housing, Key Issues Facing Pennsylvania

By Jacqueline Kravetz

Philadelphia, PA (July 29, 2000) – Liberty Resources, a Center for Independent Living serving the Philadelphia area hosted that city’s tenth anniversary ADA celebration and Spirit of ADA Torch Relay, attracting several hundred participants throughout the day to Penn Treaty Park for entertainment, speeches and a picnic.

Linda Richman, Vice President of Liberty Resources and a co-coordinator of the Philadelphia event said in working to raise awareness for the ADA, "we’re just fighting for what everybody else has access to….We’re not asking for anything magical, we’re just asking for common human equality."

The key issues of interest to the disability community in Pennsylvania, according to Richman, are housing and transportation. And it was no small coincidence that the Philadelphia event opened with the arrival of disability advocates from across Pennsylvania participating in Rolling Justice 2000.

A collaborative effort of Pennsylvania’s network of fifteen Centers for Independent Living, the Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, and the Pennsylvania Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, Rolling Justice 2000 is a grassroots attempt by thousands of Pennsylvanians with disabilities to educate the public about the critical transportation needs of their community.

"We did something no other movement has ever done in America. We started in three corners of the state, crisscrossed to the state capitol rotunda in Harrisburg, and shot out to Philadelphia," Josie Byzek of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities said in an interview.

Setting out on July 5 from Pittsburgh, Erie and Scranton, individuals with disabilities of all types traveled through small and large cities and towns in relay by whatever means was available. Byzek said participants traveled via wheelchair, foot, walker, scooter, train, bus, tractor, motorcycle, and more. The goal was to reach Philadelphia in time for the ADA Torch Relay celebration and the opening of the Republican National Convention.

Pennsylvania currently has two companion bills in the senate and house to help fund affordable transportation for people with disabilities in the state’s rural areas. Referred to as the Persons with Disabilities Shared Ride Program Act, the bills were stalled in committee after the state transportation advisory committee decided to do a study on the availability of transportation for people with disabilities in rural Pennsylvania.

Ginny Rogers, the coordinator of Rolling Justice 2000, said the study was completed on June 29. She also said that a state representative from a rural county attached the bill to another pending bill that recently passed in the house 195 votes to 0.

Rogers explained that the bill that passed the house would make the current state-wide shared ride program subsidized to make transportation affordable for senior citizens applicable to people with disabilities. "Basically," she said, "we’re asking for a subsidy for people with disabilities." The bill has yet to pass the senate.

According to information distributed by Rolling Justice 2000, with an estimated 289,000 people with disabilities residing in Philadelphia County alone, only 50% of Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s buses have wheelchair lifts, and only two subway stations, and three commuter rail stations are accessible.

In the state’s rural areas, home to an estimated 103,500 people with disabilities no public transit exists.

"Rolling Justice 2000 was a way to call attention to the problem with our legislators, with the media with the community too, because we want people in the community to be aware of what’s going on with their neighbors and people with disabilities in the community," Rogers stated.

Along their route, the participants in Rolling Justice have collected thousands of signatures and received endorsements from legislators, local politicians, mayors and town and country commissioners, Rogers said.

With regard to the housing issue, disability rights attorney and Liberty Resources board member Steve Gold said that Liberty Resources recently won an important case against the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) to make more public housing units accessible.

"Under Section 504, all federally funded housing – public housing, community development, block grants, tax credits – all are supposed to be 5% accessible and 5% available for people with disabilities…no one does it and no one enforces it." Gold explained.

In the Liberty Resources v. PHA ruling in federal court, the presiding judge ordered the PHA to construct 250 more public housing units by the year 2004, helping to provide an alternative to institutionalization for some in Philadelphia’s disability community.

Speakers at the Philadelphia event included, among others, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater, Kevin Vaughan, Regional Director of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Greg Smith, host and founder of On the Roll Radio.

In his speech, Secretary Slater said, "Because transportation is about so much more than concrete, asphalt and steel, it is about connecting people to a better quality of life….let’s today renew our commitment to see to it that more and more individuals can tap into the vast potential of opportunity our great nation has to offer."

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