Wheelchair Justice

...The Phantom Station Have you seen those illustrations of futuristic transportation terminals, circa 21 00, with little people standing about in elegant groups amidst landscaped trees and so on...

...Metro is sued with such regularity that they have what appeared to be a complete law library to fend off the suits...

...The handicapped should not have to travel more than 50 feet horizontally from the surface to the train, they say...

...Spacious, too...

...So don’t get me wrong...

...She made an appointment for me to talk to Peter Ciano, one of Metro’s many lawyers, who was handling the Gallery Place case...

...If you have tried calling some of these federal agencies for information, you will know that it is often quicker to walk there: if you don’t know precisely who to call you’re more than likely not going to make headway, and if you do know who to call, there’s a pretty good chance he will be “away from his desk,” or “in conference...

...Eventually I was put in touch with Marilyn McGinty in the “office of community services...

...I went into the office, and there was a man pinning a chart to a wall...

...Practically every time they dig up a sidewalk, someone sues...

...When it’s finished, Metro very likely will have cost $5 billion or more...

...I% one at Metro is willing to go on record with this, but it is true, nevertheless...

...That’s what it feels like down there...

...We figured we could comply,” Ciano told me...

...Judge Jones now has it under submission...

...The train had arrived at the platform with hardly any noise at all, just a hiss of brakes...

...Your money has been well spent...

...There is precious little in the way of identification, either on the buses, or at the bus stops...

...As it happened, the situation at the i Gallery Place station was complicated, 1 because it was, in effect, a double station, with two lines crossing at different levels...

...I am not against handicapped people...

...If he says ready access means equal access, he’s going to close most of the system...

...In this building Metro has 16 lawyers kept busy on these cases, but there are other Metro lawyers in other buildings...

...about half the money, one way or another, came from your pockets, if you happen to live out there in that great misty region of America lying beyond the metropolitan area of Washington...

...Anyway, in June 1973 Judge William B. Jones, who has heard this case all the way through, and is currently the chief judge of the District Court for the District of Columbia-Judge i John Sirica’s successor, in other ’ words-ordered Metro to make a progj ress report on elevator installation, 1 having ruled that the Architectural Barriers Act did apply to the construction of Metro facilities...

...If you have been to Washington you will know that if you find yourself in an unaccustomed part of town you need a good deal of esoteric knowledge to know which bus to get on...

...The stations, when you get to them, are huge-600 feet long (two football fields...

...All right, you can’t be against handicapped people, I realize that, and I’m not against handicapped people...

...It is as though a misplaced attempt has been made to extend to the handicapped the “civil rights” principle, in which the judge could order the majority to halt its discrimination against the minority...

...This time I took the precaution of calling and was told: “You want to talk to one of our writers...

...The Occupational Safety and Health Administration Review Board was just around the corner, two minutes’ walk away, in one of those big mystery office buildings on K Street...

...When you go into the Metro building you are met with tight security because, I was told, they “count the money in the basement...

...The Lawsuits The man to talk to was: Peter Lassen, Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 330 C Street, SW, Room 101 0. That was miles away-too far to walk...

...They say it means equal access...

...We asked the Urban Mass Transit Administration to fund a grant to build inclinators that would fit into the escalator banks, but they refused to fund it...

...After an initial flurry of elevator activity in the first week or so, the figures dropped off rapidly, while the overall subway ridership increased...

...Subsequently, I have made these complaints to a number of friends and acquaintances in the Washington area, ind they all seem to agree that the lack of route identification on the buses is pretty disgraceful...

...hang on a minute, we didn’t stop at that station, Gallery Place by 52 name...

...They occupy a large building in the vicinity of Judiciary Square...

...Gallery Place was closed, I read, because it didn’t have elevators for handicapped people...

...And it’s air-conditionedI mean the whole system, stations as well as trains...

...You did your bit...

...BART is the only other subway system in America that was built in compliance with the Architectural Barriers Act...

...The handicapped have brought up the legal issue of what constitutes ready access,” Ciano went on...

...It was not as though Metro had simply defied the order to put in elevators and pocketed the $65 million...

...This seemed like judicial activism with a vengeance...

...Money has been no object, apparently...

...Nor are there any graffiti...

...I was given a visitor’s badge to wear on my lapel by a girl who did not look up from the magazine she was reading...

...But still...

...In a recent brief filed in District Court (there are three bulging files in the Clerk‘s Office, each about three inches thick, testifying better than anything to the remarkable amount of time devoted to this subject by a variety of lawyers over the past four years), one reads: “Defendant’s Offered Testimony of William McCutcheon shows that in BART, even the one elevator per station installed for the handicapped is deteriorating from non-use...

...I hunted around in the dailies for some column or editorial comment on the “Judge as Emperor,” or some such, but there was no such comment...

...So far there have been no muggings in the Metro...

...This struck me as being an oddly punitive judgment...

...Well, it has proved to be a great success...

...He’s been after us a long while,’’ Mrs...

...This was turning out to be a fully fledged “conference...

...Not long after it opened I went down there to enjoy it myself...

...I was shown into “the library...

...There was some further babble of the “have-a-niceday” variety, and I surfaced in a parking lot, unsure whether I was facing north or south...

...There is a stop within three blocks of the Capitol...

...D. C. Metro officials are keeping tabs on the number of times their own elevators are used, and the figures suggest that the same is likely to be true here...

...And people talk to one another-total strangers, apparent 1 y . The train took off with acceleration of almost alarming proportions, passed underneath what must have been Lafayette Square, or thereabouts, in front of the White House, and stopped at the main stop in down town Washington-our Piccadilly Circus...

...A number of us, I know, would like to see some changes made...

...One feels that the “ambulatory” handicapped are probably doomed in the courts, however, because they are, according to Dr...

...Tom Bethell is an editor of The Washington Monthly...

...We told the judge i that all the stations would have them ’ by the time they were open...

...The next stop was...

...A chummy lunch bunch was returning from the smart eating places in the vicinity of K Street, most of them going back to Capitol Hill...

...Therefore, Metro figured, they would put the elevator into the 7th Street, lower-level platform, because this would involve a minimum of alteration to the plans...

...The question was, then, would the judge go along with this...

...On my way back I decided to take a bus...

...There are no corners in the D. C. Metro...

...A lobby of urban planners obviously demanded satisfaction at some point -and received it...

...Nice...

...but this one is only for preliminary research, apparently...

...The next day I came across an article in a back issue of the newspaper which solved the mystery of the phantom station...

...And if you come to Washington for any reason, you too can ride your subway system...

...Metro became aware of this as a result of the experience of Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco...

...This was during that terrific heat wave in the middle of April, with the temperature in the 90s, and one went down the escalator at Farragut North (conveniently close to the great glass-cube office buildings on K Street filled with people who work in offices-it’s hard to be more specific than that because what they actually do is something of a mystery to us all), and whoosh...

...The upperlevel, G Street line that is now running was designed first, before the 1969 initial groundbreaking...

...In other words, with Gallery Place now closed, the walking handicapped have to get off at the next station, and so they are being unfairly discriminated against, because if the station were open they would be able to use the escalators that are in place...

...They have braille in the elevators, why not signs on the buses...

...This dictum may yet be put to the test at some point in the Metro case, because Metro’s lawyers have taken note of an interesting point made in a deposition by Margaret Kendrick, a doctor at Georgetown University Medical School...

...It seemed to have been accepted as perfectly normal that one of the six subway stations ready to open should have been ordered closed by a judge because there was not sufficient provision for people in wheelchairs...

...Then in 1970, shortly after Metro’s groundbreaking ceremonies, this Act was altered to make it clear that the construction of Metro’s subway stations would be subject to the requirements of the 1968 Act...

...Although testifying on behalf of plaintiffs in the case, that is, the handicapped, she didn’t seem to realize the dangerous legal ground she was getting into when she pointed out that many handicapped people can walk, but “some of them cannot walk a block without precipitating an attack...

...It just isn’t a very suitable means of transportation for them, and in fact the handicapped don’t use it very often...

...Of course, if the station were to be allowed open, there would be a manifest “inequality” between the handicapped and the nonhandicapped until the elevator was in operation, and the judge seems to have determined that the best way to eliminate this inequality is to have, in effect, no station at all...

...The necessary elevator was itself under construction, and would be ready for use when the lower-level line was running...

...I tried to explain to him that I had heard there was some legislation r e cently passed affecting all constmction done with federal money, requiring that buildings be accessible to handicapped people...

...You can hardly get by them in the aisles, apparently...

...There was a soft whispering noise and circular, glass-encased lights winked on and off underfoot (to aid the deaf...

...When you are walking underground and you have to turn to the left or the right, you don’t go round a corner (which someone could be hiding behind), you go around a curve...

...The only problem with these elevators is that they are getting rusty from lack of use...

...Another thing-it’s often hard to get the buses to stop if the driver happens not to be feeling in a stopping mood...

...Actually, law library would have been a better description...

...Then we were joined by a Mrs...

...No one knew anything about it (it wasn’t their bailiwick), but one woman was very helpful and spent a patient ten minutes on the telephone calling a series of numbers, and eventually she triumphantly handed me a piece of paper...

...What made Judge Jones’ decision seem so extreme was the fact that the elevator was, in point of fact, under construction, but was not yet ready, just as elevators were being included in every other station under construction in the Metro system...

...In making this ruling, the judge also seems to have been guided by what may well be the great unwritten legal dictum of our time, to wit: when assessing the competing claims of two groups within a population, rule in favor of the minority...

...It’s the one minority group you or I could join at a moment’s notice...

...But we weren’t given any extra money,” Ciano said...

...I looked them up in the phone book, and straight away I was in luck...

...If it’s more, we’ll be sure to get back to you...

...In short, the legal argument here could boil down to: forget normal people (they are a majority and therefore have recourse elsewhere, they don’t have to turn to the courts), but what about the Gallery Place closure discriminating against another group of handicapped...

...As Margaret Kendrick said, in her inimitable medical style: “A person in a wheelchair should be able to get a further distance with ease and comfort without getting too exhausted in comparison to an ambulator...

...But that is not possible...

...Right after that, less than two months later, Congress gave Metro $65 million extra to put elevators in all Metro stations...

...Judge Jones chose the latter course of action...

...On April 26, for example, one month after the initial portion of the Metro was open, there was a total of three elevator trips, that is, less than one per station per day...

...Go to WMATAthe Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which runs the D. C. bus and subway systems...

...Someone told me that there was something called the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and they might know something about this matter...

...Ciano began by telling me about the law suits affecting Metro...

...Here’s what Ciano told me about the Gallery Place case: In 1968 a law was passed requiring that all buildings constructed in whole or in part with federal funds would have to “insure that physically handicapped persons will have ready access to, and use of, such buildings” (to use the wording of the Act...

...A judge had decided that the station could not open to the general public until it was open for the handicapped, too...

...Ciano came in, and Marilyn McGinty was already there...

...And they were planned at different times...

...Whenever there’s a hearing in the District Court, I was told, quite a sizable wheelchair contingent shows up...

...Besides, I had already decided that the thing to do first was to talk to the Metro people...

...Then if they comply with the suitor’s wishes and try to dig a shaft some. where else, someone else will sue...

...They are the one minority group that inspires not merely sympathy, but fear, guilt, terror and superstition...

...There was a sign on the counter that read: “The Occupants of this Building Participate in Paper Recycling and Energy Conservation Programs.’’ I felt a lot better...

...Payne commented...

...it just flashed by (can it be some special stop, open only to CIA employees, perhaps...

...Having said all this, there is no doubt, as some of the handicapped have already begun to suspect, that Metro is not particularly enthusiastic about people who are in wheelchairs using the subway system...

...But it was a lovely ride, nearly perfect, in fact, except for the strange Gallery Place experience...

...Then, in 1972, Metro was hit by a lawsuit filed by the Washington Urban League, the National Paraplegics Association, and Richard Heddinger, a private citizen who works as a statistician for the Labor Department and is confined to a wheelchair...

...Inside the seats are orange and yellow, made of some plastiefoam substance, and there is not so much as a squirt of spray paint to be seen anywhere...

...They wore brown military-style jackets, peaked caps, Sam Browne belts, walkie-talkies, revolvers, truncheons, and micre phones in their lapels...

...How odd, I thought...

...If he did, it would mean that the upper level of Gallery Place station would open with the first phase of Metro in the spring of 1976, and would be accessible to everyone except those who had to use elevators...

...Closing the station hurts one group, but it does not help the other...

...They are seeking a clarification of the law which, if interpreted in their favor, will very likely mean that even more elevators will have to be added to a number of stations, including Gallery Place...

...I wanted to read more about the topic, but as it was clear that no one was touching it with a ten-foot pole, I realized with a heavy heart that I was going to have to do the necessary Investigative Journalism myself...

...Colleen Payne, a legal assistant...

...Sort of underground Eero Saarinen...

...According to Metro’s latest estimates, this should be sometime in 1978...

...There have been three times as many riders as anticipated...

...The 7th Street line, still under construction, was not designed until 1973, about the time of the judge’s order...

...For the really big casesthe serious legal work-Metro uses the General Accounting Ciffice law library across the street...

...Subway police were patrolling the platform when I got there...

...And if you approach the bus from behind, there is no way of distinguishing one bus from another...

...The walls are designed to be out of reach...

...This is in line with the figures provided by BART...

...If, by not using Gallery Place, I could to the tiniest extent help people in wheelchairs, I would be more than happy to do so...

...It is called “Metro Center...

...and within a few seconds there we were at Judiciary Square, which was laboriously pronounced with all five syllables by a disembodied voice either on the train or in the station...

...It would cost too much to put up identifyihg signs, I have been told...

...as I thought about it over the next few days, I realized that sornething about that judge’s decision bothered me...

...It’s meant for everyone...

...I prefer the Cogitative kind...

...Kendrick, more numerous than those in wheelchairs...

...You feel important just being there...

...there was this nice cool blast of air...

...He comes to all our hearings...

...The elevator would connect to the upper platform, too, but, as a result, handicapped people wouldn’t be able to use Gallery Place until both the upper and lower levels were operating...

...But then, perhaps we are too numerous...

...Taxpayers, we salute you...

...He probably could have gone on all day...

...On the other hand, the judge could decide that such an arrangement discriminated against handicapped people and order the whole station to remain shut down until the elevator was operating...

...Our position is that they have to go further, in some cases...

...it has elevators in every station...

...The seats are comfortable, the ride is smooth...

...But what concerns Metro is that the handicapped, having won the first round, or several rounds, in court, are now pressing for further gains...

...Kendrick drew a distinction be tween handicapped people who can walk and those who can’t...

...I didn’t inquire where...

...But in this case, no one was discriminating against the handicapped-unless perhaps God was...