Appointment to the transportation disabled committeee, developing paratransit service and making mass transit accessible,
the issue of securement on the buses
McQuade
How I came to work for New York City Transit, that's another experience in my life that if somebody said to me, "You will
end up working for New York City Transit," I would have said, "You're insane. I will walk before I'll be working for New York
City Transit."
Jacobson
I was very surprised when I found out.
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McQuade
Right. You were not any more surprised than I was. We spent so many years really in opposition to the transit authority and
to the mayor a lot of the time, during Mayor Koch's time, over this whole issue of an accessible system. Before ADA, and before
I left the center, when the lawsuit that EPVA brought, which was combined with DIA's lawsuit, won, under the state law, the
state building code, there was an agreement worked out to create a small paratransit service, to make sixty-five percent of
the buses accessible, purchase new vehicles and all of that, and to spend forty million on subway access. An advisory group
was formed. It was called "The Transportation Disabled Committee." Myself, Terry Moakley, were asked to be members of the
committee. The way that was structured, the state got to appoint certain people with the agreement of the mayor, and the mayor
got to appoint certain people with the agreement of the state. Then there were ad hoc members like from the Department for
the Aging, both state and city, the Department of Transportation, state and city. I forget who else.
When this committee was formed, and the director for Mayor's Office of People with Disabilities was on that committee, that
was Carol Roberson, she was very good. There were a few people who would not have been my choice to be on the committee, but
we basically had a very good working group. I don't know if you knew Julia Schecter. She died about a year ago or so ago,
maybe two years now. She was with the state advocate's office. She was very good. She was ex officio. We had a really good
group of people. We had to develop a paratransit service, a plan for a paratransit service, oversee the buses becoming accessible,
oversee the subways, choose the subway stations out of a list.
Jim Weissman always says, "It was late at night and everybody threw in a station in their district." It wasn't necessarily
that this is the best station to do. We worked on that; that plan was finished for the paratransit in 1990. The funding was
basically out of a mortage filing tax, so there was very little money to go into paratransit. I think you had twelve million
dollars for a year to service New York City. [laughter] It was very interesting, very fulfiling, very exciting times. I found
it very fulfilling to work on that.
So, at any rate, and then work on ADA--
Jacobson
By the way, do you have any estimate as to how many disabled people there are in New York City?
McQuade
The old census, the one previous to this, the 1990, I think using their percentage, it went anywhere from sixteen million
to seventeen million in the country. We had about one million in the city, and something like two million in the state. The
new census, I don't know. I would doubt that that number went down because of the aging population. These may be individuals
who don't identify themselves as disabled, but rather elderly, but in point of fact, I would say those numbers went up.
Jacobson
I was just curious. Go on.
McQuade
With systems advocacy issues, we [BCID] were very big on the transportation. We worked on national health, whatever the bill
was at the time for national health. We were supportive of access to polling places in our city or state and all of that.
Different people sometimes took the lead and then you followed. You did what was necessary; you went to hearings and all of
that. We supported, as I said, the Fair Housing Act of
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1988, I think it was. What was the other one? Fair Housing Act, Air Carrier Access Act, and all of that. My years on the NCIL
board were very fulfulling, very challenging, because there was so much work; there really was. It was great to meet people
from other parts of the country, kind of share what everybody was doing. Some places were more sucessful than others, obviously.
June Isaacs Kailes?
Jacobson
June Isaacson Kailes.
McQuade
When she worked at the Los Angeles center she just had a fabulous ability to raise funds and everything. We met very good
people. Gil got involved in NCIL also. Marca Bristo, I got to know Marca. There were a lot of different people.
Jacobson
Do you know Max?
McQuade
Yes, Max Starkloff.
I was in St. Louis to do a presentation on safe securement of wheelchairs and scooters on buses and paratransit with my immediate
supervisor, and we had the pleasure of riding on the accessible train from the airport to the Union Station hotel. It was
great. It was very inexpensive. I carried one bag. My supervisor, when we were going back, we had one more thing, and she
carried it until I jumped on the train and got off. I have to say they were some of the friendliest people, the St. Louis
residents. They were very friendly on the subways and everything.
We went to the St. Louis zoo. The access there is very good. The hills are a little--it's hilly--pushing yourself, there's
spots where you need some help, but someplaces where you can just go along. On that little accessible train. If it gets past
all of our editors. I do the newsletter for paratransit and ADA stuff, so we took some pictures of showing how I was secured
and the train, and I got the names of the people, so we're going to try to get that article published in our next newsletter.
But what I was saying is that the buses, there, the disabled community wants to be secured. They weren't good at securing.
I spent a lot of time on securement on the major buses and our fixed route buses and our paratransit. It's an issue all over
the place. We had probably approximately thirty people in our workshop, which is a good number of people. We brought the videos
that we did, we made with some of our customers, how to be secured on the fixed route bus, how to be secured on paratransit.
We brought those and we were talking about that whole issue. And it is an issue. People, the drivers--in different places,
the disabled community wants different things. The issue of being secured for me, you need to be secured.
I've been on the bus where somebody pulled out--this was just a year ago--and I sprained my foot, because my chair was secured,
but you don't have to wear the seatbelt shoulder harness on the fixed route bus. You can choose to or not; that's in the ADA
regs. I didn't have it on, and the bus driver had to jam on the brakes. My cushion slid, I slid, and what I did, my foot was
down here, and it pushed my foot all the way up. I knew it was sprained. They offered to take me to the hospital, but what
are they going to do?
Jacobson
What are they going to do?
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McQuade
It's sprained. I've had sprains before, there's nothing that a doctor can do except tell you what to do and you follow the
instructions and eventually the sprain heals. Sitting around with ice bags on my ankle at work is what I did.
At any rate, it's important, because also we have new buses that are front loaders, and there's some difficulty with that
for some people's chairs. We're having a new thing in our city. We wanted to come on the front of the bus when we were first
advocating. The front loaders, they were Grumman, there was a problem with their design and they didn't work well. So, we
have what we call "rear loaders." They're at the side door.