ADA Transportation Advocates: ACTION NEEDED NOW

Can you call into the public meeting and offer testimony?  Must be specifically tailored to the two subjects below.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is proposing important positive changes to its ADA regulation that are being very strongly resisted by most public transportation providers.  Disability advocates’ support of the DOT proposals is crucial to the outcome.

• DOT proposes to require all publicly funded transit providers to make reasonable modifications of policies, practices, and procedures in order to avoid discrimination
• DOT proposes to require all new Amtrak and commuter rail stations to provide full platform access
  

Particularly needed are personal experiences (in person in DC, or by phone) on two subjects:

1. Riders of public transit (including buses, trains, and ADA paratransit) who have needed minor modifications of policies, practices, or procedures that transit agency would not provide. For example, someone with diabetes who must eat at a certain hour rode the subway but was disallowed from eating due to a general no-eating policy; someone who must use a specific seat on a vehicle for a disability-related reason; someone who needed a bus to reposition slightly in order to board, due to construction barrier or snowdrift, for a disability-related reason; etc.

2. Wheelchair users wanting to ride Amtrak who had problems boarding or disembarking, due to Amtrak's reliance on a portable lift, rather than being able to board the train directly from a high-level boarding platform.

Also greatly needed are advocates who wish to speak at the public meeting (in person or by phone) on the importance of these issues to the disability community.  Learn more about them from DREDF's docket comments at the link below.  Feel free to use any of these arguments, or others of your own. There is no need to mention or cite DREDF:

http://dredf.org/transportation/draftcoments6_06.html

IF YOU WILL SPEAK AT DOT PUBLIC MEETING:

Call in advance to DOT's Office of the Assistant General Counsel for Regulation and Enforcement at 202-366-4723, or e-mail laura.reeves@dot.gov

You may also submit written comments (include "Office of the Secretary, DOT" and the Docket ID Number OST-2006-23985) by any of the following methods:

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov and follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
  
• Mail: Docket Management Facility
        U.S. Department of Transportation
        1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE.,
        West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140
        Washington, DC 20590-0001
  
• Fax: 202-493-2251

(DOT also is re-opening its rulemaking docket from Aug. 19 - 25, 2010)

See DOT's announcement of the public meeting and docket re-opening at:

HTML
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/2010-19673.htm

PDF
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-19673.pdf

Source available here.