Better bus service for all Detroiters!

After a hot summer, and with winter coming soon, people with disabilities are organizing to improve public transportation. They are taking a step that will help all Detroiters — especially the majority who rely on the Detroit Department of Transportation bus system. Their message is plain: “We deserve better service and refuse to sit back and allow this current broken system to continue without speaking out.”

Warriors on Wheels picketed the DDOT headquarters on Aug. 31, supported by members of Transportation Riders United, the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and Workers World Party. They chanted, “DDOT do the right thing!” and “We’re here to fight! No more waiting all night!”

Two big issues are the long waits at bus stops and stranded para-transit riders. People with disabilities who are medically certified to use para-transit are being denied authorization by DDOT. Federal law requires para-transit so people with disabilities will have equal access to public transportation.

Founder and spokesperson for Warriors on Wheels, Lisa Franklin, herself a wheelchair user, says, “For more than two years we — City of Detroit residents — have allowed the administration to use us as guinea pigs as they experimented with a ‘new’ para-transit program that we once knew as Metro-Lift. We gave them the chance to ‘show us how it worked.’”

On Sept. 29 at the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building, WOW will demand that the city establish an Office of Disability Concerns to correct and prevent violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. An effort to insert language for the office in a proposed City Charter revision was rebuffed last week. For more information about WOW’s monthly meetings or to volunteer, contact [email protected] or call 313-759-7247.

— Report and photo by Cheryl LaBash