most expensive lift equipment. That means you run that bus free for the next ten. That lift equipment is free for the next ten years if only that one person leaves paratransit.

If you think about paratransit in the abstract, you will find that you have another driver, in addition to the driver who drives the mainline transit, either more self insurance or new insurance problems, maintenance cost, fuel costs, dispatching personnel, routing personnel. It is a very labor-intensive system that does not go down with demand. The more people that use public transportation, the less the cost per ride. The more people that use paratransit, the cost is a relative constant except that the cost of dispatching and routing becomes, perhaps higher, because it is more complicated.

In addition to that, I think that we have the same desires as the gentleman from Reading, Pennsylvania and that this bill addresses his needs and as Congressman Shuster who talked about the elderly wheel chair user. There are no paratransit systems in this country that have enough capacity to provide rides for all disabled people. They just don't. They can't take you where you want to go when you want to go.

So the thing to do is get as many people as possible off of them and into public transportation to provide rides for those who truly need paratransit because, if these healthy Viet Nam veterans that you were describing are clogging paratransit vehicles, the elderly can't go.

In addition to that, these healthy people want to work. And they want to go to work when I do, 8 o'clock, and go home when I door before I do, in fact, most days. And that means that there won't be enough paratransit capacity to say nothing of the time in commuting because of surface transit and things like that.

But people want to travel at 8 o'clock and 5 o'clock, or 9 o'clock and 5 o'clock. And you need to use public transit to do that.

The thing that was unsaid about New York City's settlement-I am the lawyer, by the way, that did the settlement with Philadelphia and New York that brought this stuff about-the thing that was unsaid-there are several things unsaid, in fact, that are important-but one is that even though we settled this law suit in 1985, January 1985, I think New York City's paratransit program is beginning operation this week even though our mayor, who was adamantly opposed to accessible transportation, as was every t.v. and radio station and the MTA, because paratransit was easier to accomplish.

The expensive folly, the nightmare, the impossibility of retrofitting existing rail stations with elevators happened before a single paratransit ride was provided. The reason for that is the nature of paratransit. It is tough to deal with. Who is eligible? There is not a politician worth his salt that wants to look at a frail elderly old man or woman and say to them, "You have the ability to use mass transit; therefore you are not eligible for paratransit. Just because you are afraid to use mass transit is not a good reason to be eligible for paratransit.

So the demand is overwhelming for it. It is a demand-creating mode of transportation. A lot of transit systems leave it to their disabled committee to set eligibility which is a convenient way of avoiding responsibility of saying no to old people.

But this is a real mess. And New York City has this mess, to say nothing of the fact that the bigger the geographic area, the more difficult it is to coordinate paratransit trips. If you are familiar with New York City, you will know that New York City has the North Bronx, which is the furthest, most north, point. It has Eastern Queens, which is probably 30 miles away. You could live next door to a person who works in South Manhattan, on Wall Street, in the North Bronx which is also 30 miles in an opposite direction. You need two vans. You need two hours of travel time. You need two drivers.

The vans last three to five years. The bus lasts twelve years. You have capital vehicle replacement costs. There are all kinds of things that were not discussed.

The other thing that you should know is that there are no magic numbers on rail with key stations. The reason we settled for it will probably be about forty-five stations in the end that get made accessible pursuant to our settlement agreement in New York, and the reason we settled for the number you heard in Philadelphia is that because since 1968, every rail station that is renovated in this country with Federal financial assistance has to be made accessible.

This is not a new concept. It has been violated. But it has been the law. Since 1968, every bus terminal built in the United States with Federal financial assistance has to be accessible and here we are, twenty-one years later, deciding whether or not the buses that pull into them should be accessible because of the Architectural Barriers Act.

We knew, and because in New York and now in Pennsylvania as well, and in many states, local laws require stations to be made accessible as they are renovated, that this is not the end, this 45. Just as stations are renovated, they will be made accessible.

So what we are getting is up-front spending to provide a skeletal network of usable rail stations for disabled people which can be supplemented by accessible bus and paratransit services so that disabled people can go to work. If you look at our system in New York City, you see a system in which 3.5 million people a day ride it-I don't know if Mr. Downey is still here-but not one of them likes it. Not one rider likes it, of the 3.5 million.

The reason they ride it is because they want to go to work as cheaply and quickly as possible. If you go down there on the weekend, you will know that is true because ridership is dramatically reduced and the only people down there are poor people without any alternative to using it.

We knew that in New York City, if disabled people were going to get off benefits and go to work, they were going to need cheap, efficient transportation. The more I have worked around the country with disabled groups, the more I find this to be the identical situation.

In the United States only 16 percent of the people who go to work use transit to go. Most of those people are New Yorkers because 80 percent of us use public transportation to get to work. So we are talking, really, in most cities, about probably 10 percent or less of the people that use public transportation. So, of course, ridership is low.

Ridership is low among the able-bodied. Nine out of ten of your neighbors are taking their car to work. Yet we are subsidizing the heck out of mass transit because we think it is worth it, because we listen to the business community and the transit community tell us it is vital to their economic interest to have transit.

It is no less vital to disabled people. In fact, it is more vital because they do not have, either because of severity of disability or poverty or both, the alternative of private transportation. They can't operate their own car, that is.

In addition to that, I don't have to tell you gentlemen what you have done in the last few years for disabled people. Since 1975, disabled children have been mainstreamed into the public school system. There is a new class of disabled person that is graduating high school now; an educated, trained, employable class of disabled persons who need transportation to get to and from work, who are going to join us as living longer than any generation that ever lived before us, who are not going to depend on government benefits to provide them with subsistence level existences.

The likelihood is that I will have to work well into the my 70's or 80's, if I live long enough, to support myself because the benefit system won't provide me with a decent lifestyle. And I am going to have mobility impairments even if I am healthy.

So we have passed laws to make job sites accessible, and housing accessible. This seems like the link. Years ago, we talked to a group of Broadway theater owners about making their theaters accessible. They said, "Well, if we did it, how would you people get here?" And there was no answer to that. There is now. There was no answer to that then.

Transportation is the answer. It is as vital to disabled people as it is to the public. In fact, there is no distinction. I thought Harold Jenkins' approach was the right approach. It is part of transit. You serve the public. When you look at the transit industry newsletters now, you find that transit is acknowledging special populations for several reasons.

It is losing ridership. The public is disenchanted with it. New York City has no graffiti cars now. There is not a single car with graffiti on it in the system. Yet if you asked most New Yorkers who see it every single day, "Do the cars have graffiti on them?" they would say they are loaded with them because it is perception. That lady's perception from St. Cloud, Minnesota that she can't use the bus, is right. She cannot. But if she lived in Buffalo and her neighbor, who is just as disabled as she was riding it, she would be riding it. This is all perception. Those kids who graduate school are going to expect to ride the bus, and their able-bodied peers who went to school with them since they are five-years old are going to expect them to ride it.

That kid is going to be student-body president. He is not going to expect to stay home when he graduates high school. He is going to be the straight-A student, the superachiever. He is also going to be a moron. It runs the gambit. And they are going to have the identical transportation needs as the rest of the population.

In fact, I have spent time-I am the only one, I think, in the United States, at this point who has reviewed the 504 plans that have been submitted to DOT. I spent some times two weeks ago on

a room surrounded by them. This comparability thing on paratransit we have to address.

First of all, comparability does not mean equal. Comparability has been, essentially, the law since 1982, 1983, when you passed the Surface Transportation Assistance Act Amendments calling for minimum service criteria. The only thing is that DOT copped out, and rather than-they mandated same geographic area, comparable fare, comparable service hours.

But rather than really mandate it, they said, "Spend 3 percent and you don't have to do it." It is not a new concept. And DOT has known for years, and does APTA. I am surprised to hear them saying this today, that comparable doesn't mean equal. They will never have to duplicate the commuter rail system with 100-mile paratransit trips, nor will they have to have 3-minute headways on paratransit if bus systems have 3-minute headways.

They have always argued that it is specialized service, it costs more to provide, as door-to-door and bus service isn't. There should be some leeway. And the disabled community is practical and only wants to ride. It doesn't want to bankrupt the system. So I don't think anyone expects comparable to mean equal.

I thank you for your time.

Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Weisman.

Mr. Hudson.

Mr. HUDSON. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. My name is John Hudson. I am a resident of Montgomery County, Maryland. I am currently employed as a social-work coordinator to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, D.C. I have used Montgomery County paratransit from November, 1985 to the present.

On April 10, 1989, at 6:30 a.m., I was informed that I would no longer be able to use the paratransit bus because my wheel chair could not be secured. Since April 10, I have become acutely aware of the inadequacies, the inaccessibility, and the inability of the paratransit system to meet the needs of the physically disabled in Montgomery County.

I am a person with a physical disability and consider myself handicapped when placed in an environment that I cannot manage, and I am now handicapped.

I would like to review my experience with paratransit. In August of 1987, I relocated in Gaithersburg, Maryland. This was done only after I coordinated my move with the dispatcher of paratransit to make sure that I would be able to get a bus that would be able to take me to the Metro. My home is located within one block of a fixed-route, now.

Here I was picked up at 6:30 a.m., and transported to the Silver Spring Metro for thirteen months. My return trip was to Shady Grove Metro where I was picked up by Barwood taxi, a minivan with a portable ramp, operated by a private company under contract with Montgomery County paratransit. I had the good fortune, immediately, of finding a driver on whom I could depend to show up and to make me aware of his variations in his schedule.

On April 10, 1989, I was faced with an unannounced change. I left the apartment at 6:15 to find no vehicle waiting. At 6:30, when the Office for Paratransit opened, I contacted them and found that

I had been transferred to Barwood Taxi for the morning trip, as well. At this time, I was assured that Barwood was aware of the change.

I contacted Barwood. They had no knowledge of such an arrangement and I was told that they could not accommodate me that morning. I recontacted paratransit. A vehicle was dispatched and I arrived at Shady Grove Metro at 7:00 a.m., forty-five minutes behind schedule. This meant that I missed my bus at Fort Totten, thus making me approximately an hour and forty-five minutes late for work.

In the evening, I was able to make arrangements with a TaxiPlus driver to transport me both ways in the future. This was necessary because my regular dependable driver was no longer available. The rest of the week, I was picked up and dropped off within fifteen minutes; I am told that this was an allowable amount of time.

On April 18, 1989, no Taxi-Plus arrived. I contacted Barwood. The regular driver was unavailable, but I was reassured that a cab was minutes away. They dispatched another cab which arrived forty-five minutes late. That evening, I was required to wait an hour for a taxi, again after being told the cab was minutes away. On April 19, the cab was one hour and forty-five minutes late in the morning. In the evening, it was a thirty-minute wait. On April 20, the taxi was fifty-five minutes late in the morning. On April 21, I was transferred to another taxi company. The driver assured me that he wanted the fare in the morning and the evening and would be reliable.

Between April 24 and April 26, the service deteriorated. I began with a thirty-minute wait and culminated with no service, at all, provided on April 26. On April 26, I was transported by Montgomery County paratransit, since neither Barwood nor Montgomery County taxi had available accessible service.

Throughout this time, I have maintained contact with the Paratransit Office. On April 27, at approximately 4:30 p.m., Montgomery County Paratransit contacted me to report that the transportation for the 28th was questionable. Barwood Taxi contacted me that evening at home, at 7:30, to inform me that I could be transported if I could be ready at 5:30 a.m.

This left me unclear if this meant I would be picked up at 6:00, 7:30, 9:00 and if, in fact, the 5:30 time was accurate, I would have to start getting ready at 4 o'clock to meet the 5:30 time. I refused the offer. I was not transported.

Service was, again, begun with Montgomery County Taxi on May 1. The service was, again, unreliable with no service being provided on the first day. The same was true for May 8 and May 11. Not once from April 10 to April 20 was I secured properly in the taxicab, even though this is why I was transferred, because they had adequate tie-down systems. Yet, this was not done. It seems that the drivers did not receive adequate training and they were unfamiliar with the tie-down systems and would use them only at my insistence.

On or about June 1, 1989, the original, dependable, driver returned and my transportation again stabilized. The scars of this ex