AWARDS (Continued)

Inclusion in the third edition of Notable Americans -May of 1981.

The

recipient of the Rose and Jay Phillips Courage Center Avard, for achievement in employment and community involvement, in October of 1981.

Service to Mankind Avard,
January of 1984.

presented by Sertoma of St. Cloud, in

One of eleven individuals to receive the Eleven Who Care Avard, from KARE Television, on April 10, 1984.

Recipient of the Sister Alice Lamb Alumni Avard, from the College of St. Scholastica, in October of 1986.

Mr. MINETA. I would now like to call forward a panel representing the American Public Transit Association; Mort Downey, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York accompanied by Janis V. Pierce, Board Member, Memphis Area Transit Authority, Dennis Louwerse, Executive Director, Berks Area Reading Transportation Authority.

TESTIMONY OF MORTIMER DOWNEY, CHAIRMAN, APTA LEGISLATIVE SUBCOMMITTEE, FEDERAL POLICY AND PROCEDURE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, NEW YORK, NY, ACCOMPANIED BY JANIS PIERCE, APTA VICE PRESIDENT, GOVERNING BOARDS, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, MEMPHIS AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY, AND DENNIS LOUWERSE, MEMBER, APTA LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE, APTA ELDERLY AND DISABLED SERVICES TASK FORCE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BERKS AREA READING TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY

Mr. DOWNEY. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee. As you indicated, my name is Mort Downey from New York. I will be providing APTA's testimony. I am accompanied by Janis Pierce from the Memphis Area Transit Authority and Dennis Louwerse from Berks Area Reading Transportation Authority, Reading, Pennsylvania,

Mr. Robinson is stuck in Michigan due to the flight conditions today. He could not get out of Grand Rapids.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask your permission to put our full statement in the record and merely summarize so that we can get on to your questions.

Mr. MINETA. I do not object.

Mr. DOWNEY. The transit industry which APTA represents, we believe, has achieved substantial progress in meeting and serving the needs of persons with disabilities and the elderly. Even as federal funding for transit has declined in recent years, the proportion of lift-equipped buses in the national fleet has grown from 11 percent in 1981 to more than 30 percent in 1987.

Individual systems are providing service to persons with disabilities through either the use of lift-equipped buses or supplementary paratransit, or a combination of both. New fully-accessible rail systems are now operating in many cities and accessibility improvements are being made to older rail systems as they are being modernized.

In our own system in New York City, the MTA and representatives of the disabled community reached agreement embodies in the state legislation designating a number of the stations within our system as key stations. These are being made fully accessible in conjunction with our station modernization program over a period of years.

The provision of bus lifts for our bus fleet and a city-sponsored paratransit system was also made part of this plan. Within each community, transit has worked with disability groups to meet the transportation needs of the disabled as best they can be met. Obviously, some systems have done a better job than others. Some have

done it one way, some have done it another. Some have done it with less money.

It is clear that if everyone felt the needs of the disabled had been met, this legislative initiative might not be necessary. But we believe it is, and we pledge, today, to do everything possible to successfully implement the ADA when it is enacted into law.

The transit industry wants the business of disabled persons. We sincerely hope we can work with and enlist the support of persons with disabilities. But we must remember we are in the business of providing mobility to the entire community and we do not want to reduce service in other areas in order to fully fulfill our responsibility to this group of users.

We, thus solicit your support in helping us to implement this historic legislation. As the authorizing committee for public transportation, we ask that you recognize the cost to transit of this bill as you have recognized other costs in the past.

It is difficult to determine what those precise costs will be. But I think everyone would agree the measure will result in additional costs for most transit systems and that these costs could be substantial in all aspects; in the provision of lifts, in the cost of paratransit and in the cost of station access.

Without getting into the specifics of these costs which are covered, at least in general terms in our statement, and there are a range of costs in various cities, let me just comment on a few areas of particular concern.

In terms of the Act's requirement that systems provide comparable paratransit as supplement to fixed-route service, many small systems such as St. Cloud that we heard from just recently who stretched their minimal resources to provide the general use service through time transfers or a pulse system functioning around a common hub have real problems, since they operate with virtually no money to spare, requiring them to supplement their bare-bones service with fully-comparable paratransit could inevitable, or would inevitably, lead to elimination or reduction of some other service.

We would, therefore, request that the committee consider more specific criteria for consideration of exemption from the comparable paratransit requirement than just the "undue financial burden" exemption currently included in the bill. I might note from looking at other testimony that will be given this afternoon, this is a concern for large systems as well as small.

We must also note our concerns regarding the safety of transporting individuals in wheel chairs and the responsibility our transit operators will have for their safety while riding on the bus or rail vehicle. Mr. Robinson would have covered this in more detail in his statement, and we would like to provide that at a later time to the committee.

Currently, persons in wheel chairs cannot meet the governing NHTSA standard for safety unless they are fully strapped in with a three-point harness which could well create both operational and other problems.

The Easter Seal Society is now conducting a demonstration program which you heard of earlier which Congress funded and APTA has vigorously supported. This study, among other issues it ad

dresses, is intended to deal with means by which persons in wheel chairs can be transported safely and with dignity on mass transit vehicles.

We would ask that the ultimate legislation address these concerns including appropriate provisions for standardization and compatibility in securement of wheel chairs.

Finally, we ask that you, as members of the authorizing committee, and the people with disabilities recognize there will be costs, there will be a great deal of work, there will be obstacles involved in successfully implementing the act, and in serving, over time, the needs of the disabled at the same time we serve the needs of the rest of the population.

Thus, we request your continued and, we hope, your expanded commitment to the availability of mass transit for all of our nation's citizens. As we expand our mission to better serve the needs of disabled citizens, we should not reduce our commitment to others.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, we thank you for your attention to the statement and we would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Mr. Chairman, Ms. Pierce, who is with me, may have a time problem with respect to a flight and I would ask if she might say a few words before we get into questions, in case she has to leave.

Mr. MINETA. Surely. Please, Ms. Pierce, feel free to proceed.

Ms. PIERCE. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I have been asked to outline the Memphis system and the effect that the Americans With Disabilities Act would have on our system. I have been a member of the Board for approximately eight years now. We have an extensive paratransit system.

One of the most difficult things that we have done in our deliberations on the Board has been to decide how best to allocate rather meager funds. This committee is probably more aware than most of the constant struggle that our public transit providers have with funding. Memphis is not unique. We are a metropolitan area of approximately a million. We are rapidly approaching a million. Federal funding has, essentially, been frozen since 1981 with a resulting 50 percent reduction in purchasing power. Each year, we go head in hand to the federal, state and local government for funding. The federal funds have been cut. The state funds have increased, and local funds have, in fact, pretty much kept up with inflationary costs.

We do not have a dedicated source of funds. We do not have any means of levying a tax, instituting bonds or even borrowing money independently. Our state, constitutionally, cannot levy an income tax. Consequently, those tax funds that are those funds that would be necessary in order to implement this would come from the regressive taxes which would, in fact, hit those people who are our transit-dependent riders most heavily, from gasoline tax which, I think is already the highest in the nation. We have a 7.75 percent sales tax and user fees. All of these are very regressive.

At our current budget level, as, I think, everybody here has said, it is very difficult to estimate exactly what impact the ADA would have on systems, but we have, in fact, made a projection and a conervative, very conservative, estimate that takes in only the operat