Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, our operators today offer the most accessible, most available, most affordable means of public transportation in America. And, unlike our competitors, we do so virtually without assistance from this or any government. We survive because our members are good businessmen and women who are willing to accept a very narrow margin of profit to continue in business as independent, tax-paying enterprises.

Despite the narrow margin of profit and the near-total lack of governmental funding. the estimated 46-million handicapped persons addressed in the preamble of this legislation already find that our owners and operators are among the most accommodating businesses in the Nation. With very few exceptions, private bus owners are prepared to transport handicapped persons in the same manner and level of service afforded fully-capable passengers. In many cases, handicapped persons are offered discount or totally free passage; in others, attendants travel at reduced fares or completely cost-free. Guide dogs have long been welcomed aboard our vehicles. Wheelchair-using passengers who are brought aboard by attendants are easily accommodated.

It is only the occasional wheelchair-bound passenger, who may even remotely perceive that he or she is denied "ready accessibility" to the services offered by UBOA members. It is also this final category of potential rider whom, we believe, is being excessively accommodated by this bill's most serious degree of "legislative overkill," the apparent requirement that every new or re-manufactured bus sold in this country be equipped as "fully wheelchair accessible."

Allow me to address four important aspects of the bill's intended requirements: cost, safety, practicality and finally, alternatives.

First, however, it's critical that the goal of this Committee be carefully defined. Legislative language and perceived intent have a great deal to do with the way any legislation is enforced. If the transcript of these hearings is to be used as a guide for future enforcement, our perception of the intent is that all persons must have equal opportunity to board, move about within and use the available facilities of every passenger vehicle on the road.

If that is the case, every motor coach used by UBOA members must, at a minimum, be wheelchair lift equipped; it must have aisles and restrooms which are wide enough to accept

wheelchairs; it must allow enough seating space to secure a wheelchair.

I'd like first to address the question of the cost of these changes to the private bus industry in America. For the moment, I'll limit my comments to equipment purchase costs.

The average private line motor coach sold in the United States today is $200,000. It carries 47 passengers; it is 40-feet long and 102" wide. It's aisles are 14" wide and the floor of the passenger deck is approximately four to five feet off the ground, riding atop a luggage and storage compartment with a capacity of some 330 cubic feet. It's useable life, depending on the service requirements, is 8 to 12 years.

The addition of a wheelchair lift and coach design changes to aisle, restroom and seating, will cost each new coach buyer an estimated $15-$35,000 -- depending on a variety of elements -- at the outset of this bill's life. I admit that the exact cost is in dispute, as are the durability of technologies involved. But because of vague language, frankly today's operator cannot be certain of the extent of changes which this bill mandates.

Lifts on intercity buses will need to reach the lofty second deck safely and to be fitted into a coach which is far more complex in its engineering than the everyday transit bus. While cost would be expected to drop over a period of time, reflecting the economies of volume as the luxury coach business adopts these standards, the lift will never be as inexpensive as its transit bus counterpart. By the same token, the mechanical reliability of lifts will, hopefully, improve dramatically in the future, reflecting technological advances which naturally follow a high-demand product.

I'll come back to cost, but for now let's assume that every bus buyer in the Nation is prepared to pay the additional 10 to 15-percent front-end cost for the equipment. Let's move on to the question of safety.

Lifting a passenger 18-inches from ground to the deck of a transit bus or a step-van is a comparatively risk-free activity. Equipment need not be intricately designed, nor employees highly-trained to affect the loading of a passenger. Such is not the case with a four to five foot lift onto the second deck of a luxury coach. No doubt, insurance liability costs will mirror the increased risk from injury in falls caused by potential equipment failure or poorly-trained staff. But if we were to assume the optimum -- 100-percent equipment reliability and 100-percent reliable employees -- what's to be said about safety on once the passenger is on board.

Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation hazardous cargo regulations prohibit the stowing of battery-equipped wheelchairs in bus luggage compartments. Will the DOT lock more favorably to the transport of these explosive-potential batteries in the passenger compartment? Or should DOT simply drop it's prohibition? Technology is, at the moment, targeted on creation of a safe battery which may be stowed and transported, but if this legislation is approved quickly, will only non-electric wheelchairs be permitted? Will the wheelchair occupant be required to bring along his or her own seat belt? Will there be a standard implemented to see that all chairs are secured properly during transport?

UBOA interprets this legislation as prohibiting any rules for wheelchair bound passengers which it would not apply to fully-mobile passengers. As such, wheelchairs must be allowed to traverse aisles during a journey, certainly at least to the restroom. We suggest, however, that an unsecured wheelchair not to mention its occupant would become a lethal missile in an emergency situation. Even if it remained on the deck, it represents a barricade to paths of escape, a violation of federal safety regulations.

I remind the Committee that the tragic crash of an out-of-service school bus being operated by a church cost 27 lives in Carrollton, Kentucky, just last year. In large part, those who died were not victims of the trauma of the crash, they died because they could not escape the burning bus. Federal investigators found that items as insignificant as picnic baskets and coolers in the aisle cost the lives of some of those who might otherwise have escaped. A picnic basket is far less impeding than a wheelchair.

If we assume that there is a way to ensure that the wheelchair passenger is properly secured at the time of a vehicular accident, we cannot assume that the paralyzed occupant is capable of negotiating his or her way to a proper exit. Elevators in buildings -- where all other elements are stable all carry warnings that they are not to be used in times of emergency conditions. Will we expect a higher standard of mobile elevators? Or will each bus be designed with some form of ejection device for the occupant of a pre-designated seat or wheelchair pad? If so, how many devices or directions need be considered?

From a safety and emergency escape standpoint, the on-board wheelchair can be a nightmare within a nightmare. This Committee must share the responsibility, with buyers and with manufacturers, of deciding on a reasonable and acceptable method and level of safety for the wheelchair-bound passenger.

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From a third perspective, I urge this Committee to look at the practicality of its demand that 100-percent of the American fleets of intercity and privately-owned buses be equipped to accommodate three-tenths of one percent of the population. In a survey of UBOA members, annual requests for lift-equipped buses – in those cases where any request was made at all -- averaged two. One member in the busy San Francisco area noted that, over 11 years of business, he had yet to receive one request. In virtually every instance, operators noted that alternative sources of transportation for the wheelchair-bound passenger are abundantly available through existing community services. Virtually all

responses indicated that this legislation -- if approved as is -- would force them to close the door to their business.

Which brings me back to a point which I already understand this Committee does not want to discuss: the cost of this measure, in realistic, boilerplate terms. Or, maybe I should say it brings me back to a discussion of "value: cost versus returns."

Compassion is a wonderful thing. Without compassion for one's fellow human beings, without altruistic motivation, America could not ever have become the power it is today. Without charity and a belief in the "rightness" of what we are doing, little would ever be done. And, while I applaud the "rightness" of the goal of the ADA, I suggest that the brilliance of compassion has handicapped this legislation.

What this Committee decides to do with federal money is, technically, its business, though it is our members who pay the taxes which pay for your decisions. If it is the desire of this Committee to require its federally-support transit fleets to be fully lift-equipped, and if you're ready to pay the cost of that, we urge that you follow your conscience. You and your constituents will, ultimately, decide whether or not your vote to disburse billions of tax dollars was a sound decision. I suggest that the soundness of federal policy might be questionable when -- in the same year -- federal sources would require spending $20-50,000 to accommodate one potential passenger in 300.

But what you do with our money and our business is another matter. Earlier, I skipped past initial vehicle modifications so that we could look at the many other aspects of this bill's requirements. Now I want to return to it.

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U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, U.S. population in 1980: 226.000.000+; wheelchair-using population, approximately 720,000 persons.

If we still assume that the UBOA member who buys a new bus can, indeed, afford to spend an extra money to purchase the vehicle, it's highly doubtful that he or she will ever be able to afford o keep that bus on the road.

From the current 47-passenger configuration, lift installation and creation of a tie-down area for the chair will cost at least four seats. Now we're down to 43. Expanding the size and access of the restroom, will cost another two seats at a minimum. Now we're down to 41. Aisle widening will force reconfiguration of the current four-across seating to three across; mark out another 9 to 11 seats. Now we're down to 32 passengers, at best, in a business where 47-seats have served as the norm.

Depending on the technology used, the same is true of the capacity in the luggage compartment where valuable package express services help underwrite the cost to passengers.

Remember that we're prohibited from expanding the size of the bus; state and federal size restrictions determine the maximum exterior dimensions of that vehicle. Unless the Federal government widens roads or mandates smaller people, we're pretty well stuck with what we've got.

This bill, then, costs a minimum of a 30-percent loss of passenger and package carrying capacity, on top of the increased cost of the vehicle. No carrier from UBOA's largest member to its smallest will be able to absorb that cost without passing it directly on to the

customer.

And who is the passenger who'll be expected to pay this cost?

In large part, the bus passenger today is: a) someone who cannot or chooses not to afford a personal automobile; b) senior citizens on fixed incomes; c) low-income families; d) students; e) virtually anyone who wishes to take public transportation to or from an American community which is not served by an airline or rail terminus. There are, by the way, plenty of those latter communities. Regularly scheduled air carriers reach fewer than 500 communities; AMTRAK about the same. Regularly scheduled. bus service today

touches about 10.000 communities.

These are not customers with a choice of transportation modes. These are not customers with deep pockets who travel by bus so they can spend more at the Atlantic City gaming tables. These are people with only one avenue to the foundational American