the total population, an estimated one-third of those who could be classified as transit dependent, Rural areas only have 4 percent of federal transportation assistance, and a similar share of current transit services. So we are really looking here at a transit gap.

We do have, I think, a serious issue, and I will give you an example. I am trying to watch the time and have respect for my cohorts here, but I do want to give you one example.

Recently I dealt with an issue in a rural county in our service area that we currently don't serve. We don't provide any public transportation in that county because the local government wouldn't put up their share of the money, and you cannot get federal and state money without local money. I had a woman from that county come to me, she was really desperate. Her husband was diabetic and was on renal dialysis at the University Hospital, which is in Charlottesville, and she lived about 60 miles away. She wanted me to provide transportation for her husband. She had been able to get him in for his dialysis three days a week. He had one leg amputated, but even with one leg amputated, he could still get in and out of the car. Then he had his second leg amputated: Suddenly the situation changed. Here's a very large man, a very small wife. They live far out in the country, no neighbors nearby, and she cannot get him in and out of the car, much less in and out of his wheelchair. So her doctors told her to call us. We couldn't help her. We cannot provide transportation in their county. They are not eligible for medicaid because they own property.

The result was that these folks had to give up their family home and move into the City of Charlottesville because it was the only way he could get access to medical treatment. So people in rural areas are really hurt by a lack of transportation, and the disabled in rural areas soon become the disabled in urban areas. That's where they go.

While this issue is probably most glaring for local transit services, it is also reflected in intercity service. Goodness knows we have heard enough about that today. Even before bus deregulation rural areas were losing intercity bus service. Since the 1982 legislation that loss has accelerated.

We feel this trend must be ended and reversed. We are working with Greyhound. As a matter of fact it was NASTA-that preceded CTAA-that worked with Mr. Currey to start the Rural Connector Program. My own system is a member of the Rural Connector system. We take people to the Greyhound bus. We have an arrangement with them. I told Mr. Currey this morning that it is an interesting fact that many of the people we transport to the Greyhound bus are disabled people, but they are not people in wheelchairs.

There are many disabled people using Greyhound but there is that one group of people, the people in wheelchairs, who cannot get up into the bus, who do not have this access.

We think that what Mr. Currey is proposing is an important initiative and that Greyhound deserves great credit for taking it. We are concerned that there is currently no accessible transportation outside the city limits.

Another brief story and I will close shortly: A year and a half ago, in January of 1988, we had our inaugural ceremony in Char

lottesville for the Rural Connector program. We had a number of dignitaries there: people from UMTA, the state secretary of transportation, a vice-president from Greyhound. It was a very special ceremony to show the happy marriage between rural public transportation and the intercity bus service. The person who was master of ceremonies for that program was our board vice-president, a man, 28 years old, who is in a wheelchair because of a disease that caused him to have fragile, easily broken bones. It was almost impossible for him to get out of his wheelchair without injury.

He could not move around without injury outside of his wheelchair. He had a specially made motorized chair. The culmination of that ceremony was a ride on a brand new beautiful Greyhound bus. Everyone got to ride but the master of ceremonies. We had to bring a special van from our transit system that rode around behind the bus so that he could be part of the ceremony.

I think that this story is what we are all here about, folks. We would like to be able to see disabled people not always trailing around behind those who are able-bodied, but having their own entree to full accessibility. The problem is how do we do it and how do we afford it?

To summarize, we at CTAA believe enactment of the ADA is an important step toward our own goal of full accessibility and mobility regardless of where you live. Someone mentioned earlier the fact that, as you age you become more disabled. Remember that this is not someone else's problem, because all of us, if we live long enough, are going to begin to see our bodies go. I look at my own mother who is now 77 years old and still driving. A couple of weeks ago I was at a conference with a woman who told me about her mother in her 80's, who lived in a section of rural Iowa where there was no public transportation. I asked her if her mother was still driving and she said yes, illegally. She lost her license but she is out there, can't see, physically unable to get around, but, because she is determined to be independent and to live at home and to have that quality of life that we all want, she is still driving her car in spite of everything. She may end her years in jail, but by golly she will have her independence! We are all concerned about access to mobility, and the resulting quality of life. Thank you for letting me testify.

Mr. MINETA. Thank you very, very much.

Mr. Ray Mundy, Executive Director, Airport Ground Transportation Association.

Mr. MUNDY. Mr. Chairman and Members, I am gaining new respect for the durability of my elected representatives. I come today to make these remarks both as Executive Director of the Airport Ground Transportation Association and a professor of transportation at the University of Tennessee.

I am quite familiar with the users and the providers of transportation. In our association our operator members are people who run vans, people who run sedans, taxi cabs, mini-buses and overthe-road coaches. They run them on fixed routes, fixed schedules, in demand-responsive modes and mixed modes in many cases.

The predominant mode at the airport is demand-responsive from the airport and predominately fixed-route schedule from hotels to the airport. Does that make these services demand-responsive,

fixed route services? It seems to me it is somewhat vague. The bill as presently constructed would severely impact the services we provide. A bullet to Greyhound would be a death blow to our fixed route operators. In many cases there are only three or four vans operating this kind of service.

For them to be responsible for putting a lift on each piece of equipment would be economically absurd. They could not afford the cost. It is not a matter of whether the cost is $5,000 per lift or $10,000 per lift, the cost would be prohibitive at any range to them. As has been stated by the bus representatives, it would be extremely difficult to equip a 47-passenger bus with a wheelchair lift and to provide enough aisle space to be able to make it back to a restroom facility.

You would have to take out at least 10 seats along the aisle in order to run a wheelchair down the aisle, or you could possibly make a 19 inch wheelchair, technically infeasible for people presently in wheelchairs. That is not to say we are not sympathetic to the plight of disabled or to their desires to be independent and free. Most operators do provide access when asked. They are simply not asked a great deal. We tried to poll our membership and we got estimates like one rider in 25,000 trips or one in 100,000 trips. Drivers try to lift the individual, and to stow the wheelchair in the bus bay. As a matter of fact, providers are probably doing this in violation of the federal highway regulations which prohibit the transportation of acid batteries in over-the-road vehicles. They are doing this, though, because they are compassionate and trying to met the needs of the disabled.

There are some technical problems with the bill as we see it. When I say technical problems, I am not a lawyer but I do teach transportation law. I have been told by judges that I am not a lawyer and should not offer legal opinions. I am not certain therefore, what constitutes an automobile type body.

That is not defined. I teach transportation but we have no definition of what an over-the-road coach is nor what a demand responsive coach is. I don't recall any other piece of legislation where these terms have been defined. As to our operators in mini-bus service; are those over-the-road or demand responsive?

Thirty days after the act operators will all call themselves overthe-road coaches. Many that offer a schedule for downtown will probably offer more hotel schedules on a demand responsive basis so they can call themselves a demand responsive system and not be required to put a wheelchair lift on every vehicle.

Many of the points in our testimony have been touched upon. Many of our operators tell me they would be more compassionate and willing to provide service to the disabled and handicapped if their insurance permitted them to do so. Many are convinced by their insurance agencies that they are not covered when they try to assist anyone out of a wheelchair, so they are hesitant to provide that service.

The example was given earlier in testimony about some of our operators. Super Shuttle in California, for example, is a member. It does have wheelchair lift vehicles in its fleet. Out of about 200 vehicles it has four wheel chair equipped vans.

As that service is expanding, it would be ridiculous to require the fixed route operator serving the same community to put wheelchair lifts on their vehicles when their ridership is expected to be nil.

The alternative is the demand responsive van type operations and the fixed route carrier has a difficult time competing with that transportation.

Specifically, I think we would like to ask that the committee take three actions. One, we would like to ask that Section 304 of this bill be stricken until such time that the three-year study of private operator impacts is completed and the resulting recommendations are made known to Congress.

We would like to ask that consideration be given to other methods of wheelchair accessibility, i.e. ramps and others be studied as acceptable alternatives. As we read this bill we do not get that sort of understanding that other accessibility methods as such, are acceptable in place of wheelchair lifts. We would also like to suggest that other countries and their airports be studied to determine how they meet the needs of the disabled and maintain financial viability of their fixed route carriers.

In our remarks we gave an example of one carrier, Pearson International Airport in Toronto where they decided to take action to serve the handicapped. They allowed the next five permits for vehicles and limos only on the condition that they be wheelchair accessible. They are Chrysler mini-vans with a low floor. They have a ramp that comes out and they are easily accessible. Five vehicles are serving all the demands this major North American airport has for wheelchair accessibility.

There is a great demand for taxi cab and limo service at that airport. The entry is restricted. If one can get licensed at Pearson, then agreeing to have the vehicle equipped with the wheelchair device is very acceptable.

At no cost to the government, they are placed in service. These vehicles are called to go to the head of the line whenever a person in a wheelchair wants this service. People enjoy them because they are a more luxurious vehicle. They have solved the problem of wheelchair accessibility at that one airport. I use that example only to point out there are many ways to solve the accessibility problem, the real essence of the act, if you will, other than equipping every vehicle with a wheelchair lift. That provision of the bill would be extremely harsh.

It is discriminatory toward the fixed route industry and a lot of the service being provided by fixed route in rural areas would cease to exist. I don't know whether it would be 5,000 communities as Mr. Currey said, but it would be a large number. We in the airport ground transportation industry have empathy for the disabled. We are not disinterested in seeing that they are provided with equal access and service. It is a matter of who pays for it.

You cannot ask the isolated or present users to provide for the additional significant cost to provide this service. Comparing private and public transit and the financing of the two is like comparing apples and oranges. Public transit has provided access with public funds and society in general has supported that.

We are private operators. If you want these systems in fixed route service to have wheelchair accessibility, then you will have to provide some sort of fixed authorization bill in addition in order to pay for it. Otherwise, our operators simply cannot financially afford it and will cease to provide service.

Thank you.

Mr. MINETA. Thank you.

Mr. LaGasse.

Mr. LAGASSE. I am Alfred LaGasse, Executive Vice-President of the International Taxicab Association. With me are Rudy Bruhns and Robert Werth.

The International Taxicab Association represents the owners and managers of taxicab, limousine, livery, van and minibus fleets. Our 696 member companies operate approximately 40,000 for-hire, demand-responsive vehicles.

In the United States, the private, for-hire vehicle fleet industry consists of over 6,300 companies, operating over 205,000 vehicles, providing over 355,000 jobs, transporting over 2 billion passengers and grossing approximately $6 billion annually.

No sector of public transportation is more experienced, more dedicated, or provides more mobility for disabled persons than does the demand-responsive, for-hire vehicle industry. With non-modified standard equipment, the 170,800 taxicabs and 16,600 limousines and liveries in the United States have long met the local public transportation needs of people with disabilities. Our industry also operates 10,900 vans, approximately 40 percent of which are equipped with lifts to serve passengers who use wheelchairs. The remaining 6,700 vehicles that are operated by our industry include minibuses, school buses, motor coaches, ambulances and supervisory vehicles.

A key indication of the for-hire vehicle industry's commitment and ability to transport people with disabilities is the degree to which public and private organizations contract with our industry for transportation service. Över 65 percent of all our industry's companies contract to provide transportation service to public and private organizations. Forty-six percent of all our companies contract to transport company employees, 45 percent contract to transport hospital and convalescent home patients, many of whom are disabled. Forty-four percent contract to transport senior citizens, a large proportion of whom are disabled. Forty-four percent contract to transport school children, particularly special education children who are disabled, and 44 percent contract specifically to provide transportation for those who have disabilities.

We are here to applaud H.R. 2273. However, we do see a few problems and a need for clarification.

The Senate and House bills were identical when introduced and remain generally similar. However, there are important distinctions between the two bills which we would like to bring to your attention.

First of all, the bills treat three types of transportation providers and we would like to review each one separately. Under public sector providers, all fixed route vehicles must be fully accessible, paratransit services must supplement fixed route service and general public demand-responsive service has an exception from the