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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 in the same year questionable when federal sources would require spending $20-50,000

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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.

2 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?

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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

promise of affordable and available travel.

Today's bus operator lives on a very narrow ledge, whittled back even farther by the grossly unbalanced federal transportation subsidy policies of the last generation. Since 1965, the pre-tax net income of the intercity bus industry has fallen to one-eighth of its level at that time. That drop seems to correspond near identically with the spending of some $90.5 billion in federal assistance since 1960. During that time, while Congress subsidized each AMTRAK passenger with $33.45 per ticket, intercity bus passengers received eight-cents each.s

The intercity bus is a low-margin, peak-period business. The charter bus business is little different. Customers turn to the bus to save money; it's a fact of life. When that single and slim marketing edge is lost, so too is any reason to stay in that business.

Leaving us at the bottom line: most of our members will be forced out of this business. The added cost of vehicles will force many out right away. The added cost of operating will force out many more. Those who are left, if any, will be left to charge airline prices for intercity travel prices which thousands of Americans already find intolerable.

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The decreasing passenger levels will, of course, contribute to a downward spiral of service and an upward and corresponding spiral in prices.

Should this legislation pass as it is now written, UBOA predicts that a decade from today the private bus operator will be as scarce as the private rail passenger line in this Nation.

Congress will, indeed, have torn down the discriminatory barriers between the handicapped and able-bodied traveler in America: neither will be able to afford or to find intercity bus service. Able-bodied and handicapped will, together with elderly, low-income and every rural resident without private transportation, become a Nation of shut-ins.

To the age-old question, "How ya' gonna' keep 'em down on the farm?" this bill seems to have found the answer.

"Federal Subsidies for Passenger Transportation, 1960-1988: Winners, Losers, and Implications for the Future," Robert R. Nathan Associates, Inc., May 1989.

3

4 ibid.

5 ibid

A decade from today or before, Congress will be faced with a single alternative: the creation of "AMBUS," a nationalized, fully-subsidized intercity bus line operating with all of the efficiencies and innovation of the Nation's existing transit systems. The same basic subsidies will be applied to create an intercity clone to the transit system which, in his final budget to this Congress, President Reagan said, "finance high wages and low labor productivity. The subsidies encourage waste, distort local decision making and perpetuate public monopolies that discourage competition. Very little of the subsidy benefits the transit rider."

What are the alternatives?

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UBOA agrees that more can be done in our industry to accommodate the handicapped passenger. Uniform standards and policies toward the handicapped rider might become voluntary criteria so that the handicapped know what to expect when they are in need of intercity transportation. More systems might be encouraged to invest with public assistance -- in lift-equipped vehicles. More cooperative efforts can be encouraged between public and private operators; after all, virtually all lift-devices today are publicly-underwritten or -owned. Direct federal assistance both capital and operating assistance offered to private operators to encourage lift installations. Even requirements for proportional fleet purchases would make more sense than this shotgun approach.

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can be

In the long run, however, UBOA believes that the ADA demands far, far too much from bus owners and operators in response to the statistical and demonstrated need for handicapped intercity transportation. Equipping every vehicle to prepare for the call which may never come is squandering precious resources which could certainly be better spent. And it doesn't matter whether those are private or public resources neither of us can afford it.

UBOA encourages the passage of those sections of the ADA which offer the handicapped a legal recourse to willful, obviously intentional and continuing discriminatory practices by American business, though we believe that far more opportunity for negotiated settlement should be added to this bill.

And to the extent that productive changes were made by the United States Senate in

Fiscal Year 1990 Budget of the United States, Major Policy Initiatives, President Ronald W. Reagan, 1989.

its deliberation on this bill, UBOA endorses the three-year study into needs and means of achieving full accessibility which are contained in the Senate bill, S. 933.

But the mandate that every bus be fully accessible remains even in the Senate's bill. It must be removed. Our operators are full prepared to live with the results of the mandated study. We're certain, however, that there are far more efficient, more affordable, more satisfactory ways to achieve full accessibility than the single approach offered by this bill.

To summarize, Mr. Chairman, this bill's sections calling for modifications in all new buses sold in America will, at best, blanket this Nation with equipment which will never be used, for which too many people will pay too much. At worst, the private intercity and charter bus operator will disappear entirely, leaving the American traveler entirely in the hands of air and rail carriers which are too costly and reach too few communities. Or, it will force the nationalization of an entire industry or the abandonment of the American principle of a fully mobile population.

UBOA urges a more realistic and practical assessment of the problem be made, and a more solution be sought reasonable and pragmatic solution sought. If significant changes are not made, UBOA urges that this bill be defeated.

Thank you for this opportunity to address our concerns.

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