[nagdu] COTA sued again over compliance with disabilities act

Julie J julielj at neb.rr.com
Mon Jan 10 14:50:44 UTC 2011


they only have to be compliant 80% of the time?
Jeeze, I wish my employer felt that way when it was time to turn in reports. 
Or my family at mealtimes, or the light company when the bill was due...you 
get the point.

Julie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ginger Kutsch" <gingerKutsch at yahoo.com>
To: "NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users" 
<nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 8:00 AM
Subject: [nagdu] COTA sued again over compliance with disabilities act


> COTA sued again over compliance with disabilities act
> Sunday, January 9, 2011  11:51 PM
> By Robert Vitale
> http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/01/0
> 9/cota-sued-again-over-compliance-with-disabilities-act.html?sid=
> 101
> The Columbus Dispatch
>
> On a recent sunny day, Christopher Cooley stood about a foot from
> the curb in front of a Downtown bus stop.
>
> Although COTA drivers are told to stop right in front of
> passengers with obvious disabilities, a bus pulled past Cooley,
> who had to jostle with other passengers to ask where the bus was
> headed.
>
> Then he asked the driver why he stopped so far from him.
>
> "I didn't see you," the driver said.
>
> Cooley, whose vision is far worse than the legal standard for
> blindness, was wearing a bright-yellow-and-blue coat and standing
> next to his guide dog, a golden retriever.
>
> If this were an unusual occurrence, Cooley would have shrugged
> off the incident as an inconvenience. But he said the Central
> Ohio Transit Authority routinely makes it difficult for him to
> take the bus.
>
> And for the third time in 10 years, COTA is defending itself from
> complaints that it ignores key provisions of a federal law that
> outlaws discrimination and ensures access to public buildings and
> transportation for people with disabilities.
>
> Cooley has filed a federal lawsuit alleging "systematic failure"
> by COTA to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
>
> The suit contends that COTA drivers do not stop in front of
> disabled people and do not announce routes. An automated system
> that is supposed to announce routes when the doors open often
> does not work, the suit says.
>
> Cooley, 33, who moved from Westerville to Grandview Heights to
> live closer to COTA routes, said the problems mean he misses
> classes at Columbus State Community College, arrives late to his
> internship at the Ohio State School for the Blind and gets
> dropped off in unfamiliar neighborhoods.
>
> "When I have to get off at a different area I don't know, I start
> to get shaky inside; then my vision gets really blurry," he said.
> "I have to tell myself to keep calm."
>
> COTA was sued in 2000 by the National Federation for the Blind,
> and it agreed as part of a settlement to make sure its drivers
> announced stops. In 2004, Federal Transit Administration
> officials came to Columbus to investigate complaints about COTA's
> treatment of disabled riders.
>
> Bill Lhota, COTA's president and chief executive officer,
> wouldn't comment on Cooley's lawsuit, but he said the transit
> authority takes the federal law seriously.
>
> "I'm confident we have in place all the things that are required
> from an ADA standpoint," he said.
>
> Barbara Corner, a lawyer with the Ohio Legal Rights Service who
> worked on the 2000 lawsuit, said COTA agreed to monitor its
> adherence with ADA standards for several years. Complying with
> the law 80 percent of the time was considered adequate in the
> industry, she said.
>
> As Cooley waited for a bus to take him home Tuesday afternoon, a
> Dispatch reporter kept tallies on COTA buses that pulled up to
> the stop on N. High Street between Gay and Long streets.
>
> The Dispatch found that:
>
> . The automated route announcement system worked on six of 39
> buses.
>
> . Twenty-two of 39 drivers stopped in front of Cooley or other
> disabled passengers.
>
> . Twenty-five drivers told Cooley where their buses were headed.
>
> Corner, who is blind, said an occasional failure to meet ADA
> standards isn't enough to win a court case. But from her
> experiences of missing unannounced stops, COTA isn't living up to
> its obligations, she said.
>
> Other disabled riders have similar complaints.
>
> Irwin Hott said he made it his 2011 resolution to start calling
> COTA again when things go wrong. He said he stopped for a while
> because it seemed to do no good.
>
> Hott, who is legally blind and lives on the North Side, said he
> once ended up at the wrong intersection when the driver didn't
> announce the stop. When he complained, the driver pointed at a
> pay phone.
>
> Cooley said he once was dropped off on the West Side because a
> driver didn't announce the stop at Broad and High. There had been
> a shooting near the West Side stop.
>
> "Everyone has stories," said Corner, who now carries a GPS device
> that tells her where she is.
>
> rvitale at dispatch.com
>
>
>
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