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Courtney Orton reportingThe ongoing battle between the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) and riders with disabilities is far from over, but UTA thinks it's one step closer to reaching common ground after a conference that wrapped up today.
Disability activists say routes for those with disabilities are limited in certain areas, especially on weekends. That complaint is one of a number discussed this week in a conference called Future Search. Barbara Toomer, with Disabled Rights Action Committee, said, "Basic transportation for people with disabilities who live between those areas, or want to go somewhere on Saturday or Sunday, if they can't get to TRAX, they are absolutely isolated, and that bothers us, and UTA knows it."
It's an issue more than 60 activists, policy-makers, agency heads and UTA have been talking about for the past three days. John Inglish, with UTA, said, "The question now is: Is there a way to find resources that other agencies are spending ineffectively to cover those needs?
Inglish says Future Search is a process of getting the issues out on the table and then coming up with a solution by pooling resources.
But for Toomer that approach might not be good enough. She said, "Basically, it's a mistrust of UTA, so it's a hope that they listen to our concern."
"We want to find solutions, and we are willing to bend which ever direction we can to solve this problem, and we hope others will bend with us," Inglish said. "That's the whole idea, is to get everybody to bend toward the middle where ever that is."
By the end of the conference today, the group had come up with several ideas to make public transportation for those with disabilities better.
It's now in the hands of UTA to do something with the ideas. Inglish said, "This is a wonderful process. I've been through it many times. We've used it in labor relations. It's used at the United Nations, it's used all over the world to address these kinds of issues."
Toomer said, "Whether we have the collective will to change it or not remains to be seen."
UTA plans on taking the ideas that were developed out into different parts of the community for input.
E-mail: corton@ksl.com
