A lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court yesterday points out what any BART rider already knows: Elevators and escalators on the regional transit system are chronically broken or unusably filthy. But for transit riders with disabilities, the situation represents "systemic civil rights violations," alleges the lawsuit, which Consumerist has uploaded here.
"While BART’s non-disabled passengers may be able to avoid these unsanitary and hazardous conditions by taking a station’s stairs or escalators instead, riders with mobility disabilities that necessitate the use of an elevator do not have that option," the claim reads. "[They] must either travel to another station in the hope of finding a usable elevator, or roll through human waste in order to reach their final destination. This is an especially repugnant prospect for users of manual wheelchairs, whose hands, arms, and clothes inevitably come into contact with the wheels of their wheelchairs."
The suit, filed on behalf of two plaintiffs by two nonprofit advocacy groups, seeks no financial damages — just a court order that BART fix its problems. “My hope is that this lawsuit will finally get BART to address the needs of the disability community,” one plaintiff, Ian Smith, told the Chronicle. Smith uses a manual wheelchair: “Your hands touch your wheels, your wheels touch the floor,” he said. “A lot of people carry gloves, carry hand sanitizer. It’s not pleasant.”
The lawsuit was filed by nonprofit law firms Disability Rights Advocates and Legal Aid at Workh on behalf of Senior and Disability Action; the Independent Living Resource Center of San Francisco; Ian Smith, and Pi Ra, a 63-year-old commuter from Concord to San Francisco who teaches young activists at Senior and Disability Action.
BART faced a similar complaint to this one in 1996 in Cupolo v. Bay Area Rapid Transit, as the current lawsuit points out. A court granted the plaintiff's motion for injunction in that case, ordering BART to maintain and repair its elevators in 1997. The case was settled in 1998 and BART agreed to fix or replace escalators and elevators as needed as well as inspect and clean them regularly. But according to the current claim, “BART has since allowed the condition of its elevators and other accessibility features, as well as its policies and practices regarding access for people with mobility disabilities, to return to their pre-Cupolo conditions.”
In response, a BART representative writes that “The Disability Rights Advocates’ lawsuit filed today touches on issues that go directly to the heart of BART’s core mission statement: to provide seamless mobility for people—those with disabilities and otherwise—across the Bay Area." BART, the representative points out, is busy spending money on the problem. "Currently, the District in the midst of executing an aggressive $16.3 million escalator and elevator improvement agenda, with each project designed to address these issues common to high-traffic, urban transit systems. We agree with the call to prioritize these investments, and have earmarked an additional $190 million in access improvements for the downtown San Francisco stations as part of the recently-passed Measure RR."
But BART says the origins of its cleanliness woes are out of its control. "We’ve hired more crews and offered overtime to help keep affected areas clean and functioning, but riders and employees continue to unacceptably experience the impact of the homeless crisis. We are working with local agencies to help address the complexities involving homeless people in our stations, and are one of the only transit systems in the country with a full-time Crisis Intervention Training Coordinator and Community Outreach Liaison."
In the end, the representative for BART writes, the transit agency is "disappointed our program of capital improvement is being met with litigation."
Last fall, disability rights advocate Sunday Parker voiced many of the problems pointed to by the lawsuit in an interview with SFist. Parker's become known for tweeting images from her handle @sundaytakesbart, of the system's soiled elevators in order to draw public attention to the problem. While she values the freedom public transit like BART affords her, "Nothing has been done to alleviate the root causes," of the cleanliness problems, Parker said at the time, "[BART] just kind of throws money at the problem," she said, referring to re-flooring elevators and similar approaches. One root cause — certainly there are more than a few — is that BART's bathrooms in underground stations have been closed since 9/11.
