Read WW's first
story about Tri-Met's service for diabled passengers
and our
follow-up last week.
Since
Willamette Week published its story about Tri-Met's
callous treatment of passengers with disabilities, people
have been calling our offices to express similar concerns.
They say that the reforms Tri-Met adopted after the
WW
story ("The Other Face of Tri-Met," June 23, 1999), which
include running background checks on drivers, are not
enough.
These complaints have less to do with the issue of
allowing ex-cons to provide door-to-door rides to people
with disabilities than with overall poor service.
One critic is Gretchen Yost, executive director of
the Arc (formerly Association of Retarded Citizens)
of Multnomah County, a nonprofit group that serves approximately
1,000 local residents with developmental disabilities.
"We hear [complaints about Tri-Met's LIFT service]
almost every day," says Yost. "We just roll our eyes
and say, 'It's Tri-Met again.' There hasn't been any
way to make changes."
Mimi Bushman of Portland has a typical story. Her daughter,
Amy is 21 years old, has Down syndrome and operates
with the intellectual capacity of a first grader. Every
weekday, Amy calls Tri-Met's LIFT service for a ride
to class or work. Some days her ride never comes; her
ride home sometimes shows up hours late, leaving Amy
waiting at night in dangerous neighborhoods, according
to her mother.
"I can't believe a public agency could be so unresponsive
and so irresponsible," Mimi Bushman says.
Bushman says she's called Tri-Met to complain at least
10 times this year. She's also written three letters--to
no avail.
Her last letter, written June 28, was sent to George
Passadore, president of Tri-Met's board of directors.
Bushman says she wrote to Passadore because all she
got from her earlier calls and letters was an offer
by Tri-Met to research her problems.
Bushman has not heard from Passadore.
Passadore says he passed Bushman's letter on to Tri-Met
General Manager Fred Hansen. "What I can assure you
is that it won't go ignored," Passadore says.
Bushman's frustrations may be the most well-documented,
but they are not unique. Susan Maley directs a federally
funded project at Oregon Health Sciences University,
studying the abuse of women with disabilities. As part
of her research, Maley has interviewed approximately
40 people with disabilities in eight focus groups. Maley
says complaints about Tri-Met's LIFT service are common.
"In the course of this project, the issue of Tri-Met
transportation, unreliability of drivers and mistreatment
by drivers has come up over and over again," she says.
On paper, Tri-Met has a firm policy of investigating
any serious charges against its drivers and suspending
the drivers until the probe is complete. But in reality,
this seems to rarely happen.
One such case involves former driver Daniel Robertson--a
convicted murderer who was later jailed for raping Tammy
Rattey, a passenger with brain damage.
On April 23, 1998--prior to his arrest for the rape
of Rattey--Tri-Met dispatched Robertson to give a ride
to Retha McBride, who lived at the Mountaindale Recovery
Center in Cornelius.
McBride said Robertson told her he liked to go to bed
with lots of girls, wanted to go to a nude beach with
her and wanted her to give him "head." McBride said
she was scared because Robertson took her on back roads
that no other Tri-Met driver ever used. He also followed
her into her doctor's appointment and refused to leave.
A manager at the facility where McBride lived called
Tri-Met to complain. Tri-Met, in turn, recorded the
complaint as follows: "The driver on this day called
the client 'babe' more than once, and when they got
to her appointment he followed her in and would not
leave when she got there. He just paced around and would
not leave."
According to Debra Maercklein and Nancy Thomas, the
officials in charge of Tri-Met's Accessible Transportation
Program, when a sexual harassment complaint is received,
the driver is suspended until exonerated by an investigation.
But in Robertson's case, no such action was taken.
Instead of suspending Robertson, Tri-Met called Robertson's
boss and told him that Robertson's behavior was "inappropriate."
That's it.
"I was appalled that he didn't get fired," McBride
told WW. "I thought he had been fired because
I made that complaint."
McBride's complaint wasn't the only one handled in
a way that contradicts Tri-Met policy. According to
customer complaints from 1998 obtained by Willamette
Week, other drivers made personal remarks to passengers
and were not suspended.
Hansen was at a loss to explain why the complaint against
Robertson produced no penalties except for a verbal
warning. Hansen told WW he didn't know any details
about the complaint against Robertson.
Advocates for the disabled say the problems at Tri-Met
go beyond a few rude and lewd drivers. They claim that
people with disabilities get treated like second-class
citizens. Regular Tri-Met bus and MAX drivers are unionized,
well-paid and undergo criminal background checks before
they are hired. The drivers who serve people with disabilities,
by contrast, are low-paid and weren't subject to Tri-Met
background checks until a week ago.
OHSU's Maley argues that poor treatment of passengers
will persist until Tri-Met provides drivers with better
pay and more training.
"I'm relieved to hear that Tri-Met has removed 28 drivers
with criminal records," says Maley ("Mea
Culpas," WW, June 30, 1999). "But there's
a larger issue. As long as Tri-Met is subcontracting
this work to small businesses and paying close to minimum
wage, there is going to be a recurrent problem. The
situation invites a lack of oversight and transitory
predators."
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Willamette Week | originally
published July 7, 1999
