BARTs disgusting elevators, often sprayed with urine and populated with piles of poop, are unpleasant for everyone. But for people with disabilities, who have no choice but to use them, theyre a civil rights violation, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
So are the transit systems broken-down elevators and escalators, fare gates and call boxes and the lack of an adequate train-evacuation plan for people in wheelchairs, says the suit, filed in federal court in San Francisco by two advocacy groups and two people with disabilities.
The suit claims that BART illegally discriminates against people with mobility disabilities by making it difficult, unpleasant or impossible to access the transit system. It seeks a court order that BART fix the problems, but it does not seek any financial damages.
BART officials could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday morning.
Getting into a BART station is routinely unpleasant and possibly unhealthy, said Ian Smith, a plaintiff and BART rider who uses a wheelchair.
I encounter human waste in BART elevators several times a week so frequently that it has become a predictable part of my commute, Smith said. My hope is that this lawsuit will finally get BART to address the needs of the disability community.
Smith has a power wheelchair but said many of his friends have manual chairs and more unsanitary troubles.
Your hands touch your wheels, your wheels touch the floor, he said. A lot of people carry gloves, carry hand sanitizer. Its not pleasant.
Pi Ra, 63, who teaches young activists at Senior and Disability Action, is also a plaintiff. A disability involving his feet requires him to wear special shoes and limit his walking lest his feet get blistered and infected. He commutes daily on BART from Concord to Civic Center station, where the unreliable escalators often force him to take longer walks to a working escalator or use the often-filthy elevators.
Even though they put new floors in and cleaned the wells, its still disgusting, he said. Its the odor and the new deposits and the trash. They just dont clean it enough.
Between the broken escalators and awful elevators, he said, Its just not accessible.
The suit was filed by nonprofit law firms Disability Rights Advocates and Legal Aid at Work on behalf of Senior and Disability Action; the Independent Living Resource Center of San Francisco; and Smith and Ra.
Jinny Kim, an attorney for Legal Aid at Work, said the advocacy groups decided to go to court because a series of changes enacted after settlements with BART in the 1990s seemed to have slipped in recent years.
We started investigating complaints and found out there are problems, she said.
