The Fight For Disability Rights In Chicago

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2022

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sometimes, when Mike Ervin sees other wheelchair users about to board the bus or enter a train station in Chicago, he wants to catch up to them and say, “You’re welcome”. Because 30 years ago, much of the accessibility that people with disabilities encounter in public transportation today — lifts on buses, elevators at train train stations — didn’t exist. There were also no curb ramps, and buses would drive right by people in wheelchairs without stopping. But Mike Ervin, who has used a wheelchair all his life, fought to change all that. In this week’s episode we look at the history of the fight for disability rights in Chicago.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, it's Curit City reporter Adriana Cardona McGigad.
0:03.0	I was at the metro station recently near my house.
0:06.0	I was looking around and I noticed that to get to the platform,
0:10.0	you have to climb this long steep stairway.
0:13.0	There is no ramp, no way to go up if you were using a wheelchair.
0:18.0	Mike Irving knows all about that. He's 65 years old. He's used a wheelchair
0:24.4	his whole life. When you have a disability and you want to go from point A to point B, you have to
0:31.8	consider whether the means of getting from point A to point B is accessible or not.
0:39.5	Mike has been a disability rights advocate here in Chicago for a long time.
0:43.9	He and other Chicagoans pushed for lots of changes locally and across the country,
0:48.8	including the fight to make the Chicago Transit Authority, the CTA, accessible, starting with lift some buses.
0:56.8	He also advocated for independent living programs and more protections for people with disabilities
1:02.3	at the federal level.
1:05.4	Access!
1:06.4	Now!
1:07.4	30 years ago, the laws to protect people with disabilities weren't as strong as they
1:14.9	are today, across many fields, including education, employment, transportation.
1:21.3	And not many cities had public buses with lifts for people in wheelchairs.
1:26.4	In the mid-1980s, advocates fought to change that here in Chicago.
1:31.1	Later, with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, also known as the ADA,
1:37.2	access to trains and buses improved drastically.
1:40.8	That gets us to this week's Cur city question by Zoe Schitts.
	...

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