Corporate Invisability

When I first came to Salt Lake, over twenty years ago, I came to work at the Independent Living Center in Salt Lake and I was hired as the Resource Coordinator and part of that job description was to work in the community to bring a more affordable, accessible public transportation to the great Wasatch Front. My job was essentially to make the public transportation system wheelchair accessible. In 1984 there were no accessible bus routes in the city, the city had purchased something like thirty buses from another transit authority which were wheelchair accessible but had been bolted shut so the wheelchair lift cannot be used. A major struggle in sued which lasted years, resulted in bus strikes negations and finally a fully accessible transit system—actually two bus system: an accessible main line service and a para transit system which has been which has been a sore reminder of one of my greatest failures, but the greatest failure is fodder for another blog posting.
One of the spin- offs which resulted from the days of storm and stress for an accessible fleet is the Committee on Accessible Transportation or (CAT). A committee rising out of the transit wars, developed by the transit authority management .

The CAT was and is made up of perceived local transit leaders—vocal folks with disabilities who possibly could influence decision makers. I was on the committee, there were reps from the blind community, physical disability a side from the Independent Living Center, Cerebral palsy, and others I have forgotten. The authority usually supplied a lunch and a year bus pass! The pass alone was worth hundreds of dollars but I soon realized nothing happened with the committee of any consequence. In fact real issues public transit and people with disabilities often “bottle necked” in the committee sometimes never getting out. There were battles in the committee of one disability group against the others taking months if not years to resolve. I would leave each meeting more and more frustrated and angry until I realized CAT is a holding tank!! What a perfectly, simple plan! Compromise the most, vocal, visible and committed transit advocates in the community give them a fancy dancy title and “buy” off with a bus pass. The transit authority, in one swoop, made the best advocate invisible from the board of directors, the folk who can make the “real” decisions . Once I made the connection I resigned from the CAT cut up my bus pass and bought my own, headed back to the board meetings where real advocates belong, where real advocates can make a real difference. I have also tried to get the other advocates who had been on the Committee realize what they were doing, what was happening to them, the best advocate in the system, but continue to frequent the meetings and I do not see a whole lot being done.
I heard earlier in the week the boss was considering becoming part of the CAT Committee, she knows how I feel about the CAT and how the people are being used by management. She says she is just going to go to see what it is like and what the CAT is all about. I just hope she does not become one of them!!