Passenger Trains > Amtrak in hot water charging 25k for passage

From NPR


Amtrak Asks Two People Who Use Wheelchairs To Pay $25,000 For A Ride
January 17, 20206:18 PM ET
By: Joe Shapiro


A member of the station staff pushes a portable wheelchair lift along the platform at an Amtrak station in DeLand, Fla. The company says its policies for having to adjust or remove seats has changed.
Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
It costs just $16 to buy a one-way ticket on the Amtrak train from Chicago to Bloomington, Ill., unless you're the two people who use wheelchairs and tried to buy tickets recently. They were told their tickets will cost not $16 — but $25,000.

When Adam Ballard saw what Amtrak wanted to charge, he couldn't believe it.

"I thought it was a mistake. That's the price of a car," Ballard says. "How can that be possible? I was sure it was a mistake. But I've seen it in writing. So I know it's not."

Ballard works for a disability service and advocacy center in Chicago called Access Living. He is its housing and transportation policy analyst, and a group from his office is headed to Bloomington next Wednesday for a work retreat.

There are 10 of them, and five — including Ballard — use wheelchairs. Their train has three cars. Each car has one space for a wheelchair. That makes three spaces for five people in wheelchairs. In the past, when Access Living gave advance notice that it was sending a large group, Amtrak took out more seats to fit more wheelchairs. Once, it took out seats in the dining car and charged a couple hundred dollars

"I use a power wheelchair. It is standard size for a power chair, but it's larger than most manual chairs. So I take up a little extra space," Ballard says. "But always in the past, no matter what kind of assortment of people and devices we had together for our group, it was never a problem to get everybody on board."


Adam Ballard, the housing and transportation policy analyst at the nonprofit Access Living, says Amtrak wanted to charge his organization more than $25,000 to take the train from Chicago to Bloomington, Ill.

On Dec. 30, an Amtrak agent for group sales based in Philadelphia wrote: "I received a cost regarding the removal of seats and I've been advised this will be over $25 K. Would you like for me to proceed with the request?"

Someone from the group wrote back: "Am I reading this correctly?"

The answer came back on Jan. 2. "The cost is correct," the agent wrote, citing a new policy for taking out those seats. The agent explained that it's expensive to take out extra seats and that it means taking a car out of service.

"With removal of seats, it can be quite costly," the agent wrote. "In previous years, the removal of seats from the coach cars incurred fees that Amtrak absorbed ... We understand and appreciate your loyalty with Amtrak. Going forward, we cannot continue to absorb these fees. These polices have changed nationwide as of 2019."

Officials at Access Living then reached out to senior officials at Amtrak asking for a "return to the prior arrangement," according to Bridget Hayman, director of communications for Access Living. She says Amtrak officials agreed to "present the situation to upper management" and give the disability group an answer by Jan. 13.

But there was no response by the promised deadline, Hayman says, and then no communication when officials at Access Living tried to follow up.

Jonathan Mook is an attorney who advises companies about their obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA. He was surprised by the $25,000 figure.

"The $25,000 ... that's a Hobson's choice. It's no choice at all. Obviously, the group can't pay $25,000," Mook says.

The ADA, which became law 30 years ago this year, is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in jobs, schools, public places and transportation — including trains. It requires companies like Amtrak to make "reasonable accommodations" so that people with disabilities have comparable access to transportation as do people without disabilities. The law says a business can get an exemption from the requirement to make an accommodation if doing so would require an "undue burden" on the company.

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/20 16:39 by amtrakbill.

For group handicapped moves, maybe Amtrak should take a car and outfit it with lots of wheelchair spaces.

Doing that and ferrying the car for where it is reserved would be a lot cheaper than an ADA lawsuit.

That's a bad look

Posted from Android

A car does not need to be taken out of service.  It can be done in the yards at night.

More Hog Wash from Amtrak.

Link to the original story:

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/17/797355136/amtrak-asks-two-people-in-wheelchairs-to-pay-25-000-for-a-ride

      Yes, more crapolla from the head office of Amtrak, nothing more.

How soon will Propeller Head and his cronies leave, this is getting worse for Amtrak!

Posted from Android

It's the type of thing you'd do if you were trying to drive away all types of business.  It's outrageous enough to garner news coverage where you'd justiably look really bad. 

Amtrak management is either really inept or purposely trying to drive away business.  And yes, it could be  both.

It's obviously both, and it's BEYOND disgusting.  One person with a socket set and a wrench could remove the required seats in 20-30 minutes.  I know because I've done it.  I hope they sue the hell out of Amtrak for not accommodating people who need a little extra help.  Pisses me off no end!

Amtrak has become a laughingstock and those of you who think that's okay need to look at yourselves in the mirror.

-John

Well stated, John. I couldn't agree more. Someone needs to be fired. Heartless you know what. d

I smell a federal lawsuit.

The proverbial Pentagon $400 toilet seat or hammer comes to mind, but that is not the same as bullying a handicapped individual with a $25K tab.

I have personally seen a Conductor out of Chicago on #30 yell at and bully someone with a neurological leg problem, forced into an inappropriate seat on the lower level, and I wrote her up. No reply of course. That predates Anderson. 



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/20 06:14 by joemvcnj.

Each car has disabled access and a finite number of wheelchair spaces.  This is a group of people in wheelchairs that wants to travel together.  Amtrak is basically telling them for the two that do not fit they will have to take a train another day.  To me it is no different when several disabled people want to ride overnight and there is only a single ADA sleeper per car.  Choose another day. There are only so many ADA spaces. 

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

Yes, but they were not told to ride different trains of different cars on the same train, but to pay up $25K. They might as well have been speaking to a robot. 

I would argue that only 1 ADA space per car is not a reasonable accomodation.  It effectively prevents a parent and a young child from traveling together if both are in a wheelchair, a couple has to be split up into different cars, etc.  Most commuter rail lines have a section of seats that fold up in order to make space for wheelchairs.  It might be more expensive to retrofit with such chairs suitable for long-distance, but I have no doubt it can be done.    

I'm rarely in favor of lawsuits, but this seems to be a good case to pursue, with the end goal of a reasonable settlement that Amtrak would agree to provide at least 1 car on every route with a row or section with enough fold-up seats to accomodate up to 4 wheelchairs.  (Though admittedly some of the ADA activist groups in the past have been the most unreasonable and ridiculous plaintiffs, never happy and always demanding the moon, greatly abusing the ADA act far beyond Congress' original intent.  Depends on the group and their lawyers.)

Bloomington is on the Lincoln corridor whose trains are usually 5 or 6 cars, (though article says: "Their train has three cars. Each car has one space for a wheelchair") runs 4 times per day, plus the Texas Eagle. I can't believe there were not 2 places to park wheelchairs, including the Biz-dinette car. Worst comes to worst, one of them could have been charged for Business class, but not $25,000.

In the latest overhauling of Amfleet-2 cars, seating is being reduced from 60 to 58 to conform to ADA, something to do with a table. As built before the Capstoning 10 years ago, there were for 59 seats, if you remember that single reclining seat near the bathroom. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/20 07:36 by joemvcnj.

ts1457 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> For group handicapped moves, maybe Amtrak should
> take a car and outfit it with lots of wheelchair
> spaces.
>
> Doing that and ferrying the car for where it is
> reserved would be a lot cheaper than an ADA
> lawsuit.

There are two things wrong with that idea:

• It makes sense.
• It encourages ridership.

TAW

Be hard to do when they get Siemens train sets, fixed length trains for California, cars coupled in married pairs for Chicago corridors. They would have to do that with Amfleet-1 and leave them in service in mixed consists in the midwest; I asuume they would be compatible.   

A correspondent wrote me, in regard to this latest Am-Fiasco:

I went to a barber years ago and I noticed a sign posted on the wall on
which these prices were listed: Haircut--$10, shave, $89.50.

The $10 for a haircut was appropriate for the time, but $89.50 for a
shave?? I asked him about the cost of a shave. His answer: "I hate
giving shaves and at that price I don't have to."

So apparently Amtrak hates passengers with special needs and priced
their "service" so they wouldn't have to.

Amtrak's Liberal lawyers, led by Hillary's college roommate, may think
they found a loophole so they won't have to carry handicapped passengers,
but all they have gotten for Amtrak is a black eye.

We have ADA laws. We do not have Barber Shop Shave laws. 

I thought Liberals were all about fairness and equality for everyone. Not so much I guess.