One of Washington's dirty little secrets: How to avoid accountability

By Wes Vernon

You won't believe this. Or maybe you will if you run and hide when you hear, "Hi, we're from your government, and we're here to help you."

In this case, the chilling greeting comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), those wonderful folks who since 9/11 (under strict orders from the recently-resigned Secretary Norman Mineta) have been wanding little old ladies from Keokuk, Iowa, at America's airports — all in the name of political correctness. DOT now has decided that it will apply the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in such a manner as to make it theoretically easier for the wheelchair-bound to board passenger trains.

There is just one problem, and in a metaphorical sense, it comes under the heading of the old gag, "The operation was a great success, but the patient died."

DOT has proposed a rule requiring that every single passenger train platform in the United States (1) stretches the full length of the longest train that serves the route, and (2) provides level (no steps) boarding for all doors.

That would mean — for all intents and purposes — the end of most passenger trains in the United States, commuter and inter-city. It would mean forcing the industry or publicly-backed (read taxpayer-funded) commuter train agencies to see to it that all station platforms are "high-level" (so as to avoid having to use steps to board the train).

To give you an idea of the enormity of the problem, consider this: When you add up the inter-city, commuter, light rail, and rapid rail (subway style) operations, the multi-millions of Americans riding trains on a daily basis are many times the millions who fly from America's airports. This by no means is a thin slice of the populace.

Two points about this allegedly well-intended rule. First, an overwhelming number of train stations — especially in rural and suburban areas, but also many in big cities, as well — have ground-level platforms requiring steps to board and leave the trains. Many have built "lifts" to enable the disabled to enter and exit so as to bypass the steps. Not good enough, says DOT.

I should know about the lifts. A few years ago, the drawn-out process of enabling a passenger to exit a light rail car in San Diego caused me to miss my connection with an Amtrak train just three blocks away. I had to wait another two hours for the next train. Even then, I was lucky. In other circumstances, an unplanned overnight stay would have been necessary. Nothing against San Diego, but that would have been ridiculous. Yet in some places where Amtrak runs just one train a day, that probably has happened to others.

In reality, the stations currently with high platforms are confined mostly to some (but not all) of those in a few large metropolitan areas.

Just to complicate things a little more, many stations host trains whose cars have doors of differing heights above the rail. So, how do you build a platform that can grant "level" access to different model cars on the same train?

Are you following me on this? If so, you are apparently way ahead of some rule-making bureaucrat at DOT. It is as if he awoke one morning and decided to call attention to his importance by playing the bull in a china shop with an industry of which he possesses a profound ignorance.

David Johnson of the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) told this writer, "Our opinion is that if the [rule] is adopted as is, there will be no more passenger rail expansion in the United States — when we need it more than ever — and that most existing services would be in danger."

Back in 1990, when the ADA bill was being debated in Congress, I interviewed one of its strongest advocates — left-wing gadfly Ralph Nees. He argued that any inconvenience it might cause should take a back seat to "civil rights." (Little "inconveniences" like shutting down an entire industry and/or service to the public. Sorry, their "civil rights" don't count.)

Later, an original architect of the law, former Senator Lowell Weicker (R-Conn.), told me "common sense" would surely prevail in the law's implementation. This came in answer to a question about a lawsuit demanding handicap facilities for crippled dancers. (I'm not making this up.)

Industry and rail advocacy groups have protested to DOT urging that the rule not be adopted, and suggesting a blue-ribbon study in search of better and more practical real-world ways to facilitate wheelchair-bound passengers' use of the trains.

One hopes they find a solution that squares with common sense for the truly "disabled." But when you have obese people demanding larger seats in theatres and then there was that lawsuit in the name of crippled dancers, you have to wonder about what goes on in the heads of bureaucrats whose anonymity is fiercely protected. Just try to get the name of anyone in government who writes a weird proposal. He can write a decree that the cow must jump over the moon and leave you to cope with the details. But you will never learn his name.

NARP in its statement to DOT said that "regulations regarding wheelchairs will best serve the needs of both disabled persons and the general public if they promote the improvement and expansion of passenger rail transportation." The proposal "does not meet those guidelines." In fact it would cause "a reduction in convenience [and] quality of safety, [for] the general public, including passengers and railroad workers."

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) told DOT the idea "would require significant practical, operational issues, as well as greatly expanded costs," and would "lead ultimately to a reduction in transportation alternatives for both the disabled and the general population."

The dramatic increase in costs would be compounded by the fact that "full length boarding" with bridge plates for persons in wheelchairs would have to square somehow with the fact that many stations lack platforms at any height and also that many stations have infrequent service and/or very low traffic volumes. But that would not matter. DOT's ivory tower theorists make no distinction between Penn Station, New York, and Essex, Montana.

This is what happens when politicians on Capitol Hill write laws with deliberately vague wording. "Why would they do that?" you ask. Answer: They simply let the faceless bureaucrats do the heavy lifting behind their anonymity. You see, unelected regulators won't have to face the angry voters in the next election. That is one of Washington's dirty little secrets as to how so many in this town avoid accountability. The buck stops nowhere and everywhere.

Ex-Senator Lowell Weicker was actually a strong supporter of passenger trains when he was on Capitol Hill. One cannot help wondering what he thinks of this result of his legislative crusade.

BTW: Weicker is now backing Ned Lamont, the far-left peacenik running against Senator Joe Lieberman in Connecticut. It figures. Lieberman ousted Weicker 18 years ago. Now it's payback time, and not just against Lieberman. Perhaps one could say — only half facetiously — that the DOT rule may be Weicker's revenge against the voters who booted him out of office. There are lots of train riders in Connecticut.

© Wes Vernon