There Weren’t Always Wheelchair Lifts on Chicago Buses. A Pre-ADA Complaint Changed That

American Experience – Change, Not Charity: The Americans with Disabilities Act airs on WTTW and is available to stream Tuesday, March 25 at 8:00 pm.

Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Chicagoans with disabilities joined a national movement and protested for their rights as Congress debated a national disability rights law. Much of the demonstrations in Chicago were part of the fight for improved access to public transit.

In 1990, after a decades-long fight, President George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which is the subject of a new American Experience documentary, Change, Not Charity: The Americans with Disabilities Act, premiering Tuesday, March 25 at 8:00 pm on WTTW. 

Before the passage of the ADA, a civil rights complaint against the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) helped usher in change for people living with disabilities. In the Chicago History Museum photo above, a group called American Disabled for Accessible Public Transit (ADAPT) holds a rally outside a CTA station in the Loop. The group advocated for the addition of wheelchair lifts on CTA buses and for broader accessibility on public transit. 

Prior to the addition of wheelchair lifts on buses, many people in wheelchairs had to use a service called “Dial-A-Ride,” a program that provided separate rides for people with disabilities. Those who used it said the service was not timely or reliable, but the CTA said it would be too costly to install lifts on all of its buses. In 1985, four individuals with disabilities and ADAPT filed a complaint against the CTA and suburban Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) with the Illinois Human Rights Commission, arguing that the Dial-A-Ride service was inadequate. The commission’s judge ruled in favor of ADAPT three years later, requiring the CTA to install bus lifts on its major routes. The CTA board voted later that year to install 500 new lifts on buses, according to a 1988 Chicago Tribune story. 

But ADAPT’s work didn’t stop there; they continued to fight for the rights of people with disabilities, including participating in a March 12, 1990 protest in Washington, D.C. in support of the ADA, in which people with disabilities crawled up the 83 marble steps – some on their hands and knees – of the Capitol Building. President Bush signed the ADA into law later that summer. 

Today, disability advocates continue to strive to make Chicago more accessible. As WTTW News reported, a federal judge recently ordered the city to make about 71% of its 2,713 signalized intersections with pedestrian crossings accessible to people who are blind or have low vision within 10 years, with the remainder to be made accessible within an additional five years.