The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 14

B2 The Sacramento Bee Monday May 10 1982 Disabled Get A Lift From RT if i 1 mS" ami itw- fifc 4 jdr fljriiBwi2C3Z2 y4UXj VWMHWg HLITir :0 fjarmony And Harness Races RT would have to reduce bus service by 14 percent to finance maintenance of a totally lift-equipped system or eight-tenths of 1 percent to equip 130 buses the number needed to cover non-rush hour or service The council says the most likely cutbacks would be during midday evening and weekend periods tailing most heavily on transit-dependent people such as the poor and elderly without cars Information developed at the hearing will be studied by the council and others and be incorporated in a draft five-year policy of transportation services to be provided for the disabled and elderly over 75 years old Another hearing would be held during summer Brown believes with final adoption by early fall In the meantime local agehcfes are trying to put together financing to keep Paratransit operating at-its current level during the 1982-83'fis-cal year Paratransit which last year after considerable controversy took oyer and consolidated a separate door-to-door system operated by RT now provides more rides than did the separate systems combinedHut there still is a lengthy waiting lig for trips Many disabled people want to be integrated into the mainstream as much as possible and use regular transit service Jensen said Paratransit service by its very nature is inconvenient for active disabled likb himself who can use lift-equipped buses Once a potential user of Para- transit gets to the top of the waiting list he must give seven notice before an intended trip Bar Backs Warren Superior Court candidate Judge Roger Warren won the endorsement of the Sacramento County Bar Association president Joseph Gray has announced Ballots were mailed to 1777 association members in early March and tabulated May 4 Of the 714 valid ballots cast appointed incumbent Warren received 586 votes His challenger Municipal Court Presiding Judge John Stroud received 120 votes Eight baHots were cast indicating of the Gray said The membership also was asked whether it wanted to endorse incumbent Herb Jackson or challenger John Dougherty for district attorney Neither candidate received enough votes to win the nomination Gray said adding the Bar council decided not to reveal which candidate re) ceived the most votes In order to receive the nomination Gray said at least 25 percent of the membership would have to cast ballots and the winner would have to receive 60 percent of the votes cast By Doug Dempster Bee Staff Writer Bill Jensen lives five houses from a Regional Transit bus stop in South Natomas but he take the bus because confined to a wheelchair For now he commutes to his downtown state job in his personal lift-equipped van At the end of this year RT expects to receive 23 new buses equipped with wheelchair lifts It also will add 51 old but renovated buses to its fleet at that time and will decide soon whether to equip those with the lifts RT also will try to determine on which routes the lift-equipped buses should run based on where people who need them live and where they want to go Jensen hopes his route will be among those chosen There also is debate over whether to put the $10000 lifts on the rest of the 204-bus fleet as it is replaced or expand separate transportation systems such as Paratransit Inc which uses vans in a taxilike service to carry the severely handicapped to and from their homes jobs doctors and shopping areas All these questions likely will be tackled at a hearing at 1:30 pm Friday in the Board of Supervisors chambers 700 St the funding crunch at all levels of government realistically not looking at new sources of money so what looking for are ideas on where to put what we said Jim Brown an associate planner with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments office has issued a report outlining numerous possible mixes of lift-equipped regular bus service and door-to-door service Because there is no more money Brown warned there may have to be cuts in regular RT service to finance lift costs An estimate based on usage of lift-equipped buses in Oakland Orange County Seattle and Denver suggests that each lift would be used about once every three days Based on expected maintenance costs of $412280 a year for the 204-bus fleet the Council of Governments has estimated each ride on a lift-equipped bus would cost $2362 three times the cost of a ride on Paratransit ($746) Brown contends the vocal disabled community in Sacramento will contend there will be greater use If usage is three times as great as estimated Brown said costs per ride on each transportation system would end up abcut equal Several years ago the federal and state governments began requiring lifts on new buses The federal requirement was dropped recently but the state law remains The council also seeks information from the general public because with no new source of money estimated that £ln honor of Day Carter Nice conducts the Sacramento vided a musical background for the harness racers practicing in Symphony at the race track at Cal Expo The pop concert pro- the foreground i Past Is Back 6 Amtrak Routes Link Bay Area Capital t30 section of the Richmond depot is a kind of stepchild When you want to make the return trip there is no station agent to answer questions such as the train on You have to phone Amtrak in Oakland a 25-cent call to determine that The waiting area offers little protection from the weather and seating is insufficient Recently 30 people waited for a train but only nine were able to sit Bathrooms are accessible only to those inside the BART area Literature on the Amtrak-BART connection says BART run on Sundays BART has been running Sundays from Richmond since 1978 Richmond with 80000 people is the largest of 39 California cities served by Amtrak without a station agent to sell tickets and answer questions That has long been a sore point with the state Department of Transportation which subsidizes the costs of several trains that use the station Caltrans contends a station agent for the would increase ridership by three to four times By comparison tiny Dunsmuir population 2340 and with only two trains and Riverbank with a population of 5025 and four trains a day both have agents Richmond has 10 trains Besides the six connecting Sacramento and the Bay area there are four trains connecting the Bay area and the San Joaquin Valley Bee file photo Bob Leland added: looking forward to being a sort of master of Is Unsuccessful A Department spokesman said divers had difficulty seeing in the murky swift water Duvall 23 of Carmichael was rafting with three women friends when their raft overturned off 50 off mini-blinds Control light and view Reupholstery Fabric closeouts 299 399 499 599 yd 50 off wood blinds tMlUWMl CZD cD It appears Richmond may finally get an agent Amtrak spokesman Arthur Lloyd said Amtrak has been willing to station an agent there for three years but negotiations with BART the depot owner dragged BART spokesman Sy Mouber said BART recently agreed in writing to provide space for a ticket counter Lloyd also said an initial bid for a counter was exorbitant but Caltrans says it has money to finance the booth State Sen James Mills D-San Diego who is credited by a plaque in the Richmond station with proposing the Amtrak-BART connection there said he expected that patronage justifies stationing an agent in Richmond Mills who was on the Amtrak board from 1977 through 1981 and its chairman in 1980-81 added that the new Spirit trains between Sacramento and Los Angeles would accommodate considerable usage between Sacramento and the Bay area they (Amtrak) wanted to exploit New and revised train service means that Sacramentans have a choice of three daily departures to the Bay: 6 am via the Coast Starlight 1:08 pm on the San Francisco Zephyr and 7:25 pm on the Spirit of California From Richmond toward Sacramento departures are at 7:27 am on the Spirit 1:17 pm on the Zephyr and 9:02 pm on the Starlight The trip takes about 2 hours and costs $1040 each way There are substantial family discounts Greyhound charges $705 for the Sacramento-Richmond trip The Greyhound and BART stations are about five blocks apart The three Amtrak trains that serve Sacramento and Richmond continue to Oakland But the cost is $1265 and only one East Bay bus line serves the Oakland station Amtrak provides a bus that takes train travelers from Oakland to downtown San Francisco over the Bay Bridge but the charge for that service from Sacramento also is $1265 Since fare between Richmond and downtown San Francisco is $130 a 95-cent saving to use Amtrak-BART between Sacramento and San Francisco compared to taking Amtrak to Oakland and going by Amtrak bus to San Francisco Besides BART serves several San Francisco destinations If you take BART in the East Bay you get a free ticket worth one trip on an Alameda-Contra Costa Transit bus The Spirit trains have unreserved seating but since patronage is greater between the Bay area and Los By Doug Dempster Bee Staff Writer time try the proclaimed Southern Pacific billboards decades ago before Southern Pacific began shedding trains like last snakeskin Well now is the time to try the train from Sacramento to the Bay area for nostalgia to thrill your kids or simply to try out fast clean comfortable relaxing scenic portation There are now six trains between Sacramento and the Bay area daily three in each direction three times what was available six months ago also time to reveal the existence of the That little-known Amtrak-BART station in downtown Richmond provides a convenient gate-way to the Bay region for Sacramen-tans simple Buy Amtrak tickets at the Sacramento depot get on the next train heading for the Bay get off at Richmond take a short walk through the station and board a Bay Area Rapit Transit train BART service is frequent In minutes be in San Francisco Oakland Ber keley Fremont Walnut Creek Concord or one of many other points BART serves Numerous East Bay buses as well as a direct bus to San Rafael also serve the Richmond sta-lion one hitch The Amtrak City Continued From Page B1 said you do has He acknowledges that the nine-tnember City Council faces some hard decisions before it approves the budget by June 30 The most intense pressure is likely to come from the major labor unions police fire street cleaning and clerical among them whose contracts also expire on that day Some of that pressure will be transfered to Leland who will no doubt have to explain his numbers "Numbers can be he said I think the discussions will liven up when we try to focus on what the dollars can bring and what the impact on the citizen Leland paused a moment then Drowning Search Divers searched the American River Sunday from Goethe Park to Watt Avenue but were unable to find the body of Pamela Sue Duvall who was believed to have drowned after her raft capsized Saturday Bee Photo by Skip Shuman Angeles there are usually plenty of seats between the Bay area and' Sacramento This crime update by the Sacramento Police Department focuses on a rape that occurred near John Kennedy High School and a series of strong-arm robberies in the downtown area The rape occurred April 22 at about 8 am A female student was walking through the Kennedy High School parking lot when she was grabbed from behind by a man wearing a dark blue baggy sweat shirt The man pushed the girl into his car and drove eastbound on Gloria Drive for a short distance before stopping He forced the girl into the back seat and raped her The suspect was described as a black man about 6 feet tall and weighing 250 pounds He was driving a bright orange Pinto station wagon with all the windows tinted dark In the strong-arm robbery series the victims are rtiostly elderly men who are drunk Most of the robberies have been occurring between 8:30 pm and 10:30 pm The suspects are three black men One is described as being between 18 and 30 years old 6 feet tall 170 to 185 pounds and having a medium build A second suspect is described as being between 20 and 30 years old 5 feet 7 inches to 5 feet 11 inches tall with a medium to stocky build The third man is described as 18 to 25 years old 5 feet 5 inches to 5 feet 9 inches tall with a medium build Sometimes only two suspects are seen and on some occasions all three are seen Usually one suspect holds the victim down while another suspect goes through the pockets On one occasion a victim tried to run but was pushed into some bushes and stabbed The suspects have not hesitated to use whatever force necessary police have found Anyone with information regarding these or any other crimes should call 443-HELP Police are offering rewards of up to $1000 Tipsters can remain anonymous Phone State Zip BODY IMAGE TRAINING SEMINARS ANEW CONCEPT Issgg You have spent hundreds of dollars on diets pills shots spa memberships those 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