The Story of our Logo

In the late 70’s and 80’s, people with disabilities knew that in order to fully enjoy life in the community, accessible transportation was the key. Utahns worked with the Utah Transit Authority on various task forces and advisory committees to fulfill the dream of accessible mainline public transportation. After nine years of working to solve the bus lift problem to no avail, (UTA had 23 busses with lifts that were bolted down!) people with disabilities did a “crawl-on”. They got out of their chairs and crawled on to the bus, the rode to the next stop and then reversed the process. Even then, the goal of releasing the lifts already in place and having the General Manager, John Pingree, recommend that the Board order future busses that were lift equipped was not realized.

The next week, about thirty-five people with disabilities went to Main Street and 1^st South and stopped every bus in the system by placing their wheelchairs in front of the busses. New fliers were distributed, complete with a skeleton with thumb out, announced: “I’ve been waiting nine years for the bus. How about a lift?”

Within thirty minutes, Mr. Pingree set up a meeting. The lifts were released and the accessible busses were ordered.

Disabled Rights Action Committee members love our skeleton and the access it stands for. Although we won bus access, our logo is unfortunately still timely as we continue to grow old while waiting for many more of our critical rights to be recognized.