By Jim O'Sullivan
News Editor

Users of Savin Hill Station are joining the MBTA in lobbying a state panel to allow the station to reopen without full handicap access, while disability advocates fault the T for setting up a battle between two ridership groups.

The station, initially promised to open in January after an eight-month shutdown, will not open until at least the end of July, if the state's Architectural Access Board (AAB) sticks with its decision that contractors first have to install a handicap accessible elevator, as mandated by federal law.

That ruling has outraged Savin Hill residents, who want the station open on May 31, when it will be ready for non-handicapped commuters, the T says. At the Columbia/Savin Hill Civic Association meeting on Monday, members voted unanimously to send letters to the AAB and Gov. Mitt Romney, asking for a second vote based on additional information, such as public safety risks posed to people who walk to and from JFK-UMass, hardships for elderly residents who relied on the rail service, real estate investments, and timing inconveniences for commuters.

"All these little ancillary issues, that are sort of hard to tie up and quantify, do exist," said Paul Nutting, a former president of the civic group.

A spokeswoman for the state's Executive Office of Public Safety, of which the AAB is a division, said the next course of action for insistent activists is motion to reconsider.

The spokeswoman, Katie Ford, said if the board decides not to hear the motion, then the next step could be litigation.

Saying they will provide a construction update and news of a rescheduled hearing, T officials scheduled a meeting for May 11, at 6:30 p.m., in the Blessed Mother Teresa Parish School. Station designs call for two elevators and an escalator, with one elevator required to be operational to qualify for state and federal compliance. The second elevator is expected to be finished in September, according to T testimony at last month's hearing.

At the April 25 meeting, T project manager Scott Kelly told the board that the transit agency and its general contractor also handling both the Shawmut and Fields Corner overhauls, Barletta Heavy Division, share blame for the postponements equally.

A T community relations official told association members Monday that the T had expected the April 25 appeal, of an earlier decision that a station with no elevator would stand in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, would be granted. The official, Pablo Calderon, said, "Even the appeals board had given us some indication that they were going to grant the appeal."

But, asked outside the meeting what indication the T had received, Calderon said there had been no communication. "We based that on the past," he said.

Several members expressed skepticism that community pressure could dissuade the board from their decision.

"I thought it was a tyrannical state, to be honest with you," said Maria Waldron, an elderly and handicapped Savin Hill resident who attended the April 25 meeting at Ashburton Place on Beacon Hill, during which board members scolded T officials.

She added, "No appeal is going to make any difference to that board."

But, while many Savin Hill residents focused their anger on the AAB, advocates for the disabled were directing their ire toward the T, saying the transit agency had shrugged the results of its own incompetence onto the shoulders of the handicapped.

"The T shouldn't have tried to start a war between the abled and the disabled," said Marilyn McNabb, who lives in Fields Corner and uses a cane to walk.

Disability advocates say that, despite T promises that a restricted opening in May would not delay July's fully accessible opening, the T's track record of providing handicap access discourages them.

"They wouldn't open up the station without the things to put your tokens in," said Andrew Forman, an independent living skills specialist at the Boston Center for Independent Living. "Why? Because they wouldn't consider it complete. Well, we don't consider a handicapped inaccessible station as complete."

Some Savin Hill dwellers, upset with opposition to the opening, distributed fliers last week that said the opening delay was "thanks to City Councilor Felix Arroyo," because Arroyo had sent an aide to register his stance at the hearing.

Arroyo greeted commuters at JFK/UMass Station on Monday afternoon, handing out fliers of his own that read, "Stop the Finger-pointing! Open Savin Hill T Station Now!"

Flanked by aides and handicapped advocates, Arroyo made the case that the T had misled residents into thinking that its initial reopening forecasts of January and February included full handicap accessibility. Arroyo called the T's handling of the schedule "atrocious."

Standing in the busway of JFK-UMass Station, where once and future Savin Hill Station users, get on and off their replacement buses, Arroyo tried to hand a flier to a busdriver who replied that he'd received one on his last trip.

"Whatever happened to blaming the contractor?" the driver asked.

"Somebody dropped the ball," Arroyo said.

"Oh, no doubt about it."