It’s a cloudy Pittsburgh day in 2011 and I am on a bicycle in the back alleys of the strip district. I’m panting and wheezing, pedaling as fast as I can, dodging potholes that I hope won’t upend me. Partly, this is because I’m running late, trying to get to a protest of Governor Tom Corbett’s education cuts. But mostly, it’s because I am trying my damnedest to keep up with Paul O’Hanlon, who is making his motorized wheelchair bounce and rattle atop the broken pavement at a dizzying speed. We were both at a meeting of Occupy Pittsburgh, and I had decided I should accompany Paul on the trip. You know, look after him a bit. Silly me. He’s leaving me far behind and it’s all I can do to try to match his pace.

I think that’s all any of us could ever do. Try our feeble best to keep up with him.

I first met Paul on election day in 2008, in the “escalation room” of Election Protection – lawyers who volunteer their services to safeguard our vote. I was there as the dispatcher for “Video the Vote” a group trying to do the same thing with video cameras. (This was before everybody had cellphone cameras in their pockets.) There were a few dozen attorneys around a big conference table at a downtown law firm. They took calls from an 800 number. If the call seemed like it represented serious skullduggery, then it was escalated to a smaller group of more expert lawyers. Alpha lawyers you might say. Paul was without doubt an alpha lawyer, and so there he was – ready to battle electoral evil.

Mercifully, there was less skullduggery than anticipated that election. That left a lot of down time to sit and talk and get to know the person working next to you. The Paul I got to know that day was passionate, whip-smart, warm and sincere. The kind of person who leaves an impression on you – a serious Atticus Finch vibe.

As I indicated, our paths crossed again in the muddy confines of the Occupy Pittsburgh encampment. Well, actually, just before. He was there at a planning meeting, laying out the legal case for taking over the public space of Mellon Green downtown. When it came to Occupy, Paul seemed to be everywhere. Dispensing legal information, yes. But more importantly, movement wisdom. Paul had seen a lot advocating for disability rights, housing rights, education rights, etc and learned from every bit of it.

It was in the area of public transit where I came to know, and appreciate, Paul the most. He was part of the founding group of Pittsburghers for Public Transit. That same year of 2011 transit in Pittsburgh was facing a 40% cut. Cuts had been foisted on the public for years and this one would be devastating. Paul understood, along with others, that the public needed to be aware of a trend that was happening in darkness. And thus the Transit Twelve was born – a dozen activists who sat mid-road and stopped traffic in downtown Pittsburgh to raise awareness of the damage those cuts would do.

The Twelve were arrested for their civil disobedience and carted off to be arraigned of course. Well, eleven of them. The police did not know what do to with the erudite and self-assured attorney in the wheelchair. They couldn’t just toss him in a squad car. The picture you see above is of Paul next to a police officer – a Paul miffed because he isn’t being arrested along with the others. The story I heard is that shortly after this picture was taken, Paul got impatient and just motored over in his chair to the public safety building, driving himself to his own arrest. I haven’t been able to confirm the story’s veracity – but it’s true to the Paul that I knew. That’s exactly the kind of thing he would have done.

Paul was on Pittsburghers for Public Transit’s coordinating committee (the precursor to the board of directors) for years. I watched him consistently guide legal and organizing policy with his careful and wise counsel. He was everything a great movement lawyer should be – thorough, precise, compassionate. And with all that brainpower, with all that experience, I never once saw him be condescending or less than completely open to the contribution of others. As is true with such a long list of issues – transit in Pittsburgh would be severely diminished without the efforts of Paul O’Hanlon.

Earlier this year, Paul had a medical setback that sent him to the hospital. The condition made it difficult for him to speak and even breathe. When I went to visit, he wanted so badly to hear about what everyone was doing in the movement space. And he had a take on all of it, spoken in his same measured and complete way, even though he struggled with every word. Because he labored so hard to speak, it was all I could do to stop myself from trying to finish his sentences. Paul, though, was going to say it the way he felt it should be said – no matter what that took.

Amazingly he bounced back from it. There he was out in the world again, buzzing around in his chair, making sure he didn’t miss anything. Sadly, so very sadly, that was short-lived. Last week illness and infection caught up to him. As quick and as mobile as he was, mortality still caught up to him – in the way it will overtake all of us. He passed away last weekend. This passing hits me hard, as it hits dozens, maybe hundreds, of others.

I’m going to conclude with a quote I think Paul would have approved of. It’s from Mother Jones, who said:

“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living”

I will miss you – my comrade, my friend.

When I was 14 years old, my dad had a conference in Denmark, and I tagged along. It wasn’t safe to let naive little me wander the streets of Copenhagen by myself, though. Thankfully Lori Levin brought her husband, Paul O’Hanlon, and their 10-month-old son Sam along with her. My dad somehow conspired with them that I thought that I was being Daddy’s Helper by pushing Paul around town in his manual wheelchair and playing with Sam in various playgrounds, when really Paul was babysitting me.

A few years later when I’d moved to Pittsburgh to attend Carnegie Mellon, I ran into Paul. He remembered me and we exchanged some pleasantries, and then I didn’t really see him again for about a decade.

In 2015, however, all of that changed. I’d become more and more disabled myself at that point, and after meeting my dearest, beloved friend Richard Meritzer, he brought me to my very first City-County Task Force on Disabilities and introduced me to such powerful voices as Jeff Parker, who I miss dearly. There with everyone else… was Paul. And Paul welcomed me with open arms.

The following year, I’d already started up Access Mob Pittsburgh and I was eager to prove myself and get involved in absofuckinglutely everything. Paul came to me and told me about his big project he’d been working on for many years, Pittsburgh Ballots for Patients, and asked if I would be interested in helping out. That was the first year I was in charge of volunteers for Ballots for Patients, and I’ve done so every two years since then. We had at our height (before UPMC decided to be helpful and provide some of their own aides) upwards of 70 volunteers in nine area hospitals collecting emergency absentee ballots from hospitalized patients who couldn’t go to the polls. This has been some of my proudest work.

There are so many other projects we worked on together as well. He got me involved with the Committee for Accessible Transportation, and we fought HARD to make them allow paratransit vehicles to pull over in bus lanes. We advocated loudly about the need to make the Department of Permits, Licensing, and Inspection prioritize accessible entrances when businesses were making ADA-related infrastructure improvements, to the point that we got a hearing with City Council and the City’s legal team to plea our case.

I cannot say that I agreed with Paul on everything. He could be super pig-headed and obstinate, especially at the end. We had an on-going dispute about whether or not it’s OK to force riders without mobility devices to get up for those who do (it absolutely isn’t – invisible disabilities are still real disabilities).

What I can say, though, is that I would not be the amazing human I am without Paul. And for that I will hold him close in my heart for the rest of my life. Thank you, Paul, for everything you’ve taught me, and for the strength you’ve given me. I promise to keep Ballots for Patients going, and to continue your legacy of advocacy in this City. I love you forever.

Paul was one of the first people I met in 2019 when I worked for ACCESS paratransit. I learned from him trillions of things about disability justice and the abysmal transit access across the city and country for people with disabilities over the years.

Paul’s advocacy radicalized me in so many ways (and we didn’t even know each other that well!). I specifically remember talking with him about how sidewalk curb cuts, while essential, *cannot* be the only accessibility win we fight for–neighbors deserve curb cuts AND we have to dream bigger. I think about it every time I see a new curb cut. He leaves behind a remarkable legacy. Rest in power, Paul.

Alas I can’t exactly remember when I 1st met Paul, it’s been a wild and rough last few years. What I can say is I definitely remember Paul being very insightful, inspirational and a fierce fighter and both Pittsburgh and the PPT Community are a little bleaker with this great loss! The remembrance at the top of the PPT Blog says it well, May you rest in power, friend!

Paul was the best kind of stubborn, clear minded about the obstacles to surviving, to participating, to thriving in this world, and he refused to let them stand. At the outset of his role with PPT, he blocked Fifth and Wood Street downtown to demand action and state funding for transit along with 11 other PPT members – and took an arrest for this civil disobedience. Or rather, he would have, but Pittsburgh police didn’t have a van that could accommodate his wheelchair and so turned him loose. Paul offered to roll to the jail himself, and they still refused. And so Paul went home on the bus, but as his spouse Lori describes it, he was so agitated that the others were in jail without him that he turned around, caught the next bus, and went right to the jail so that he could be together with the others in solidarity. 

While this is an example of his courage, his activism was steady, strategic and long-term. Paul organized alongside community members up and down the Mon Valley to prevent the cuts to the 61 A,B,C buses in 2017, he was part of the braintrust of members that developed PPT’s Fair Fares platform in 2019. He called on PPT to join him in a lawsuit to compel ridehailing companies to provide accessible vehicles under the ADA in 2020. He guided our work for accessible stops and shelters, and around affordable housing, and against the proliferation of private transportation tech. He was a mentor and a friend, and I am grateful to have had him to guide my organizing growth.

Any one of these organizing efforts would be impressive enough in its own right- but PPT was only one very small part of the legacy that he leaves behind. From founding Ballots for Patients, whose work continues through the leadership of Alisa Grishman and Access Mob, to organizing tenants and advocating for more expansive use of Section 8 homeownership opportunities, to participating in a commission for Wilkinsburg’s home rule charter, to laying the groundwork for so much of the disability rights gains in Southwest PA over the last half century, Paul O’Hanlon was somehow both the mildest and fiercest force to be reckoned with. He is survived by his spouse Lori and son Sam, and by all of us- we will continue the movement in his memory.