Note: The output shown below is from the Communication Access 

Realtime Translation (CART) system used in the On-Board Circulation and 

Seating Subcommittee meeting #9 and is generally unedited. The CART 

system was used to provide an accommodation to persons with hearing 

loss and persons who are deaf, and was streamed in real-time and 

available to the public on the internet during the meeting. 

UNITED STATES ACCESS BOARD

RAIL VEHICLES ACCESS ADVISORY COMMITTEE

ON-BOARD CIRCULATION AND SEATING MTG #9 SUBCOMMITTEE 

TELECONFERENCE

Thursday, October 8, 2014 1:00 p.m.

>> Good afternoon, everybody. This is Paul Beatty speaking. Welcome to

the ninth meeting of the onboard circulation and seating subcommittee. 

Before I go into my normal opening remarks, for any committee members

that were attending the September full committee meetings, if you haven't

yet responded to that e-mail requesting approval of the draft summary

meeting minutes, please do so. The deadline is October 10, and next week 

we'll be sending out a reminder e-mail. I'd love to have you included in the list

of people that have responded versus the list of people that have not

responded.

Now, going back to the subcommittee. OK, as you know, anyone may

participate in subcommittee discussions. Therefore, no time for public

comment has been scheduled during these -- this two-hour call. CART chat

box? We do have the CART chat box available, so if you only participate via
the CART system and you desire to raise a question or make a statement,

please enter it in the chat box and we'll be monitoring that, and we'll

communicate that to the subcommittee chair.

Remember when you're speaking to give your name, and as a reminder --

actually, we haven't set the next November meeting, so that's one of the

issues on your agenda, probably toward the end. So I can't remind you about

the November meeting. I will introduce those in the room. Jim Pecht, myself

Paul Beatty, Rose Bunales. Rose, who is on the conference call line?

>> OK, I will do this. First what I see in the chat room, the CART room is Jose

Vega, Elena Vanloo, Marilyn Golden and Don Mebius. Now, when I call your

name, please restate your name and your organization. We're going to do an

audio check off of that. Starting with Calvin Gibson.

>> Good. Elena Vanloo.

>> Here, with FRA.

>> Here, at BART, California.

>> OK. Jose Vega?

>> Yes, Jose Vega of MTA Long Island Railroad.

>> The line is good. Jackson Xue?

>> Present, Jackson Xue, Parsons Brinckerhoff.

>> Good. The line is good. Marilyn Golden?
>> Marilyn Golden, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, I'm

muting myself most of the time. It's a bit noisy here.

>> OK. Sid Goldstein? [No response] OK, Sid Goldstein going one.

>> I can hardly hear you.

>> Sid Goldstein?

>> That's Dennis talking. OK, Blair Slaughter?

>> Yes, Blair Slaughter from Amtrak.

>> Line is good. Judy Buckley?

>> This is Judith Buckley from New York City Transit MTA.

>> Melissa Anderson?

>> Melissa Anderson Access Board, and I'm going to have to leave after

about 15 or 20 minutes.

>> OK. Don Mebius

>> Don Mebius, LTK engineering service.

>> Marsha Mazz?

>> Dennis C annon.

>> Marsha, US Access Board, right around the corner from you.
>> Dennis Cannon, National Disability Rights Network.

>> David Nelson?

>> David Nelson, Amtrak. I'm here.

>> OK. Steve, this is a question for the CART reporter, is there any lines

that you need boosted?

>> This is Steve. No, all lines sound good.

>> Everybody but Marsha sounds really faint.

>> OK, everything is good for the CART reporter. Blair?

>> Yes?

>> Turning it over to you.

>> OK. Hello, everybody.

>> Hello.

>> I'm actually running via generator power on the Outer Banks of North

Carolina right now, so -- [Laughter] It's a tenuous process, but amazing

technology. OK, first off, I assume everyone's had a look at the agenda,

and if there's any questions about it please raise those. Otherwise, I'd like

to approve the agenda and move forward.

[No response]
OK, hearing no comment, let's move forward. I had as item No. 3 the

matrix now is the updates from the last meeting. There's not a lot of

updates. There were, obviously, at the last meeting, but this time around it

was more cleaning up, I think, and some deletions of review and

completion of the attached matrix, but what you see in items as well.

Bear with me just a second. If you can look at note number one, what I did

because there was so much discussion around the clear doorway, or the

door leave size for rapid transit, is

I tried to state the concerns and left it as we would like the industry input

from door and vehicle manufacturers to determine the most practical and

reliable solution based on the issues we've listed here. Is everyone OK

with that? To leave it that way? Anyone from the Access Board?

>> This is Melissa Anderson. I think that's probably a good way to handle

it. If there are specific questions that you think would be helpful, maybe we

can identify those before -- in the recommendations that are made.

>> OK. The big concern was that we heard expressed was is the solution

going to be that the single leave is 32 inches or is there some other

reasonable door system device or contrivance that

would take care of the same concern.

>> Yeah.

>> Versus a door failure is a door failure, whether it's got 32-inch leaves or

16-inch leaves.

>> Right. I think as long as they identify what the questions are good.

>> OK. OK. May I have the -- what I thought was the key issue that when
a door fails or there's partial failure, you can be stuck in the

when the recommendations are made to the board, that will be train and have

to go to the next stop or to the end of the line or whatever. So OK, I will draft

something up for that.

Note number two, we had a lot of conversation about the narrowing of

aisleways and passageways at the cab end of cars, transit cars and there was

a suggested change to add cab cars generally and MU cars. I think that's

probably a reasonable thing to add. That is an area of some conflict, 

obviously, because if there is a clear path up to that point, then that becomes

the choke point. And I have to apologize. It's been dead quiet here all day,

but now there's dune buggies and all kinds of things going by, and driving the

wrong way on the road, of course, where I'm at.

Anyway, I'm not sure that we had resolved this item, because the concern was

affecting the clear view of the operator versus having the clear path through

the doors. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

>> Yeah, this is Dennis Cannon. The issue was whether we could actually

get, say, a 32-inch clear door width on the end, and there was discussion

between both manufacturers and others about various configurations that

could or could not accommodate that, wherever feasible and does not obstruct

the clear sight of the operator, and then say the Access Board is asked to

seek specific comments on designs that would accommodate this that are

practical or practicable.

>> OK. Dennis, I think that resolves the -- or gets it out there so we and I

thought it might be useful to say that it should be 32 inches can get a

reasonable answer on it. If you don't have a 32-inch clear path to get to that

door, then having the path through the door
seems irrelevant anyway, but -- and I think the language now in the regs is

sort of like that, if there is a path then it should be the dimension through the

doorway.

OK, I will write that up that way.

>> Are we still going down the notes? This is still Dennis.

>>Yes.

>> I have a question on something I saw up on the matrix, which is, well, it

appears, let's see, it's in I guess light rail. The space, the seating space is still

30 by 48 there. And the same as on commuter rail. I thought we had agreed

to change them all to 32 by 54. Is that not correct?

>> Well, what I have, Dennis, the way it's still listed is we have what the

existing is, then what RVAC is recommending. So yeah, the existing is 30 by

48, but the next row down, where it's the RVAC recommendations, is 32 by

54/32 by 59. Then that shoots down to note 3.

>> OK. OK. had left that was that the 32 by 59 is required when the space is 

confined on three sides to ensure adequate maneuvering space, and I had a

question about that, because that -- does the overlap of fixed objects apply to

that dimension? And of course, we were

recommending to change the height of the overlap for that. So I'd
>> Since you brought that up, that's a good point, note 3, the way I

appreciate some comment on that.

>> Good question. [Laughter] This is Dennis again. I think it probably does,

and that might be another area where we would ask for specific comments

about how that affects things.

>> OK.

>> We're still waiting for, I think, Bob was going to measure some under

seat dimensions for us to find out whether the 12 inches actually worked or

not. Bob Reuter. I guess he's still out or whatever.

>> Yeah, he was going to go to APTA and I think try to get some information

from the suppliers there. OK. OK. I've noted that we will ask for specific

comment on that. I know that if we project a cubic measure up, obviously

from a provider standpoint, that becomes more onerous than allowing some

overlap.

OK, let's see. If we look down in 5-B, obviously we had a across the

doorways, and while some of the providers, like Metro in DC I talked about

by moving stanchions and things really improve the congestion at the

doorways and improve the immediacy of access into the car, we had

comment from other places like BART, I think it was, that really over

defining that or restricting that could create some problems for ambulatory

passengers that needed sort of a safe haven in an otherwise very wide open

space.

lot of conversation on rapid transit and light rail about the path
So what I did is I reworded this to have a clear path dimension across the

vehicles. So the idea is that if we're looking at what occurs with a

vestibule, having that at 44 inches, we would have a clear path across the

vehicle. What I change it to is this path does not have to be a straight line

across the doorways. The intent of this is to ensure people in mobility

devices can quickly move onto the vehicle, but at the same time not over

defining the vertical stanchions to the point that ambulatory safety is

compromised. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

>> Blair, this is Marilyn. What note are you reading now?

>> That is 5-B, Marilyn.

>> Ah, thank you. I think -- I do want to comment. I have to be on a 

speakerphone here this morning. Is it adequately audible or whatever?

>> Sounds good to me, Marilyn.

>> OK. Well, I just think that -- I'm a little concerned about the discussion. 

I think we're trying to be looking towards the future doing. You know, I

guess we're all struggling for the right answer, because we do need

adequate stanchions, but we also had discussion about, and Dennis may

want to comment on this, for example, there's an existing rule that you

can't have stanchions near the doorway. Dennis can refresh, or the staff

can refresh on the exact language, and I thought the discussion revealed

that the original intent of the current standards was that that applied all the

and not letting sort of current political battles shape what we're way across

these rapid rail vehicles.

Now, I acknowledge that it's perfectly legitimate to have a discussion that

maybe that was wrong and there should be stanchions, but I just want to be
careful about that. So I'm curious if anyone has comments on any of that.

>> Yeah, this is Dennis. The current rule doesn't quite say that, and it's not

real clear, but the issue here is that rapid rail cars frequently have both

center and side platforms, so in many cases you will get on one side and exit

the other. So you want to be able to move across easily.

Now, the idea that the path doesn't have to be straight sounds nice except

that when the cars are crowded that can be a real problem. I think that the

issue of having the central stanchion in there simply means that the

designers haven't paid much attention windscreens and just inside the door. 

We see lots of different configurations here in DC, which have plenty of

things for people who are semi-ambulatory to grab onto when inside the

door. They can actually reach some of them outside on the platform, reach

in around the corner and grab a hold of a stanchion that is inside the car.

So my answer to the issue of we need this vertical stanchion in order to give

adequate room assumes that somebody can sort of get across, halfway

across the car to get to this to stanchion placement, period. There's plenty of

room on stanchion, when in fact putting stanchions by the door is actually a 

better solution. I think that the issue that we're currently dealing with, and in

kind of a political context, is purely a case of not having thought about the

design very well. I don't want to perpetuate that kind of thinking that says, Oh,

we've got to have these vertical stanchions. We've had lots of older Metro

cars where they've done that, put a vertical stanchion right in the middle of the 

identify. Makes it very difficult. Not impossible to get around that stanchion in

the older cars, but it certainly is complicated, and it's much more difficult when

the car is crowded.

I really think that we should have a clear path, the width of the door all the

way across the vehicle, when there are doors opposite each other. Obviously,
we have doors on only one side of the car that doesn't apply.

>> Dennis, this is Blair. So I'm just trying to again look at the -- if say, 54-inch

wide or 60-inch wide clear openings, or wider, 64-inch, if we have double 32-

inch leaves, that ends up with a really huge area across the car with nothing in

it. Is there any sanity in going back to the 44-inch clear path straight across,

so if you struck a line from the door, the wall of the car, the door, and pushed

a 44-inch wide cubic measure across the car you would ensure that there's no

stanchions or anything in that path, but it would not preclude something being

in that space. Would that serve the same purpose and maybe be a

reasonable middle ground between huge open you have very wide doors, the

thing that was expressed if you got, spaces and enough open space?

>> As far as I'm concerned, I think that works. I don't know what other people

think.

>> Any thoughts? Marilyn, do you have any thoughts on that?

>> This is Marilyn from DREDF. I think that's OK too. I mean, I think -- I didn't

sort of mean that you have to have as big a space as the most giant door in

the world. You know, you have to have whatever sort of a reasonable rapid

rail door actually is, that space going all the way across. But I just think

Dennis' point is important to capture, which is that we are moving in a

direction of saying that it isn't in our view of the RVAC a forward thinking

design to plant a vertical stanchion in the center of that space, at each end of

the standard design rapid rail car of today and of the future.

>> Marilyn, this is Marcia. I have a question. Have you thought about where

these handhelds get placed even on the walls, where they don't go to the

floor? Because from my own observations it seems to me that these

stanchions are a double-edged sword. On the one hand they enable people
to have something to hold onto in these big empty spaces, but they also

discourage people from moving toward the center of the train, which is what

every driver pleads with them to do. So that they don't block the doors and

don't make it impossible for people to get on the train. Regardless of whether

they're people who use wheelchairs or not.

So the more you have these handholds you put closer to

Dennis, I think very well articulated the reasons why. the door, then it's not

just the handhold that gets in the way, it's the body of the passenger who

gets -- you know, who's crowding that door, making it impossible for people

to get on.

They do the same thing here in Washington with the little walls that they put

on either side of the door. People stand against with their backs against

those walls and make it impossible for folks to exit or enter the train,

because they won't give way. Those are the people whose feet I like to

tread on.

[Laughter]

>> Marcia, this is Marilyn, and everyone, point well taken. That -- you know,

that is the issue that really for me I learned here, and Glen from WMATA

was the first person that articulated that not only is getting rid of the

stanchions good for accessibility, but it really on and off the cars.

We recognize it is a legitimate, very real need by the general public, but

also very much by people with certain disabilities to have adequate

stanchions. We have staff at DREDF who are not wheelchair users and are

unstable on their feet and really need a rigid place to hold on. It can't be a

strap, it has to be a bar and all of that.
So that has been the balance point in the discussion, and what I feel good

about from our discussion today is Dennis' initial statement in response to

my question really articulated how many places you have to put stanchions

that don't infringe on either the helped with passengers and lowered dwell

time, made it easy to get legitimate sort of holding on of the general public

or people with disabilities who need to grab on.

So really there is a solution here that helps everyone. It --

>> In my view, it's not just the stanchions. For example, WMATA may be

removing the stanchions, but they're not removing those wing walls, from

what I understand, in their newest designs, and those wing walls are what

again encourage people to cluster at the door, making it almost impossible

for someone using a wheelchair to board.

>> Yeah. Is there -- I would appreciate assistance with coming up with

language to express that. the middle of that area you actually encourage

people to stand there.

>> Right.

>> So you're actually doing the disservice by putting those. The wing walls

are there because they used to be called modesty panels, which they are

in buses, but they're there for windscreen when there's wind coming in the

door, to sort of protect people from sitting there. Now, in some of the 6,000

Metro cars, for example, they don't exist on every door. I think it's the

center or each end. Anyway, they have handhelds –

>> One of the points they made about the newest design, Dennis, was that

they're retaining those.
>> Right, the newest design does have them in there, but I haven't

>> This is Dennis. One of the things that if you put a stanchion in seen the

new one. It seems to me that the center door is much like the current 6,000,

which is -- I don't think it has the wing walls, but maybe I'm wrong.

>> It was something that they focused on in a Post article.

>> Yeah, the 6,000 has handrails immediately inside the wall that go -- that

are vertical and horizontal and make a right angle curve. That's the kind of

handrail that you could place close to the door, that people could actually

reach when they're outside and it allows them to continue hanging onto that

handrail while they move into the interior of the car. Far better than having the

stanchion in the middle of the aisle, where you have to essentially cross open

space and block the entrance.

So I think the issue of the 44-inch clear path straight across solves most of

those questions. The other issue is there are some -- has been some

discussion about requiring, we did it in the proposed bus rules that require

handrails on the backs of seats, seats that are not reclining and don't pivot,

but fixed seats, and every other one on opposite sides having a hold that goes

from that handrail up to the ceiling, or at least up to an overhead roll. Those 

are the kind of things that I think help lots of people move through the car and

to get away from the door.

>> So this is Marilyn. Sorry, go ahead. This is Marilyn. Blair, do you feel

comfortable about capturing what I said appears to me to be a consensus 

here. If it's not a consensus, somebody should say to get to it, then cluster

around it as several people obviously do it. I think what Marcia and Dennis

are saying is very agreeable to me, your number, Blair, seems agreeable. 

So our task is to capture that, unless it's a dispute here. Of course, there
may be others at the future stage.

It seems to me that we've articulated a very sort of valid statement of how

this design serves everybody's needs.

>> This is Aaron Weinstein from BART, and I think the discussion has been

good, and I'm glad to hear that there's recognition of meeting the needs of

different types of disabilities. We've been previous calls, and I think that the

proposal on the table is worth considering. I'd like an opportunity to go back

and look at how those measurements would work with some of our designs.

There is one other nuance that I think is important when the final regs are

drafted, and that is in a vehicle, whether it's rapid transit or another type, if

there are particular doors where the focal point of a wheelchair designation

zone is a priority and other doors where there isn't a designated zone,

perhaps there needs to be some accommodation of that, of that distinction.

The reason I bring that up is we still get some feedback here at BART in the

San Francisco Bay area from some subsets of the disabilities community

that want to see us have particular doors that accommodate multiple people

who are in wheelchairs, so that they can sit together. We're very sensitive

to that, and still looking at our options, and it's possible that we might in the

future have a having that discussion in the Bay Area, as Marilyn talked about

in door with multiple wheelchair areas without any pole, potentially, but then

other doors where there isn't a designated zone, where we wouldn't want to

have necessarily the restriction on the pole.

So I again thank everyone for the good discussion of this, and I want a

chance to at least go back and look a little more carefully at the proposal

that's on the table.
>> Yeah, this is Marilyn from DREDF. I hear what you're saying, Aaron. 

One concern I have as a member of RVAC is that I think it's fine for

everyone to do whatever research they need to do, but the designs. The

point is what the car of the future will be, and even if -- I mean, the Access

Board's rules apply to new construction anyway, and that's often a

confusion. People think they are a retrofit rule or something like that, and

every rule the Access Board has, I can say that from having been on the

board as well as an observer, there's always confusion that -- again,

research is fine, but if it's in conflict with something you're currently doing

that shouldn't nix it, because it doesn't require you to change what you're

already doing. It's about the future.

>> Marilyn, I understand your point, and that's --

>> Can I just make one other --

>> The only reason I wanted to go back and check some of our dimensions

is not so much comparing to what the current plan is, but I know that as

you open up that 44-inch straight path across it's possible that the pole

could interfere with other important point of these proposals aren't how it

fits with anybody's current accessible paths. So I wanted a chance to look

at that issue.

With our new train cars, for the first time we're going to open up the aisles

to an accessible dimension, and I wanted to make sure we didn't cut off

paths to the aisles. So that's the only thing we want to look at to make sure

that 44 is the right number. The higher that number is, the narrower some

other paths will be, so I just wanted a chance to go back and look at that.

The other point I wanted to just say in response was -- sorry. That the -- all

right, I have to figure out these notes. I'll bring it up later. Sorry. Go ahead.
>> Marilyn, this is Blair. Just so I understand, so if we look at projecting a

clear path across the car at 44 inches, and the reason I wanted to come up

with some number was to make sure that we had a path that was going to

be comfortably accessible across the car, where there's not a lot of

definition other than in some cases stanchions, but to have something to put

at that to ensure that when folks sit down and start designing, that they're

thinking about these things from the very beginning and have at least a

number. Now, the risk always is that if you put a number there, that's what 

you get. You get nothing more.

Since we're looking at vehicles and I think Andre Gagne pointed out

different vehicles that are being developed now that have very wide

doorways, up to 60 inches or more, that that space across the car can be

quite large. So if we want to drop back and

>> Huh. Interesting. OK. Thank you. say it's going to be the width of the

doors across, or the clear width across I'm OK with that, but I didn't want to

put something against that as a minimum so that we make sure that we have

a smart level of accessibility across these vehicles, so that you can come in

and if your center platform in one station and side platform on the next, you

can come in and go straight across without running into a vertical obstacle.

Marilyn. I think that makes sense. I remember the other thing. I think in

terms of the number, I think what was articulated, I'm not a figure number

technical expert on the number, but if Dennis thinks 44 is fine, I don't know the

best way to write it, but I'm fine with the number.

The thing I wanted to say before, it's really two issues, and they both have to

do with consistency. One is that these cars get used both when a rider may

need to go from one -- enter on one platform on one side and exit the other,
both in that situation, and in situations where you're going to exit on the same

side. So I think the car design has to be as if you're going to go through.

The other thing was what Aaron mentioned, which is to do certain things on

some cars, certain things on other cars, and I'd love to ask the group for

people's thinking about whether it makes sense to have an inconsistency like

that, because -- you know, on different cars, what are the issues raised if it's

inconsistent, people don't know what to expect? Is it an advantage? Is it a

>> Agreed. No, I think that makes sense, Blair. Sorry, this is 

disadvantage? Is there any way to compensate for the disadvantage?

>> This is Dennis Cannon. The way it currently works is every car is

required to be accessible, and I thought that what was being

talked about in terms of different spaces was different doors, rather several

other systems, there's an international symbol at one end that says "This is

a space where we've got a particular space for wheelchair" but the fact of

the matter is that the current rule says as long as you have open clear floor

space equal to 30 by 48 somewhere in the car and you can get to that

space from the door, meaning it might be just inside the door or just

around the around the corner, that there isn't any requirement for

designated parking space -- seating spaces currently. The idea is you can

get as many chairs together as you want, as long as there's clear floor

space.

In cars I've ridden, both here and in Boston and so forth, you can do that,

even though there's a space that's been designated that might have even,

in some cases in the old WMATA cars, has a securement device which

doesn't work. It's possible for three or four people to sit together, just

because there's clear floor space. It doesn't mean that you have to have

special seating locations, bays or whatever located for that to happen.
Right now, I've seen lots of instances, in fact, just the other day I was

riding in a car and we had three people in chairs who came in the same

door. Then we were all seated close enough than different cars, because

right now in Metro, for example, and to each other to be able to have a

conversation. So I don't think it's a case of having different cars with seating,

so much as to have areas where maybe in a different door that might be

designated with the international symbol you could expect to have a little

more clear floor space.

addressing, I think we're fine with that, you know. There's --

>> This is --

>> This is Blair. There could be a communication issue there, I guess, if you

have multiple spaces and you're as a provider saying, you're advertising

you've got multiple spaces, maybe that's something that you would add to

the international designation, that says there's X number of spaces available

in this vehicle versus maybe the other doorway which meets the minimum

requirements.

>> This is David Nelson here. So probably -- well, I've been talking with a lot

of the -- I've been talking with a lot of people with wheeled mobility devices

and so forth. It's very interesting the change in the trends that I've been

seeing upon talking to certain people, that

someday hopefully there will never, ever have to be an international symbol

on any type of door or ramp or anything like that, that hopefully everything

would be accessible.

I'm just bringing this up in order to keep it in the back of your mind, that's all,

that one day we might not need that.
>> This is Aaron Weinstein from BART. Perhaps I can provide a little more

clarity of what we were hearing from the disability

>> Yeah, that makes sense to me. If that's the way Aaron was community

out here in the Bay Area. We had with our new train cars planned to

replicate the old train cars and having two dedicated wheelchair zones on

each car, one at each of the end disability community was that they wanted

to see a design that allowed multiple people in wheelchairs to sit together,

and we have been thinking about that a bit.

One of the options that we are thinking about is, because we're adding a

third door which would be in the center of every car, possibly having both

wheelchair zones at the third door with no it floor-to-ceiling pole at all, to

kind of both solve the pole issue and to be responsive to the demand for

multiple seating spaces. That's still under consideration, but I think the one

thing that could be considered in the wording of the regs would be to make

sure that any restriction, for example, the 44-inch path, would only apply to 

doors where there are designated wheelchair zones as described in the

regs, something like that.

>> OK. Aaron, thank you very much.

>> Hi. One thing for BART, it might be helpful if he could circulate some

press articles or whatnot about BART's design process. It might be

informative for someone to have that and to see. That is something I would

just note, and maybe I missed it, but you all may want to discuss where this

necessarily applies equally to light rail and to heavy rail.

>> Thanks, Chris. Aaron, if I can ask of you, if you've got doors. But some

of the feedback that we had had from the information about what you guys
are doing, if you could forward that to me or to the Access Board and they

can push it on to me. What I'd like to do is draft up some things along with

that close this out in the next meeting perhaps.

>> Yes, I'd be happy to. Thank you.

>> Great. I appreciate that.

OK, if we can move to note 5-C, and that's sort of in the same ballpark of

what we were talking about, and that's titled handrails. Handrails provided

adjacent to doors to aid boarding and alighting passengers, whether in

wheelchairs or ambulatory, may be at the 32-inch minimum or six inches

less than the clear door opening apart, whichever is greater. And in the

September meeting there was concern expressed that if we had vertical 

handholds right by the door, that folks would congregate by the door, and I

think whether we have handholds there or not there's always going to be

those folks that are jammed up against the door, or just not being very

accommodating to anyone.

My concern is that if we don't have the ability, and again I'm thinking more

on our -- from the Amtrak side of things, where we're trying to add

handholds for folks to step across the gap, that having handholds just inside

the vehicle can be a very wonderful thing for folks getting in, maybe less of

an issue with rapid transit where you've got very good platform-to-car

relationships, but there has to be some coming together on that.

information and push it back out for folks to look at so we can

Anyone have any thoughts on that? I know that the folks those vertical

handholds stepping into the car. Any thoughts on that?
>> Yeah. This is Dennis. Vertical handholds doesn't necessarily mean it goes

from floor to ceiling. They can, in fact, be like the ones in the 6,000 WMATA

cars, which are right inside the door. They're attached to the wall. They start

up high, they're vertical until about, oh, maybe 30 inches off the floor, 33,

something like that, then they make a right angle turn and run along the inside

of the car on the wall.

You have handrails that are immediately graspable from where you are,

outside even, but don't actually interfere with maneuverable clearance inside. 

The issue, you're absolutely right, all of the exhortations about -- incidentally,

we have three doors on the cars in Metro and the announcement is move to

the center of the car. If you move to the center of the car, you're standing in

the center doorway.

[Laughter]

So the reality is what you want to say is move away from the doors, not to the

center of the car. But you're right, people gather in those spaces regardless. 

I ride the Metro and there's plenty of empty seats in nonrush hour, and people

congregate right there in the door because they want to be able to get off

quickly without having to hassle crowds and whatever. So the people are

going to be from Long Island had expressed concerns at not being able to

have there no matter what you do.

they electrify, you know. [Laughter]

>> Hello, Blair?

>> Yes.

>> This is Jose Vega from MTA Long Island Railroad.

>> How are you?
>> Fine. How are you?

>> Pretty good.

>> All right. You asked for feedback, you said on the concern of not being

able to provide a vertical handhold on some of the equipment. I'm not

familiar with the exact problem, I guess, that we have. I didn't have a

chance to talk with Mr. Maldari to see what the concern was, but at the

entrance, at the side door areas, currently on our equipment we have

these horizontal handholds that are mounted on the -- if you go into the

door opening on each side there's like a small wall, like where the wind

screens are. We have a horizontal mounted railing that you can grab when

you board the vehicle, but not a vertical mounted rail that, I guess, you're 

describing.

I'm not sure, I guess what the concern was where we were going to locate

them, if it was going to be right by the door itself or maybe two feet in the

car from the door opening. That's the part I'm not sure about, and I would

have to follow up and get back with the RVAC separately. There's a

concern with that.

>> This is Blair. Jose, thank you for that. I think what the concern, the

conversation was around, one, making sure that if there are handholds

they don't impede the 32-inch minimum of the space, and -- but also to, as

Dennis talked about, to talk about the controversy between having the

handholds, whether they're vertical or horizontal, and dealing with people

congregating at the doors, and I think that the point was that folks are

going to congregate whether there are or aren't handrails, but you

shouldn't compromise general safety by ruling those handrails out or

handrails, or -- I guess stanchion would imply they go all the way to the

floor, so we can say handhold or handrail. But we do want to
make sure that where we have them it does not impede the clear pathway.

There was some conversation around having them, I think where this came

from was having them outside of the clear path of the door and I think what

Frank expressed was, no, wait a minute, sometimes these things project

into the doorway paths, but they don't create an obstacle or they don't

violate the clear pathway. So that was just -- was to try to capture that so

there was no question about it.

>> I understand, yes. Thank you. Yeah, that's what -- I guess the railings

now, if you could picture a 50-inch wide door opening now, which is what our

standard is on our equipment, that if you have a horizontal rail on each side

they may slightly go inward from 50 inches, maybe like an inch or two on

each side, but they will not interfere with a 32-inch minimum requirement.

Now, the thing that I would have to check is the 44 inches that you

mentioned before to see if you -- if we maintain that also. I think you were

saying about the cube 44 inches wide, that it will not hit those railings, the

horizontal handrails I was just describing, to see that there's no interference.

>> OK. I appreciate your checking that, and I think what we were looking at

is if you look at the 44 clear space and your 50-inch door and a six-inch

incursion from either -- total incursion, three inches from either side of sort

of handrail, that will put us back to the 44.

Again, there may be vehicles that don't fall into what we are strictly defining

today as rapid rail, maybe applies to light rail, where there is a small door,

and we just want to make sure that we don't encumber that 32-inch

minimum. Just because your door is 50 or 60 inches or whatever, that you

can have an incursion into that space if it's a handrail but no more than six

inches for the total width of the door, and never less than the 32-inch
minimum.

>> OK. Thank you very much, Blair. That's all I have.

>> Thank you. The 44-inch is based on going back to vestibules on cars

that have vestibules. I plucked that number out because it defines a clear

width in a very well-defined space, where you're coming in and making a

right turn into a car. So 44 inches seemed like a reasonable minimum for

any kind of obstruction once you're inside the body of the car, whether it's a

stanchion, wind screen or a vertical wall or whatever it is, that would impede

the pathway into the vehicle, or into a seating area. So that was the driver for

that.

What I will do is I'm going to change that to handrails, whether vertical or

horizontal so there's no question about that.

>> OK. Thank you.

>> And anyone else have any thoughts on that?

>> It would be -- anytime we can see actual diagrams and drawings and even

if they're sketches, that's helpful to see what the result is and maybe allow us

to write, articulate the provision in a little better to understand how to make

sure it works. So it's kind of hard sometimes to figure out these things when

you're imagining placements of handrails and whatever in your head. It

always helps to have a diagram.

>> OK. Jose, could you do me the favor and send me a photograph or

something of what you guys have now, just so -- and I will try to articulate

that? Again, one of the things we want to do is try to take some of these hardto-define things in text and put them into diagrams and things. So that would
be a very good item for us to do that with.

>> Yes, Blair. That would be fine. I'll -- I can get that out to you.

>> OK. I appreciate that. All right. OK. The next place I had red lettering 

was down in note 8, and there was discussion around we could, and there

was a note about replica and rehabilitated cars, and we had it originally as a

length issue, but then there was streetcars, or vehicles we were trying to

define as many vehicles as thought it should be a capacity issue versus size

of the vehicle.

So I had changed that to replica and rehabilitated cars with a capacity of X,

number to be determined, are the same as light rail except for seating

locations, cars with capacity of more than X are the same as light rail. So

those are numbers I'm not sure how to best determine, but I would entertain

any logical numbers that folks can toss out for that.

>> This is Dennis. One of the issues about we tried to do this before with

buses in terms of the length, and we settled on a length because that was

easy to do. Capacity is kind of an interesting question. Do you mean seated

capacity, standing capacity, crush load or whatever? And there's all sorts of

ways to define the seating. Some rail cars have only perimeter seats, and so

they have lots of space in the center for standees, but if you're talking about 

seated capacity they're a lot lower than I think Metro cars, which are typically

something like 80 seats and they have forward and rearward facing pairs on

each side. So it's a little tricky.

I know that there's a requirement in the statute and in the DOT regulations

about vans, for example, with a seating -- as you said, it's capacity, it's been

read as seating capacity of eight or more. One of my colleagues went in an

airport somewhere in – to get a taxi, she's not in a wheelchair, and she got in
the cab, which

She asked something about accessibility, and the guy said, Oh, no, I took

that seat out, because if I had that seat in there it would be happened to be

in a van, and it didn't have a center bench seat.

eight or more and I'd have to make it accessible. So I took the seat out so

I wouldn't have to make it accessible.

So you have to be careful about capacity and defining what that actually

means, because people can get around lots of things by changing the

seating configuration in such a way as to skirt the rule.

>> Right. Dennis, this is Blair. I think to that end there was some 

conversation before about that, that we would have to say if you look at a

lot of buses it will say capacity X seated, so many standees, that you

would want to look at one of those numbers. The crush loading, I think,

throws everything right off the map, but --

>> Right.

>> You make a very good point there that there's somebody will try to work

around virtually anything we do. And we're trying to make folks' life a little

easier on the design side, I think.

So anyway, do we want do go back to a length designation there or what's

going to be our best path forward on that? Do we want to send that out for

more comment?

>> I think that's a good subject of comment, because there's lots of answer

is. Again, we settled on a length before because it was the easiest to do. 
All of the other suggestions about gross vehicle weight and all kinds of

other things had problems with trying to define and catching a group of

vehicles in one category that differing views about that, and I don't actually

know what the somehow weren't going to be caught up because of some

other arbitrary thing. Length is kind of arbitrary in many ways, and it wasn't

necessarily the preferred from the standpoint of manufacturers, but it

turned out to be a number that you could easily get. And so some of these

other things are going to be harder. I don't know what different kinds of

ratings or lengths or capacities or whatever one would use, but I think it's a

good issue for seeking specific comment on that.

>> OK. And I would go a little further too, Dennis. I'll write something up

on that, but also in the matter of length that the

length is an acceptable standard, whether it's over the center of the 

bolsters or anti-climbers, or wherever the industry wants to define it, but I

can imagine situations where, especially with the newer streamlined things

that you could have something with an incredible streamlined nose that

throws it into another category for accessibility and we'll have folks out

there with micrometers trying to get down to fractions to say it does or

doesn't have to be accessible. I would think we want to define that, where

is that length measured, and it can't be on the squishy parts of the vehicle. 

OK. Great. 

excluding things like energy absorbing bumpers and bicycle racks and

whatever, but we don't have a similar kind of thing for rail vehicles. I would

assume it would not include couplers, for example, because that's not --

that's sort of an artificial issue that

>> And just as we said, length was essentially OEM length doesn't really

define the length, but it's a tricky issue, especially for rail cars.

>> Right. In the inner city, the heavy rail cars we define typically either over
buffers or over the pulling face of couplers. You can also define on the center

of line of bolsters, but those are hard points that define the functional size of

the vehicle, regardless what else you do. I will include that in the notes, or the

request.

Item number 16, or note number 16 was around transfer seats, and what I

added some definition on the height. So it says now: Seats considered

transfer seats must have a seating surface that is at least 17 to 19 inches

above the finished floor. Bolsters or other cushion features must not extend

above 19 inches to avoid hindering transfer.

>> Blair, this is David Nelson real quick. I'm sorry. I was reading from 9 to

15, so 12, 13, and 15 I would just -- I was curious, what are those exactly? 

Because I don't know if there's a definition for them somewhere in the

regulations.

>> Those were added because I think they had traditionally fallen where one

agency was making a real effort to make cars accessible and the other one

said, Well, we don't have to, because we're not listed. So we were trying to

list those items.

>> No, right, I understand that. I'm just -- I don't know, so what's a cog

railway? And incline?

>> A cog railway, if you go and Google the Pike's Peak and Manatu into the

other category and as a result there were instances noted railway, or I think

it's the Mount Washington railway, and in Switzerland they're loaded up with

cog railways, they're railroads that can't climb hills just with rails and wheels,

so they have a gear system, a rack gear and a cog or a round gear that

engages the rack and the track, it climbs hills. So those what a cog railway is.
>> OK. Then incline planes?

>> Well, an incline plane, if you go to a place like Pittsburgh that has incline

railways or funiculars, it's like a platform or cabin that runs up a very steep

hillside, and it runs on rails, but it's usually cable driven. It's almost like an

elevator laid on its side. But yet they need to be accessible.

>> I think I've seen one in LA. I think I know what that is. What's a personal

rapid transit?

>> That's a good question.

>> I can tell you.

>> All right, Dennis.

>> This is Dennis again. Personal rapid transit has been kicked around for

years with an idea of creating it, and so far the only one the Heathrow Airport. 

Anyway, personal rapid transit is a system of vehicles that are on a fixed

guide way, but the stations are offline. So essentially, you move along the

guide way and then you come off to get to a station. The vehicles are very

small. They're designed to have only maybe three people maximum. When

we were discussing this, because Chicago was going to build one around that

I know of that's actually been created is in England, I think at O'Hare, that

having a requirement for two wheelchairs would essentially kill the project.

The idea is these little, small little vehicles which may have headways of

only a few seconds between them, and there would usually be two or three

at a station at any time. What you do is you punch in, they're automated,

you punch in your destination at your entry point, you board the vehicle and
the vehicle takes you directly to that station, bypassing all the intermediate

stations in between. And so one of the issues was the capacity, and there

has been some discussion on some of the bulletin boards that talk about

this in which because of the definition of fixed rail, which says fixed rail,

fixed schedule, the answer is, Well, these aren't really fixed schedule,

therefore they're actually demand responsive, which means we don't have to

have all of the cars accessible, we can have just some cars accessible

provided we meet the requirements for equivalent service. And I don't think

the people requirements for equivalent service are, because they would be 

virtually impossible to meet without every car being accessible.

But the idea was to set a standard because these things may, there's some

plans to build one down in Silicon Valley serving commuter rail station and

off into some industrial park areas, that we want to make sure that they

understand that this is a fixed route system and that every vehicle has to be

accessible, but it would only hold one wheelchair, not two, and probably two

or three who've been advocating that really understand what the people on a

seat, and that's about it.

Because they operate so close together in terms of the headway, the distance

between them, that you would get three or four people on a station and you'd

load up three or four cars, all of which would go together to the same

destination.

So it's a modern sort of a Jetson view of personal rapid transit, because of the

cars being so small and they're all automated. So that's what personal rapid

transit is supposed to be about. We wanted to capture that and not have that

something that people thought wasn't really required to be accessible.

>> OK. Wow. Thank you so much. I'm really glad that you were able to

explain that. I think that maybe the definition should be expanded on on all of
them, and then maybe also add something between 15 and 16 saying that

something like any future rail, tram type of vehicles must be accessible and

will be defined at a -- like at a later date or by the Access Board at another

time. Because I'm different name that is going to have to be made accessible.

I think the guy who made the Tesla cars, you know, is talking about some twoseater eggshell type of vehicle that -- and I can't remember what it's called,

but I feel like if we had that type of language we'd be able to prepare

ourselves for any type of future vehicles that have not been named yet.

>> This is Dennis. There actually already is that provision in the current rule. 

It's under, I think, H, and it basically says that if you thinking that in the future

there's going to be something new with a have a system that doesn't meet any

of these, then you have to propose how you're going to make it accessible

and that has to be approved by DOT in consultation with the Access Board.

So there's an anticipation that there will be something weird, one of which

came up during my tenure there was a cable-driven system that you may have

seen this in Disneyland, for example, in which the cable never stops, or the

cars never stop. Instead, when they come into the station, the station platform 

moves to be moving at the same speed as the car, so you now have a direct

access across. The question was how do you make that accessible? So the

designer, somewhere in Europe, came up with an idea about how to do that,

and presented it to DOT and to those of us working at the board as the

proposal for how it is. It made it clear that because you weren't -- just

because you weren't in a list whatever, didn't mean that you weren't required

to be accessible. It just meant --

>> Great. I'm glad that the language is there.

>> -- that you had to come up with a proposal.
>> OK. Dennis, thank you so much. Let's see. If we move down to, let's see,

number 18, sleeping car seats, food service seats, dining car seats and other

seats intended for occupancy by persons who wish to transfer from a

wheelchair must be at least, again, this was to add definition, 17 to 19 inches

above the finished floor. That was just to add more definition there, where we

had none before. 19, of things here and couldn't define yourself nicely as

rapid, light, or service animal space, I have from my notes service animal

space may be overlapped by -- no, there was conversation about allowing 

animals to tuck under spaces. So I wanted to add some language here. 

Service animal space may be overlapped by fixed objects at six inches, 12

inches high and 12 inches at 16 inches high. Service animal space may

overlap other defined floor space by a maximum of six inches longitudinally

and transversely. And again, that was around our last conversations is that so

you draw a block of where the service animal is supposed to be, but

realistically they're going to overlap other defined spaces, but we had talked

about there being allowances for those things to overlap, but again, I wanted

to throw some definition in there for what those maximums might be. Any

thoughts on that?

And if you want to chew on that until the next meeting, them out versus

allowing some overlap, and if we're going to allow overlap I think we need to

define it, or else we'll be fighting that one.

>> This is Dennis. As someone who travels with a service dog, I've I've never

had any real problem, because I usually have him in between me and the wall,

not the aisle. How you define that space is going to be tricky, I think. Without

seeing, again, some diagrams of how that works, it's hard to imagine how

that's going to be accommodated. There are all sizes of service animals, for

example, so we have to set some kind of criteria. We don't want to say you

that's awesome, but again, if you look at the strict spaces and lay have to
have twice the space for a wheelchair, because you might have a service

horse or something.

>> Right. [Laughter]

We've talked about the service ponies.

Let's see. We have a defined space of 14 inches wide, 38 inches long and

16 inches high for service animal. So what I can do, Dennis, is, and I've

started doing this on some of these layouts, I can block these in and show

what that kind of overlap looks like in scale, if you think that would be worth

doing. So there's an understanding of if the animal is tucked over against

the wall or if they're on the aisle side or laying transversely in front of you,

or and then we can maybe make some decision about it.

>> Sure.

>> That sound like a good thing?

>> Yeah. I want to also ask you about 20.

>> OK.

>> I think that was in response to the issue raised in my subcommittee

about the permanently coupled fixed consists, and whether you could have

the restroom being in an alternate car. And Linda Martin brought up an

issue about the statute, so I went back and looked at the statute, and sorry

about this, Blair, but the statute specifically defines inner city rail as Amtrak,

nothing else, and then says specifically that it shall be discrimination for a

new Amtrak – a what that might look like in those conditions that I defined

here, new inner city rail car to not have space for a wheelchair, space to 

transfer, and an accessible restroom. So every Amtrak -- every car provided
by Amtrak is, by statute, required to have an accessible restroom. The only

exclusions are dining cars and lounge cars, which do not have a restroom

for the general public. So Amtrak, this issue of the fixed consist trains that I

mentioned the last time about being able to have the restroom in the second

car, doesn't work for -- doesn't apply to Amtrak. It applies to everybody else,

but not Amtrak.

[Laughter]

>> Of course. Dennis, this is Blair. It's interesting, there are historically cars

that are, I don't know if they exist anymore, don't cars, and the three-unit car

happened to have been a diner, where the middle unit was the kitchen and

there was dining rooms on either end. And the other car was an articulated

chair car, a coach basically.

While it was made up of two components, it was a car. It simply couldn't

exist if you took either one of the halves apart, you wouldn't have a whole

car, you couldn't run it. I don't know that there was any thought given to

that, but when we were having that conversation before I was thinking about

those vehicles, thinking wow, they really did make a lot of sense, because

you had these paired units that, because they were paired, they were

articulated, they had full width diaphragms, it gave a level of service that

you recall if Amtrak ever ran them, but they were two-unit and three-unit 

couldn't have with two separate cars. Yet, you couldn't operate them as

individual units; they were a car that vent in the middle.

That might be something that we would have to bang our heads against the

wall on, but OK. For now we'll leave that as it is, or I'll exclude Amtrak and we

can gnash our teeth over that.

>> Yeah.
>> OK.

>> Oh, Blair, this is Jose calling again.

>> Yes?

>> OK, if you could maybe back up to note 16 and 18, on the

>> Yes.

>> Just an editorial thing that you might want to review it, after the call today,

one thing we saw we weren't quite clear on, it said that the transfer seat has

to be at least 17 to 19 inches above the floor, and a bolster or cushion cannot

be above 19 inches. So now are we saying that it has to be a minimum of 17

inches, seating surface, then you add the bolster on top of it, which is like two

inches possibly, which means it will bring you up to 19. So do we mean 17 

minimum or do we mean a range of 17 to 19?

>> Well, if you have the range of 17 to 19, but if you think about a very simple

bench-type seat that has the seating surface as a plane, it doesn't have a real

shape to it, then you would be between 17 and 19 would be OK, but if you

had, say, a plush long distance seat that had a seating surface that was

where you actually spent most of dimensions.

your time between 17 and 19, but maybe you want to make a bolster that

projects up above the seating surface, then by this definition we would say

the seating surface is going to be at 17 or 18, whatever, and that the bolsters

on the side would go no higher than 19.

>> Oh, OK. All right. Yeah, that's what we weren't quite sure about when

this note was reviewed, if it meant that we were saying that it had to be at
least 17 but it didn't mean that you had to construct an unbolstered seat at

17 or 18. You know, you can set it within that range and it will still be OK. 

sure I didn't misunderstand that, that the 17 inches is sort of a minimum for

the seat surface, and that 19 would be the maximum for the seat surface or

anything that projected above the seat surface. Again, so if you're making a

side move from a wheelchair that you're not going to encounter anything

above 19 inches off the floor.

>> OK. Thank you, Blair.

>> Whether it's a bolster or anything else.

>> You probably want to say uncompressed.

>> OK.

>> Just to make sure we're talking about the what it is when you put it in the

car, as opposed to what happens when you sit on it.

>> OK. And that's something too that probably will be good to have a little

line diagram that explains this so there's no question.

>> Yes. And if anyone else would ring in, I'd appreciate it, to make

OK.

>> All right, thank you.

>> Thank you very much. Anyone have any thoughts on those dimensions? I

know we hashed those around last time.

[No response]
OK. Let's see. 20, I think 20 was -- was there 21? No, that's it. We made it

all the way through the list.

[Laughter]

see.

>> This is David. I think you need to go on vacation every conference call,

because the meeting will finish early then. [Laughter]

>> I'm sitting in my little camper with the generator running, the breeze is

blowing. It's great! I'm at the National Park Service, which has these

accessible picnic tables and ramps to everything, but the weather is doing a

number on some of these things, so I don't know how accessible they really

are.

But anyway, let's see, Dennis had sent out a document on surfaces. I think

we should take a peek at that, if we could here. Let's see. Close out my

matrix. I did want to point out, Robert Carlson sent out a note, and I will try to

incorporate this, but the conversation was around the articulated-type cars,

and the comment was around HVAC air outlets so that any seating spaces

were not in the direct path of HVAC air outlets. I swapped e-mails

We're at 2:25 in the afternoon, according to my computer. Let's with Robert to

make sure I understood it, but I think what you have sometimes is, by

coincidence, the accessible spaces coincide with changes in the HVAC

system that are maybe -- you know, because they're at the end of the car, so

you end up with these adverse air-conditioned vents and things like that. So

I'll draft up some note about that. I'm not sure, that may be something that

actually would go over to you, Dennis, to spaces, but I'll write up a note for

that and send it to you.
>> OK. So surfaces. Dennis, you want to talk about that?

>> Sure. This is basically something I pulled together from the ADA 

accessibility requirements, and looking at some of the other things like public

rights of way and so forth. They're nothing particularly unusual about them. 

They're standard kinds of things, but they have to do with the issue of what

you encounter on the floor. So for example, it says that these technical 

provisions apply to any of the circulation paths, lift performance, ramps,

wheelchair and mobility seating spaces and step treads.

So then we start with the technical provisions which is the common one, which

is surfaces shall be firm, stable and slip resistant. Then it goes on to define

openings. This used to be called gratings in the old ADAAG requirement. But

the idea is if you've got openings in the floor and they could be on a grate,

they could be the slot that the door, sliding door goes through and so forth,

that you want to make sure that the long -- if they're elongated

>> OK.

that the long dimension is perpendicular to the primary path of travel and

that the openings themselves reject a 5/8-inch sphere. So essentially, you

don't get your wheels, your casters trapped. And then there's a diagram that

I stole from the ADA accessibility standards that shows the maximum, it's a

half-inch. I think I said 5/8. The protrusions on surfaces can't be more than

a quarter inch, There's a carpet requirement. Some cars do in fact have

carpeting. Some rapid rail cars are getting away from it here in Metro, but

there are some carpeting. Occasionally there's carpeting in compartments

in sleepers and so forth. So there's a requirement for essentially a level,

firm, no heavy padding underneath and maximum half-inch height to the top

of the level, and there was actually a diagram in the ADA accessibility
guidelines that I didn't pull out on that one.

Surface discontinuities says, and this is again a standard from accessible

routes, which says you can have changes in level of a quarter of an inch

maximum, and it can be vertical, then it shows the diagram there of a

quarter inch of a step up, and that's permitted. Anything over that when you

get up to more than a quarter of an inch, up to a half an inch, then you have

to bevel that with the slope not steeper than 1 to 2.

So this is the kind of thing you see in threshold, where there's a little upward

quarter inch, then a sloped area, then it levels off. Anything greater than

half-inch has to be a ramp, treated as a that means like bolt heads and

things like that. ramp with 1 to 12 maximum slope.

So those are just simple provisions of -- that I say I pulled from the ADA

accessibility guide. There is one issue, however, that's not addressed and

I'm not sure how to do it, but if you have a quarter-inch gap, I mean a

vertical bump of a quarter of an inch, that's a permitted accessible feature. 

There's no definition of the consecutive quarter-inch vertical jumps. You

could have a vertical jump of a quarter inch, but go over an inch and then

you could have another vertical gap, a jump of a quarter of an inch and go

over an inch, and another vertical gap. You could make essentially a step

that if you -- actually, if you only went over a quarter of an inch, you could

have a 45 degree angle that meets the definition of accessible routes in

ADA accessibility guidelines.

So one of the questions is should there be a minimum separation between

one gap and one vertical displacement and the next. We had proposed, I

think in the rights of way it was proposed, that that had to be a minimum of

something like 28 inches, which was the approximate wheel base of a kind

of standard wheelchair. It might be different than that. But the idea is that
you don't want to have a whole bunch of these quarter-inch vertical

displacements together in such a way that you actually get like a 45 degree

walkway.

So I don't know what the answer to that is, and as how people want to deal

with that, but let's for the moment leave that maximum -- or rather, the

minimum spacing between two and see whether anybody's got problems

with what is in this document, then we can discuss the issue of what to do

with the spacing between them separately.

>> Dennis, this is Blair. You know, we've been working with that on 

pathway of a sliding door and seals, and in some places there weren't firm

definitions for rail, so we were leaning on other things. I pestered Linda

over at FRA, and we came up with some numbers, and most of those we

were able to achieve. Once you start going between cars that are not

semipermanently coupled, then dealing with some of those numbers gets

to be very tricky, and I suppose it would make sense for me to gather what

those existing extremes are now and while we're not dealing with what's

currently existing those kind of extremes for separate individual cars

running together isn't likely to change. But I can come up with what some 

of the extremes are, and we can chew on those.

You bring up a very valid point on how many of those changes can you

have. We were looking at using like the half-inch minimum on threshold,

because you have a threshold if you take a cross-section of it, you've got

seals and you've got water draining features and things like that that come

into play. So we were dealing with I think a half-inch maximum, and had

worked out so that the -- you were never dealing with more than the one to

two ratio. And even where we had those, we were trying to use slopes

versus, even with quarter inch, trying to slope instead of having our new

cars, dealing with the threshold dimensions and the just vertical barriers.
So yeah, that brings up some very interesting questions. I think it would be

worth digging into what -- how cars are constructed. I know it's been a tough

road for us to get the car and hinge doors and things like that. Part of that is

because of the builder. Part of it is because of the requirements. So there's 

probably a creative solution in there somewhere.

>> Right. This is Dennis again. One of the issues is to define what we mean

by something like an onboard circulation path, because an onboard circulation

path, which I don't think we define, we don't want to say accessible route

because that's already taken in the ADA accessibility guidelines. We don't

want to confuse people with that, because it's not the same. But I would say

that the differences between the onboard circulation route, which needs to

meet all of these kind of things, which is confined to a specific car for the most 

part, and then talk about what happens at, say, the couple -- again, we're

assuming that the coupling between two cars is not necessarily a circulation

path except in emergencies, when you're trying to get people from one car to

another or you're evacuating them from the end.

In the provision that I wrote in the rooms and spaces for the fixed consist,

what we said is in order to allow you to have the restroom, the accessible

restroom be in the adjacent car, that path between the cars must meet the

same requirements that you would

doors to seal following the strict dimensioned for the thresholds have for the

onboard circulation route. So if it didn't meet those requirements, you couldn't

do that. You'd have to have an

that would say that that particular provision requires you to meet a stricter

standard than you would normally for the change between two cars. We're

assuming, I think, for the most part, that you wouldn't normally go between
cars. If it was designed for that you had maybe a married pair or something,

then that, assuming that you're going to allow that to be a travel path, it would

have to meet these requirements, but at other times it wouldn't need to meet

those requirements. So that's one of the issues of defining, that's the scoping

issue of saying this is what a circulation path is and it applies here, and these

service provisions apply to that.

>> OK. Now, those would be static conditions versus dynamic, because you if

you took, say, the Acela, as it is today, the path between the cars probably

exceeds the vertical differences. I haven't measured it, but I think it does. But

if you built a car like it the ones you showed in the videos at the September 

meeting, Dennis, where you have got in its static condition you meet all of 

these things, but obviously when you run down the railroad the cars are

bouncing around at different rates, so that that dynamic condition is very

different. So you can be going through all of these numbers and exceeding 

them, beating them all within the same bounce. So I will tell you we want to

define that as a static accessible restroom in the same car with the seating

space. So condition, for sure. Because you can have today, and certainly

in the future if you have adjoining cars, say you have a coach that between

cars, then this circulation path is going to get into that.

>> Yeah, I think that you have to define what it is that this applies to. This

is where the scoping comes in. If you're going to say that a food service

car is one of those things and you need to make sure that the path

between them complies with whatever the standard is we come up with, but

you wouldn't apply it to other things, other cars that are just coupled together

but aren't really necessarily intended for you to move from one to the other.

>> OK. Well, I'll say this, and I can do a little digging, that if you take --

some of the maintenance issues that affect individual cars versus

semipermanently or permanently coupled cars can be the same. So I can
try to find out what -- if you took an Acela car and it was perfectly flat, with

all things being new and normal, what's the greatest possible difference

between them, and I think we'd still be within what you've defined if you

took the maximum wheel wear on one and brand-new wheels on the other

but the path is continuous and not separated. Then it probably would still

be OK. But I need to look at that and see because I know --

>> The path in the between a coach car and Acela and the bistro car or

cafe car, whatever it's called, is rough, it's bumpy.

>> Right.

>> But it's not like the between generally coupled cars, it's not anything as

severe as that, but it is bumpy, and I don't know whether it could be made less

bumpy or not. But clearly, in the S the issue is it is not bumpy at all, but has a

flat middle plate on top of it, transition.

>> Right. When you go back to when we were working on the designs for the

Acela, we were breaking new ground for inner city trains, and we did the test

runs through there, but we didn't have anything firm to lean back on. 

Hopefully when we come out of this, we'll have definition that we'll make sure

that the next time around we get decent surfaces, good surfaces to roll across

that have the right vertical situation as well.

OK. Well --

>> This is David here. Also we would also -- I'm sorry, handrails as well, in

between the coupling of the cars, because for example, the Acela doesn't

have any handrails.

>> It has vertical handholds where they can be. But they're not continue outs,
there's no -- continuous, there are no horizontal handrails through the space,

but there are vertical handrails in each vehicle, as far out as they can go and

still deal with the --

>> I mean horizontal handrails. That seems like a pretty long section. Or is

that not even possible?

>> Well, it has to bend, so unless you made the handrails out of rubber, I'm

not sure what you would do.

[Laughter]

>> Well, and there was a real effort there to put fairly -- the vertical handholds 

that exist there are out as far as they can go in the vehicle, and they're not the

typical skinny little railroad handholds, they're actually I think inch and a half,

inch and a quarter. So all I can tell you, don't spend much time there if you

can avoid it. [Laughter]

>> Then also, Dennis, the Shinkansen, they don't have horizontal handrails,

do they? I couldn't remember, in the video.

>> No, there weren't. Again, it has to bend at that point, so you can't put a

horizontal handrail across the opening.

>> I'm going to remind people to identify themselves when they talk. This is

Marcia. We've had several back and forths with someone talking and I don't

know who that was.

>> This is David Nelson.

>> Thank you, David.
>> I think the issue there, this is Blair, the issue with the horizontal rails is you

have vertical changes, you have horizontal, you have X, Y and Z dimensional

changes going on as the train is moving, and that really creates a -- to achieve

it could create a hazard in itself if you add slipping, one handrail inside of the

other, that kind of thing to try to accommodate that. It may be that there's the

ability to have other handholds that are intermittent in the space and if we

want to say something that -- or propose minimum distances between vehicles

for some kind of handhold, maybe that's a way to address that concern.

>> This is Dennis. I think the more likely, because I'm not sure that we could

say that the walls have to be particular structural, if they're moving or

they're bellows or something, I'm not sure what you would attach it to. It

seems to me probably the best you could do is to have grab bars,

whatever, handholds, just inside each of the cars, so that the minimum you

have to reach from one handrail to the other is the minimum you can

achieve to get the flexibility to have the cars.

>> OK. Dennis, that sounds like a good idea. I will try to put some 

language around that. OK.

>> This is David here. I've got another naive question, you know. I at

some point Amtrak is going to have a mix of old and new cars in the future,

noncoupled cars. I mean, Blair, is there a possibility of the vestibule, the

very ends of the vestibule that the new car might be wider than the old car,

where it would be coupled, but there might be something in there to protect

it from all of the -- I mean, weather situations, making sure it was sealed,

because obviously, eventually, the older cars will then all be switched to

the new cars. Are you tracking what I'm saying? Blair? No?

>> We may have lost his generator. [Laughter]
>> I was muted. I was talking to a muted phone. [Laughter]

Generator is good. I filled it up before we started. Yeah, I understand what

you're saying there, David. But if you [Laughter] have, for example, if you

take the tightest dimension in an existing older car, if it's 30 inches, and

then you're going to go to a car that has 32 inches, that transition is going

to be managed with a diaphragm itself. So, for example, our diaphragms,

the width problem is not in the diaphragm itself, it's in the collision post of 

the car. So if you coupled an existing car that did not meet 32 inches

through the collision post to a new car that meets or exceeds the 32 inches

between the collision posts, the diaphragm is going to take up that

transition.

>> This is Dennis. The issue of making up a train consist and how you put

it together is an operational issue, one that this committee can't address. It

will be part of the DOT rules that may say you must couple something cars

together. But there will always be a problem of having old and new cars. 

That's true no matter what system you're talking about, and yes, there will

be occasionally a case where you get on a rapid rail train, for example,

and some of the cars are old and some of the cars are new, and you may

find that the nice accessible space in the brand-new cars isn't in the car 

that you get on, and that's a difficulty.

We had people, when we tried to revise the bus rule, we had a bunch of

people, transit operators, said well, we've got all these old vehicles. How

are people supposed to know that the bus that pulls up meets the same

requirements as the old ones? The

Their argument was that's one of the reasons why we answer is you won't.

shouldn't change the provision. That would mean we would always be in

the static mode of what we have today and we would never change the
provision.

So the reality is that, just like in buildings, there are some buildings that

were built to be "accessible" under the old ANSI standard that aren't

accessible according to the new ADA guidelines, and that's going to be

true no -- the new ADA ABA guidelines, and that's true no matter where

you are.

>> OK.

>> OK. If we could, Dennis, I appreciate your efforts on the surfaces, I'm

going to jot down some notes on that and get them out for the next

discussion to see if we can nail down some of those things that are rail

particular, particularly for inner city or commuter cars where that surface is

ever changing.

I had a note about seat handles. We're down to 2:50 p.m., so we're at 10

minutes out. I was thinking about seat handles. I know in inner city we've

looked at seat handles before, how to incorporate them in new seats, then

we didn't buy the new seats, but depending on the type of service, I don't

know if we want to define the handles or say where provided what the

clearances must be, or if we want to go so far as to say that there must be

some they're -- regardless of whether they're commuter, inner city or 

whatever, to help people navigate the cars, so they know if they reach and

grab something at the top corner of the seat it's meant to defined point on

the corners of seats regard levers of whether be grabbed, versus the

cushion or some other undefined spot.

>> This is Dennis. The fact that the seat -- you know, we'd said in buses,

for example, that every seat back has to have a handhold across the back,

it has to be closest, at least part of it has to be closest to the aisle. We
excluded reclining seats, because obviously that's -- no, they had to have

handrails too, but they didn't have to have a vertical stanchion that went

from that seatback up to the ceiling. The same would be said of the seats

in an inner city train, or I suppose a commuter rail, which pivots and 

rotates. You have some issues where the seats actually turn around to

face the other direction. Obviously, having a vertical handrail going from

the seat to the ceiling isn't going to work in those, but they could still have

a handrail at the cross of the back. I've seen a number of pictures of seats

that are, in fact, reclining seats, two pairs, separate re-Klein, but they have

-- recline, but they have handrails on the top of each one. That's critical for

the people who are short and can't reach that overhead rail which exists in

most cars and in most buses. It's very difficult. And grabbing a hold of the

seat itself can be a problem. You aren't necessarily getting hold of

something that's firm and stable.

>> OK. I thought it was important that we define, at a minimum, steel

handle that you see on a bus or transit or something else, but I will put

some language together on that so we can get our heads around it. So it

does the job.

some kind of firm gripping spot, whether it's -- looks like a stainless

I know we looked at it years ago when everyone read newspapers, we were

looking at them because we knew people were holding the top of the seats to

maneuver, but they were getting the seats dirty from the news print. So it

was, honestly, less of an accessibility issue, and more we were tired of trying

to clean the top corners of the seats.

OK, I will put something together on that for consideration next time. We're at

seven minutes of the hour. I've gone packed and peeked at the initial issues

list. I don't know if anyone else has had a chance to look at that, but there
has been discussion, I think mare Marilyn raised the issue back to the Access

Board to make sure we addressed all of the issues and all the issues had

gotten into the right subcommittees and they were getting addressed.

Does anyone have any particular issues that have come off that list that

haven't been addressed that belong to seating and circulation that we need to

chew on?

>> This is Dennis. I don't have the list in front of me to remember, but one of

the things that still sort of is hanging up in the air is circulation route and so

forth, would cover call buttons and plugs and whatnot that will be at the

seating locations. But it also affects whether directly the sleeper, where you

have to have light controls and door handles and all kinds of things like that.

So I was thinking of actually, unless you have specific controls and operating

mechanisms, which are probably part of this proprietary or desires to keep

it handy, I was going to try and tackle controls and operating mechanisms

issue within the rooms and spaces.

>> OK. Dennis, I know within your committee we had talked about that,

and I kind of thought that's where we had resolved it or were working on it. 

I would say unless it belongs particularly to a seat, where we need to make

sure we define a seat function, like an recline button or those kinds of

things, that that would be appropriate to capture it in spaces.

>> OK.

>> I would add to that, well, if you've got controls, I think we discussed

HVAC controls and things like that, but that might address Bob Carlson's

concern about HVAC vents and controls --
>> Blair? This is Jim. You've got about 4 minutes, and what you really

need to do before we close up is set a date for the next meeting.

>> OK. Very good point.

>> I think we need to get that one done before you do anything else. I think

we're looking at November 12, 13, in a that ballpark,

>> OK. Is the 12th a Wednesday or is that the Thursday?

>> 12th is a Wednesday, 13th is a Thursday.

>> 12th, let's see.

>> No, I'm sorry, this is Jose -- wasn't there a concern -- this is Marcia. 

Wasn't there a concern that the Wednesday schedule made depending on

how people's schedules are.

it impossible for Dr. Steinfeld to participate, so he had requested some

change? Am I getting that wrong?

>> It is. He requested a Wednesday, but --

>> Oh, OK. So it is the Thursday schedule that was problematic for him?

>> That's correct. Today he's not on the call.

>> Maybe he didn't have enough notice. I don't know. In any case

--
>> Well, I --

>> He's not been able to participate because of the date in the past.

>> I don't have a problem looking forward. I don't have a problem with either

day in November, unless someone else has particular problem. Is the

confirmation that it was the Wednesday that he preferred versus the

Thursdays?

>> Yes, we believe that's correct.

>> OK. Would anybody have any trouble with us scheduling that for

November 12 then? Wednesday and the 13th is a Thursday, and it's the day

after Veterans Day. Veterans Day is a Tuesday, 11th. So if you make it for

the 12th that would be suitable.

>> OK. All right. All right. Hearing -- any further discussion on that? If

none, we'll set that at November 12 for the next meeting.

>> OK.

>> Sound good?

>> OK, then, yes, this is Jose, Blair, yes the 12th of November is a

>> This is Dennis. My headphone is beeping at me, so any minute now it

may cut off. So I may lose you.

>> OK. Dennis, thank you. OK, Jim, we're good there for November12?

>> Yes, sir.
>> OK. All right. Let's see. Back to -- OK. All right. Well, at this point the

actions -- the action items fall for me, and I think we need to, to Dennis he'

point get some diagrams together, but I appreciate everyone's help,

particularly on closing out issues on the matrix. That's a big one. And for the

next meeting we'll have some diagrams, particularly of some of these issues

around the transit cars, looking across the vehicles, and where handrails

might occur from that note 5, B and C.

Anyone have any other things we need to think about for the next meeting so

we can get some material together?

>> This is Jim. I want to remind you if you're going to send us diagrams, get

them to us as soon as you can so we can try to get

>> OK. Very good. And I will throw that back out to folks that are going to

send me information to please send that as early as you

can so we can get that into the format.

OK. No one has anything else, then I will call that a day.

>> Great.

>> 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

>> All right.

them in accessible formats.

>> Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Jean, for all your help today. 

Thank you, Steve Clark, for all your reporting. We look forward to the
transcript. Jean, the call has ended. Please disconnect all lines. Thank

you very much.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you, everyone.

>> Bye-bye.

[Call ended at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time]