**Note: The output shown below is from the Communication A ccess** 

**Realtime Translation (CA RT) system used in the Rooms and Spaces**  **Subcommittee Meeting #5 and is generally unedited.**  **T he CART**  **sy stem w**  **as 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.**

CART Operator: Sandra Gartrell

Thursday, October 16, 2014 United States Access Board Rail Vehicles Access Advisory Committee Rooms and Spaces Subcommittee Meeting #5

1:00 p.m.

PAUL BEATTY: G ood afternoon. T his is the fifth meeting of the Room and Space s Subcommittee. As you know, anyone may participate in subcommittee discussions; therefore, no time of public comment has been scheduled during this two

- hour call. I understand we have the CART system chat box operating. So if you are only using CART to participate and you desire to raise a question or make a statement, please use the chat box to indicate your question or statement and we will read it into the system. Please remember to give your name when speaking. O ne of your agenda items is to sched ule your next meeting, which would bepotentially November 20, but that will be nailed down later in this call. Those in the room are Jim Pecht, Melissa Anderson, Lisa Fairhall, myself, and Rose Marie Bunales. And, Rose Marie, will you indicate who is on the line. ROSE MARIE B UNALES: Yes, and what I have in the CART room first is Uwe Rutenberg and Jose Vega. A nd on the line I have Judith Buckley. J udith, can you repeat your name and the organization you are from. JUDITH BUCKLEY: J udith Buckley, New Yo rk Transit Authority. ROSE MARIE B UNALES: And, Sandra, if the line needs to be boosted let the operator know. Gri celda Cespedes? GRI C ELDA CESPEDES: Yes. N ew Jersey Transit Authority. ROSE MARIE B UNALES: B lair Slaughter? BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. ROS E MARIE B UNALES: D ennis Cannon? DENNIS CANNON: D ennis Cannon, National Disability Rights Network. ROSE MARIE B UNALES: And we have Jose Vega. JOSE VEGA: Yes, hello. J ose Vega from MTA, Long Island Railroad. ROSE MARIE B UNALES: And we have Sandra Gartrell.And I have David Nelson from Amtrak. D avid, can you please repeat your name and the organization. DAVID NELSON: Yes. T his is David Nelson with Amtrak. ROSE MARIE B UNALES: And the line is good. Wew ill turn the call to Dennis Cannon, the chair of the subcommittee. DENNIS CANNON: I hope everybody can hear me well. M y Skype decided

-- I'm calling on my cellphone, speakerphone, let's hope you can hear me. My Skype decided it didn't want to work today. CART REPORTER: You're coming in and out. DENNIS CANNON: S orry, but this is the best that I can do. Wegot a number of things to do, one of which is to make some corrections to our earlier report. L et's start with the agenda we have got. W e have introd uctions; we want to review some revisions to the subcommittee report; there is another, "controls and operating mechanisms;" we need to set the next meeting and adjourn. Anyone want to add anything to the agenda? Hearing nothing, let's go to the restroom report. T he same as what we presented to the full committee with some revisions. During the full committee meeting we talked about things like (inaudible) frame and so forth. Linda Martin from FRA said that she thought there may besome problems with the s tatute, that the statute wouldn't allow us to do that. S o I went back and looked at the statute and there is a whole section on inner

- city rail. A nd what it says about inner

- city rail is in order for it to be accessible, the inner

- city rail car must have space for a wheelchair to seat, transfer space and a restroom. The statute also defines inner

- city rail as being Amtrak. S o those provisions apply to Amtrak. I n other words, an Amtrak car to be accessible has to have a restroom in it. A nd the only exce ptions are dining cars and lounge cars, which do not have restrooms to the public. A ll the other coach cars has got to have a restroom in order to be deemed accessible. The provision we talked about in fixed, don't have a restroom public. You don't ne ed to have an accessible, which is true for inner rail. D oesn't apply to Amtrak. Wh at I have done is changed the scoping to make that clear that the provision we were talking about

-- sorry, Amtrak for picking on you. S o I have added some things in red

. I don't know whether

-- I guess the red is showing up on the screen here. But it starts out saying, "For each new Amtrak car, shall have a restroom meeting the technical requirements". A nd so forth and then it goes on to what we said before, restrooms to public are not provided in the car, are not provided, not are provided. I have to change that. And then it says a car other than provided by Amtrak, so forth.And then at the bottom I have added "not provided by Amtrak." A nd at the bottom, the last l ine, which had originally talked about controls and surface requirements, I added a line that meets the surface requirement from the surface path, is now a recommendation for surfaces requirement added to the circulation report. So that is the question

-- does anyone have any questions about those changes? BLAIR SLAUGHTER: D ennis, this is Blair from Amtrak. And Linda is on the line too, right, from FRA? PAUL BEATTY: N o. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: S orry, I thought I heard her on the line before. Here is my que stion, Dennis, and we talked about and what I'm worried about. T his is what we will get up against on a couple of fronts. A nd I think, and I have to go and dig up the plans, but I think we have a condition in some of our Talgo cars because they are

essen tially like half a regular car where we have sort of the condition that we talked about whether there is not a restroom necessarily in each one of those vehicles. A nd I don't know if that is the case. Weare operating under some guidance from the FRA on that. I suspect we are. The other thing is when we single out Amtrak we are talking about inner

- city. T hat is the way it was defined. I think what we will run up against somewhere in here is when a lot of this language wasoriginally drafted, it was in requirements or in the statute or however it was setup, is now we have PRIIA, which sort of lays the groundwork for other companies, other organizations, other states to inner

- city business. And if you narrow it down on one side, it may leave some gaping h oles on the other side, you know, in the future. So I

-- I think we need to do some clarification on that and what impact PRIIA may have so we don't box everyone into a bad

corner. The other thing is I think we should have some more conversation with the F RA about

-- we talked about before with permanent cars that have a good pathway between them. Again, I think with all the competing demands for space in the vehicle, specially adding more accessible seating space and things like that, it eases the pain an d the revenue pressure if we can consider things like that. Weare sort of making the most of all the space and all the machinery and technology by doing, you know, what works versus being too boxed in. So it may be that ultimately we need some clarification or some guidance that comes down from the DOT to help out with that. I realize we cannot solve all of that here at once on the RVAAC side, but I think it would be worth our time to raise the issue with the FRA and see what we can come up with.DENNIS CANNON: M y understanding is that Talgo got kind of a dispensation because of the fact they are so small. The question is, did that violate the statute. A nd I don't have the answer to that. I 'm not an atto rney. But, apparently, FRA gave some kind of easement to that issue. S o it needs to have a definition. I 'm not sure that

-- my guess is that will come up when the board actually tries to write regulation. I 'm not sure what we, as a committee, should be doing. That is an issue that others are pursuing and presumably we may get an answer before we are done here, I hope. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I just wanted to throw that out there and I appreciate your consideration. DAVID NELSON: I have a question. U nfortu nately the statute they say must be one per car for the restroom issue. Wh at I wanted to ask the disability community who use the accessible restrooms, is it necessary to have one per car or should we have one every other car if we can provide easy access from a car that might not have it? S hould we approach FRA about this or? DENNIS CANNON: T he current warning of this provision restricts it to fixed constant trains because they are the only ones that are really going to have the pathway that is going to allow you easily between cars. I don't think we want to consider the idea that you have to go from one car to the next to the restroom when it is underway. T hat is one of the big issues.Wh ether the statute, whether FRA can ease the requirements is a que stion that I think FRA and the attorneys have to answer and I don't think we can answer it now. DAVID NELSON: N o. I guess it was

-- I guess, what I'm trying to say is from what I catch is that you would prefer not to because there might be issues from go ing from one car to the next, so it is best not to even consider having one accessible restroom every other car. You represent the group, not me. S o I appreciate that. T hank you. DENNIS CANNON: O ne issue that was raised during the discussion of this wi th Steny Hoyer and the group and the group that put together the warning is how many restrooms you need in the car. And Amtrak at that time was adamant there had to be two. There was some discussion from some folks, why not have just one accessible restro om instead of having two, because one of the issues is space. I was thinking the other day, I think an Amtrak car has about 80 seats, as I recall, Blair? BLAIR SLAUGHTER: D ennis, it varies. I t was when we started first looking at the ADA. W e had a maxi mum of 84 seats and I think we are down to 72 or 74, depending on the car. DENNIS CANNON: Yeah, and I was thinking a 747 has a lot more than that sharing one restroom or two restrooms. S o it seems to me that the idea that you have to have two doesn't rea lly holdwater. A nd, besides, you can always go to another car, which you can't very well do in an airplane. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: W e are actually looking at the single level trains on the corridor to sort of refigure which actual restroom usage is just for those reasons, Dennis, to see if we have one nice accessible restroom. D oes that take care of

-- and when I say "a nice accessible restroom," that the system aspect of the toilet system has capacity and everything to go right along with that. D o we reall y need two? A nd some of the initial research says, no, that we don't. DENNIS CANNON: T hat is not for us to decide. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: W e are looking at it because of all the pressures we have on space within the vehicles and we may try it out and find ou t it is horrible. I think that in the future you may see only one restroom per car, depending on the service that the car is in. DENNIS CANNON: O kay. S o we need some clarification for FRA on some of those points. B ut let me go down further in that

same document. A nd one of the issues was the restroom

-- where is the restroom? Side transfer, which we want to try to get in the restroom. One of the things that used to be in the old uniform accessible standard and in the old ADAAG, there was a drawing that had a water closet and then a dash line that indicated a lav besides it and it didn't really work because you couldn't get a side transfer and wehated it and got rid of it in the new ADA guidelines. I t specified a minimum clear space between the water c loset and any obstruction. So I'm thinking that we probably specify that, which is to say you have to have the 32 x 54 cleared floor space beside the water closet. S o we clearly say you can't put things in the way of that clear floor space. A nd the space , if we get a chance to look at some of the photographs that Ken has provided, which we will get to later, there is one configuration of the restroom that shows a water closet and right beside it is an open space beside it. B ut on the wall beside it is a trash receptacle that pulls the wall out. S o you couldn't really back your wheelchair up close enough to the water closet to make the side transfer. So I think that we may want to say that the 32 x 54 space has to start at the back wall, same wall as the water closet. I t has to be clear 32

- inches beside it and 54

- inches from the back wall forward so we can get our wheelchair to make a side transfer. Does that fit with people's ideas? G ood idea or what? BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I n that case how do those numbers line up with what we find in architecture? DENNIS CANNON: I don't have ADAAG. I think it is more like 44, is my recollection. T here is somebody from the board that knows precisely what that is that is in the room? JIM PECHT: I don't think there is an exact number. I t depends on the number you specify.DENNIS CANNON: I was thinking 32 x 54 for the cars because we are restricted more in doing things anyway. <<<: A nd the 54 gives more maneuvering room, obviously,

certainly more than the 48. DENNIS CANNON: A nybody have any objections to adding that to the side transfer provision? O kay. The other issue was grab bars. W e said use the building facility requirement. And I had neglected to add in there

-- because peop le had talked about vertical grab bars

-- we don't have anything in ADA nor vertical grab bars. I think it has been decided in ANSI as vertical grab bar. I think we should add they should look for the ANSI standard for guidance as well. A ny objection to that? Everybody is so talkative today. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I actually think that is a good idea. So complete silence. DENNIS CANNON: T here are a lot of restrooms in cars and, in fact, you have vertical grab bars and every time I have been there I have be en very thankful that they have been there. And that, I believe, is

-- let me see. D o I have anything else? Oh, yeah, one clarification. I n the sleeping compartment we had a note that said use the VIA

- rail design as a model and then Bob Carlson said that he didn't like the design and Uwe pointed out the old real rail design and the real rail design we are talking about is the

new one. A nd I had it there to clarify so other configurations canwork as well. So we didn't want to limit it to only that partic ular design. And I wanted to make it clear that we are not talking about the old design, but we are talking about this probability ultimately. Instead of saying rear design, we should give that figure a number or a name, refer directly to it instead of us ing VIA rail. A ny comments about that? W e will make that change. And there is the diagram right below. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I 'm looking at the VIA rail again and their configuration

-- because it sort of has an L configuration in the seats, it looks like, in the room. A nd then the

-- I'm trying to figure out how the entrance and everything is working. There is some conditions in vehicles where the exact configuration may not work. I think if we can somehow word things or do something as an example, but ma ke sure we preserve the functional requirements, we won't restrict some creative thinking down the path. DENNIS CANNON: A nd that is why I added the thing about other designs. A nd I want to say this is A.V configuration. I have also been told by Uwe that that L

- shaped is not the latest design. T hey removed the second part of it so it is like the current. UW E RUTENBERG: Yes, Dennis, that is correct. I don't know if you can hear me.DENNIS CANNON: Yes. UW E RUTENBERG: Yeah, we are actually doing a trial run at the moment. T here was a lady using a power chair and we took her from Toronto to Vancouver on a couple of days trip to use the new sleeper room and we will get some feedback over the next little while and I will pass this on to you to see what worked and what didn't work. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: U we, just for clarity, as I'm looking at the plan for the room, there is the entrance door and then it looks like there may be a door or curtain or some separator between the restroom and hallway portion and the bedroom proper. UW E RUTENBERG: Yes, it is actually a power sliding door. If you look at the drawing right now, say, on the north side, it is the opening for the door and the door slides toward the south side into a pocket. A nd it is power assisted. DAVI D NELSON: I wanted to ask about which exact or what type of VIA rail car are you talking about? I wanted to look it up on the website. UW E RUTENBERG: I t is called the HEP part car. DAVID NELSON: O kay. T hank you. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: A long with that is o ur existing deluxe rooms have a toilet/shower combination where the seat, if you want a way to sit down for an ambulatory person, is actually the closed toilet, which is much like what you find in a lot of RVs and things likethat. Is there anything in the

-- again, I'm looking at the shower/toilet annex to the bedroom. I s there anything that would preclude doing something like that where if you created a proper side transfer situation for the toilet, if that doubled as the shower seat. I t would seem like it might free up some maneuvering space in the room as well. UW E RUTENBERG: I don't know. T hat is a possibility. Wh at we looked at also is the fact that some people actually transfer into what we call an onboard shower chair. I nstead of using the seat, they have a chair that you can actually roll into the shower and you flip up the seat and then the shower is sittin g in the chair. Wh at you are proposing, use the toilet seat the same as the flip

- up seat? BLAIR SLAUGHTER: R ight. A nd the reason I say that is obviously there is spacial impact. L ooks like from the photographs if you flip up the shower seat then you can get in there with a shower chair. UW E RUTENBERG: E xactly. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: S o okay. T hat is where we have our

new cars. W e have a separate, completely separate shower room. It is not a dual function; it is simply a shower. W e don't have that condit ion now. I'm just trying to think down the road when we are looking atnew vehicles and configurations, how we consider those things. And that brings up a very good point. D o we want to say something about the shower being accessible using a shower chair, Dennis? D o we want to go that far? I have not encountered anyone who actually carried a shower chair onboard a train, because most

-- well, our single level equipment is usually just an overnight situation, anyway. Any thoughts on that? DENNIS CANNON: Yeah. T he problem

-- I mean, some people use shower chairs. T he problem with the shower chairs you end up with a wet chair and you are sitting in water. T he idea of trying to get dry and transferring into your regular chair is usually not very convenien t for lots of people. So I would think that that might be something that somebody would do if they wanted to take along their own shower chair. B ut I'm not convinced that is the kind of thing that people are willing to do very often. As far as using the toilet seat, in this particular configuration, you can get a side transfer to the wheelchair. You can get it out the side of the water closet and make the direct transfer. The only question I would have, I guess, would be the seat itself, whether it is typ ically they are rounded, whereas shower seats are concave, rather than convex. The ability to grab handrails and so forth, that is a designissue, which I think could be worked out. I don't have any particular issue with using water closet as the shower c hair. I think that might be okay. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think it would depend

-- if I use this example. I f that water closet, instead of being sort of looking like a typical water closet, if the space that is in the off

- side corner was actually closed in. So if you imagine there is a deck, a seat that is all the way across there and it has a lid on it, that gives you access to the water closet itself. Wh en you make your side transfer, you are also making a side transfer, then, to the shower seat. W hereas in this design, your transfer to the shower seat is 180

- degree, perhaps, or 90

- degree, at least, to get into the shower seat. Again, I want to make sure we don't box ourselves out of doing some potentially creative and very accessible conditions in the fu ture. UW E RUTENBERG: I think I agree with what Blair is saying. Don't forget this is only one of probably many examples of what you can do. T hat is not to say the design is cast in stone. As I mentioned before, we are trying this out with the different subjects right now. A nd there is a possibility that, you know, some things might work and others might not. So I mention it only here as an example. And I'm sure there are other ideas and probably layouts that would work as well, youknow, as Dennis and Blair mentioned. Maybe the use of the toilet as a seat would work also. DENNIS CANNON: O ne of the issues, this particular arrangement shows it longitudinally, I guess, along the length of the

car. W hereas in the bilevel sleepers, typically the accessible compartment

-- I don't know

-- across the entire width. A nd I don't know how this works. So obviously with some of those other designs, there is going to have to be some thought given to the designs. I want to make sure

-- we don't ever want to say "shal l comply with this figure

-- " UW E RUTENBERG: N o, exactly. DENNIS CANNON:

-- in terms of the requirement. T hat is an example of how you can do it and meet the requirements. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I 'm good with that. I f there is any other dimensional require ments that need to be plugged into sort of ensure that, that would be great. B ecause I know we have got the existing, you know, the illustrations and things were in the existing ADA that sort of underdefined and haunted us ever since it was done. So it is best to avoid those problems in the future, for sure. DENNIS CANNON: O kay. I notice this is Figure 1 identified. S o probably in the report we should simply say "see Figure 1 for an example," and not even mention there is anything likestandard. UW E RUTENBERG: C an I just go back for one second to the technical requirements for the restroom. You have as the first bullet the 60

- inch turning circle. DENNIS CANNON: R ight. UW E RUTENBERG: A nd you added there might be other possibilities that's usable

. I totally agree. Should we maybe add here also the fact a person in a wheelchair should be facing forward entering and exiting the washroom

-- DENNIS CANNON: T hat is a good idea. I 'm not sure that I would

-- UW E RUTENBERG:

-- or is that the wrong pl ace here? DENNIS CANNON: P ersonally I find the Acela restroom very accessible but it doesn't have a 60

- inch turning circle. You can enter the Acela restroom forward and you can turn around with some maneuvering and exit forward. I think that is a good id ea and maybe a recommendation. I'm not sure that is an absolute requirement, but it is a good idea, right. UW E RUTENBERG: T he other point was on the

-- let me

see. O n the same section under

-- the second to last bullet, lavatory faucet controls. I th ink we should also put in there a bullet for the flush control for the water closet shall be located at the front or sidewithin easy reach from the toilet. B ecause I have seen many times the flush control is behind the water closet and it is very difficu lt to reach. DENNIS CANNON: I think that is a good idea. UW E RUTENBERG: T hat is all I have for the section. JOSE VEGA: I just have one question on the diagram. I didn't see

-- I am not sure, quite sure where the wash basin is in relation to the seat an d access area and the bedroom and everything else. UW E RUTENBERG: W hen you come in from the entrance, it is on the right

- hand side. I t is kind of a stretch rectangular area. I f you look at the drawing it is on the north side, just when you come in and o n the right side. I t is a slim

-- DENNIS CANNON: R ight

- hand corner. JOSE VEGA: I see. T he rectangular

-- UW E RUTENBERG: E xactly. JOSE VEGA: T he piece next to the shower seat? UW E RUTENBERG: N o. You see the drawing of the person in the wheelchair? JOSE VEGA: Yes. UW E RUTENBERG: O n the right

- hand side. JOSE VEGA: O h, okay, adjacent where it says "car corridor." UW E RUTENBERG: C orrect.JOSE VEGA: T hat is the wash basin area? UW E RUTENBERG: C orrect. JOSE VEGA: I was not sure it was. UW E RUTENBERG: I t looks pretty slim. I t was not very much room to position it in any other location. JOSE VEGA: A ll right. T hank you, very much. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: J ose, thanks for bringing that point up because we have been talking about in other meet ings the sink being ideally accessible before you transfer from the toilet back to the wheelchair. O bviously that is going to force a transfer back to the wheelchair in order to wash your hands on the other side. JOSE VEGA: I can see that from the diagra m, your point, Blair. DENNIS CANNON: W e had said ideally the wash basin should be within reach of someone seated on the water closet. A nd the problem with that is what does "in reach" mean. I f you put it too close, like the Acela has it on the side, but it is forward. S o I'm not sure you can reach it while sitting on the water closet. I f you move it back toward the water closet, you then wouldn't be able to approach it from your wheelchair, if you just wanted to wash your hands so. So that is a tricky design issue and I'm not sure to say too much about it other than it would be nice to be within reach but I'm not sure that you can always do that. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: O kay. J ust didn't want us to lose that.DAVID NELSON: I know it has to come up like a s ink near the water closet. B ut maybe if they do something like installing a hand sanitizer right next to the toilet, just in case. D oes that make sense? S o that the sink is so far away from the toilet than you would have that

-- DENNIS CANNON: I 'm not sure how you define it. DAVID NELSON: Yeah. I guess it is a problem. O kay. DENNIS CANNON: I think we have to leave it to the creativity of the designers to figure out how to put that all together. If we are done with that, we can go to operating mecha nism. JIM PECHT: B efore we go, can I ask a question? DENNIS CANNON: S ure. JIM PECHT: You recommended the vertical grab bar. I assume it was for the toilet. D id you also intend one for the shower area? DENNIS CANNON: I have not seen one that ANSI

reco mmends. B ut actually in terms of rail cars, because they are moving, I think grab bars, you know, we want to specify maybe the minimum. B ut I actually think lots of grab bars is a good idea. A nd I like the vertical grab bars that are next to the sink in some of the restrooms, I'm not sure how to specify all of those, but my feeling is kind of the more the better. JIM PECHT: T he second question is you proposed addition of a 30 x 54 space next to the toilet.DENNIS CANNON: R ight. JIM PECHT: And if you g o down to the sleeping compartment, it says "side transfer to the toilet shower chair meet requirements for restrooms above." D id you intend the 30 x 54 to be parallel to the shower chair as well? DENNIS CANNON: N o. T hat design I couldn't figure out how to do that. B ut if we make the water closet the shower chair, then we sort of solve that problem. But, you're right, you can't get a side transfer to that shower seat. JIM PECHT: O kay. J ust want to make sure you note that in your notes when you have th e technical requirement. I figured that was the case, but I wanted to make sure. Somebody just join or leave? <<<: T his is Melissa Shurland from the FRA. DENNIS CANNON: I don't see the operating mechanism parts, folks. I s it not on here? JIM PECHT: You only sent me three things; the agenda, the picture and the list we just went over. DENNIS CANNON: T here was operating mechanism piece also. JIM PECHT: I don't think you sent it. DAVID NELSON: I didn't get that. UW E RUTENBERG: N o, it is not under the material that wason the net. DENNIS CANNON: W e won't go over it if we don't have it. I don't know what happened. I guess we can't do much about it. I guess the assignment is to send it out to everyone and ask eve ryone to look at it and comment on it at the next meeting. I don't know what to do. MELISSA ANDERSON: D id you have a question? Dennis, did you send it to me? I 'm thinking it got put into last week's meeting material. DENNIS CANNON: N o; I sent it to Paul. UW E RUTENBERG: C an we talk about it at the next meeting? JIM PECHT: You want to talk about the issues generally, Dennis, and prep everyone for it? DENNIS CANNON: L et me pull it out. W hat I did was took a bunch of things from bus rule and ADA accessibility guidelines and even the little piece from the 508 standards. I 'm trying to get it here. You can pull up the

-- there is a link over there to the right. Pull out the proposed and you will see some issues about operating mechanisms that has a di agram of wheelchair seating next to

a -- like the pull cord and whatever in a vehicle

-- we talked about the provision, about the stopping provision applies and there is a definition of operable parts, which I'll read it to you. "A component of a device o r system used to insert orwithdraw objects, or to activate, deactivate, adjust, or connect to the device or system. O perable parts include, but are not limited to, buttons, levers, knobs, smart card targets, coin and card slots, pull

- cords, jacks, data p orts, electrical outlets, and touch screens." And it basically applies these controls to things that would be, in this case, endure hardware in the sleeping compartment, the controls of faucets, the HVAC control, all of those things to be within reach

ran ges to somebody seated in a wheelchair so you can get up. If you are familiar with the bilevel sleeping car currently, all of those controls are in the far corner over by the window and they are impossible to reach from somebody seated in the wheelchair. You have to actually sit, transfer into the chair and even then it is up behind you and to the left. A nd so there is very little ability to reach the controls. I set the location

-- and this comes from the proposed bus rule, as the height of the object shall be between 24 inches and 48 inches maximum above the floor. T he lateral position shall be maximum of 68 inches in front of or behind the center line of the wheelchair seating place, a clear floor space and seating compartment. So you have the wheelc hair seating space, you have the control, say, on a wall. T hey have to be between 24 and 48 inches above the floor. L aterally they have to be essentially at the center line at that space. S o you don't have to reach back behind you, ifyou are seated the re, and you don't have to reach too far in front of you to get it. S ix inches is a guess. M aybe it is more than that. I don't know what it might be. T hat will give you a foot lateral space. That may not be enough for all the controls you need. I speci fied the thing about how far you have to reach, which this is from ADA accessibility guidelines again. Amaximum of 10 inches beyond the plane is defined by the side of the wheelchair. So you don't have to reach too far over things to get there. Operable parts, controls

-- I picked up the 12

- inch minimum from an inside corner that was already in the restroom space requirement, the door, controls. I put in redundant controls are permitted. A nd you can have more than one set of controls, depending on

-- you have a wireless or a wired remote device. I f you wanted to, that would be useful to be able to get if you are in the bed; you can actually pull something over either remote. Wi reless idea is a great idea but also the kind of thing that tends to wande r away. S o that may not be a good idea. B ut I wanted to make it clear you can have more than one control. So you could have controls for the lights at the upper bunk, which is fine, as long as you have an actual set of controls to control the lights with in the reach ranges. And then we have the general condition about operable parts. Operable in one hand shall not require tight grasping, pinching or twisting of the wrist. F orce, maximum of five pounds. P ower doorbutton shall be 2 inches across minimum

. T his is partly from the public rights

- of

-way. T hey need too be big enough where you can actually push them without the tiny little things that are on a lot of elevators that drive me nuts that you have to hit with your finger and push pretty hard. Tact ically discernable. I can't show you, but the control on my chair has seven buttons. T hey are on a membrane switch. That is the kind of thing you will frequently find on your microwave, but each one of them has a little ring around it that is raised so you can actually locate it by touch. A nd it doesn't have braille or anything on the controls to tell you which they are, but you can find them and you can find them without activating them. S o that is an important feature for people who are blind and can 't read it. I also added they have to comply with 508 standards. I pulled some of those out before and I think that is a good idea. Two - state control, that is things like on/off, high/low. S hould provide visually and tactically discernable indication of their state. So when I push the button on my power chair, it lights up and it beeps. I can't tell afterwards what state it is in at this point. T here are controls, toggle switches you can tell if they are up or down. Button control, you push them in an d they stay in and you push them again and pop out. T hose are things you can actually tell which state they are in by feel. You don't have to see it in order to do that. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: L et me throw something out, if I can.I have heard different disc ussions in the past about membrane switches and touch switches and touches that don't give you any kind of active feedback. S ome of the membrane switches actually they click, you know, you activate them, versus a touch switch. I heard pros and cons on both of those. But if you were looking at a mechanical switch, to your point, if you pushed it once and it changed its state from raised to depressed and you press it again and it changed the state back to wherever it was before, is that preferable to having some of these other things light up or that kind of situation? DENNIS CANNON: T hat is one of the ways that tells you. I am assuming there are other methods. M y controls light up and beep when you turn them on. Again, unless I see that it is lit up, I can't tell after the fact whether it is on or off. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: O kay. O bviously if you can touch it and tell what position it is in and don't have to depend on the light, that seems better. B ecause the switch is always going to be physically in one spot or another and you don't have to worry if the light burned out or if the person is blind or in some cases LEDs. Especially now we are finding that an LED that doesn't look like much during the day can really lighten up a room at night. S o that may be worth considering as well. I f it is a little indicator, if you are in a sleeping compartment, it could be the very thing that keeps you awake, other than the train bouncing around.DENNIS CANN ON: A nd I see some of those and you turn your head the wrong way and it feels like it is boring in the back of your head. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. A nd those are the indicators. DENNIS CANNON: S o those are the things I put together. And, I'm sorry, we di dn't get it out to you folks because I was pretty sure I included it, but apparently not. Wecan send it out to everybody. I t is not that long. I t has one figure in it that, again, you can look at. I f you call up the proposed rule, you will see the guy sitting in the chair at the side of a bus and it shows a large area for where the controls should be from a height standpoint. D oesn't have anything about the lateral position. Those are the issues about controls and operating mechanisms and I guess we wi ll just have to send you the information to see later. Back to the agenda, we are on to assignments. N o, next steps. I'm presuming that we still have things to clean up and discuss times. I 'm not sure what other specific provisions we need to deal with. Anybody have ideas about what things in the particular area we need to discuss. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think this might be the right place,and I read it in other parts of the regulation, it has be worth reiterating. Wh en we are talking about single access, water controls for faucets and things, you are going to be dealing with mixed hot and cold water. W e want to set a water temperature. O bviously there needs to be a safe water temperature. B ut set a water temperature maximum and minimum for the hand wash ing water? DENNIS CANNON: G ood question. UW E RUTENBERG: W e actually did this in our train. W e set the temperature so you cannot burn your hands. I think it was like 35

- degrees, whatever that is, Fahrenheit. I don't know. B ut it is a range where you cannot burn your hands because I think that is a very important part because some people don't have a good feeling in their hands and they might not be able to, you know, feel when the water is too hot. DAVID NELSON: D ennis, you had talked about the different types of operating control mechanisms. N ow, did you quote that from the ADA regulation or is that ADAAG? DENNIS CANNON: I cobbled them together. I took parts from the proposed bus rule. I took parts from the ADA accessibility guidelines, the new on es, and I took a couple from the 508 standards. DAVID NELSON: O kay. G otcha. I 'm a little bit concerned, this might be a one

-time proposed rulemaking that may not betouched for another 20 or 30 years or so. W hile ADAAG is

-- well, hopefully ADAAG is up dated more frequently. My question is should we refer people to ADAAG rather than pulling all the information together? I just want to hear your view on the pros and cons of that. DENNIS CANNON: Yeah. I n general most people don't like to have multiple do cuments that they have to refer back and forth to. Most designers of rail cars aren't going to likely have a copy of the building and facilities standards. T hey are going have to go find them somewhere. One of the things we did in writing the original ve hicle was to do a lot of redundancy, but then people complained about that too. But the idea was if you are building a commuter rail car, you didn't have to pull up even the rapid rail section or anything; you had a complete document all yourself. I'm incl ined to think we don't necessarily want to refer back to the building facilities. I , for one thing, it doesn't include all of these things. S ome of the building facilities standards in terms of the heights of controls is different from what I think it sh ould be in the vehicles. So I understand the idea of not upgrading and not being able to refresh them quickly, but that is true of ADA, the building and facilities standards as well. DAVID NELSON: O kay. W e have no idea what the futureof DOT is going to look like and it is unfortunate. U nlike airlines, the Air Carrier Access Act, they update it more frequently and they refresh it, whichever you want to call it. I just wish there was language or a statute in the ADA saying that rail vehicles have to be re viewed every 10 years, or something like that. B ut, you know, it is just not there. DENNIS CANNON: R ight. T rying to set a standard for when that is going to happen in the federal government is probably pointless. E ven in the private sector the ANSI sta ndard setting agencies have

-- and the building codes have a general rule that they review and update every five years, but they often do not meet that requirement. So I'm not sure that you can say that is likely to happen in the federal government with al l of the changes in administrations and rules and Executive Order changes, the change with the regulatory assessment requirements from one year to the next. So I would love for that to be a requirement, but I don't think that is likely. DAVID NELSON: A nd then, Dennis

-- I am trying to remember. I t has been probably many years ago, I read something. I think it was the FCC, possibly, FCC regulations and they had referred to, I think, an organization or something like that. A nd that organization has a list of specs or best practices. A nd that organization, I think, was a customer organization, like a customeradvocacy organization. S o maybe I'm wrong because it was so many years ago. But do you know of any government agency that typically refers to an outside private organization, best practice or, you know, white paper or

-- do you know what I mean? DENNIS CANNON: I n general, the board has several resources, things that were put out by the American Society of Interior Designers, I think, that talks ab out signage and good practices. A nd you can't actually require anybody to do those, but you can list those resources so people can look at them. Some of the things in 508 refer to the W C3 W orking Group, which is standards for worldwide web. T here are references occasionally to Trace Design Center that is doing a lot of work on controls and operating mechanisms. You can't require them because they are private sector. There is a rule in the federal government that says if there is a private sector standard that meets the requirement of the statute that you are reporting, that you are supposed to use that standard and incorporate by reference. Many of the standards out there don't necessarily meet all of the requirements of the statute, like building codes, for example, they will cover all the things that the ADA accessibility guidelines do. So there is a rule in general that you are supposed to reference or rather incorporate by reference.One of the problems with that is you have to incorporate is the parti cular version of that standard that is in effect at the time it happens. You can't say "shall comply with the latest version of" because that would give the private sector, essentially, rulemaking authority. So you can get locked into those same kinds of problems and we have state codes all over the country that are referencing their own ANSI, their own building codes that are way out of date. A nd, unfortunately, they can't

-- unless the legislature or the city council, or whatever, gets an update, we don 't get updated either. D.C. for example, the fire code has the International Fire Code as the fire code. W ell, that is 14 years old. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: W hat I would like to throw out

-- and you touched on it just now with the industry organization. I f we look at APTA one of the things that APTA grabbled with is signage and laid groundwork for the glow in the dark, emergency critical signs and things like that. And what happens is the FRA has language, I think, largely in 238 that things that are generated by the industrial organization and accepted by the organization and industry are included by default in the CFR. So that may be for accessibility something we need to open up with APTA as a way of having a more fluid and chargeable condition going forward that is bracketed, maybe on the extremes onwhat happens on the government end so we don't have to wait for 10 years or some extreme number of years to get changes made and let those run through the industry organization. A nd then it gets a good hearing as well. T hat would seem like a good thing to do. DAVID NELSON: I do have a little bit of a concern like that. Because APTA typically is run more by the board, which is made up of people in transit fields, whereas there is probably no people with disabi lities involved. I 'm talking more of the national board. T hey may have Bob Carlson working there, but he is at the board's discretion of making decisions. I mean, I don't know how Bob

-- say after Bob leaves, then who is it? S o there are pros and cons h ere. I f we could say APTA and a specific disability group. I don't know. DENNIS CANNON: W e certainly want the board to include in its reference material anything that looks good. B ut probably I won't go on my own thing here about APTA. I was involved in one of the committees early on that was supposedly writing rules for accessibility and frankly I was not impressed. I 'll leave it at that and say that is not necessarily

-- APTA is good on lots of things but it is not necessarily good on accessibility. LISA FAIRHALL: O ne of the things we need to look at before we are able to incorporate standards by references, whether it complied with the requirements under the National Technology Transfer Act, which was the authority that Dennis was referring to,th at let's us incorporate

-- gives the preference by incorporating by reference. And one of the critical aspects we would need to look at is whether the organization was a voluntary standard setting organization. A nd I don't know if APTA falls in that categ ory. The other thing we would look at is the maturity of the standard, the finality of the standard. So those are things we would need to look at before we were able to incorporate anything by reference. S o just putting that down as a marker. DENNIS CANNO N: R ight. I think we want to say from the standpoint of the committee that we certainly want the board to find whatever documents, best practices, whatever that it can on the subject and make those links to those reports and whatever on its website. But the issue whether something should be incorporated by reference, I think is left up to the board went it does its rulemaking. Okay. S o where are we? Assignments, I guess, is to read that thing that I didn't. And next meeting. T he next meeting would be i n -- get my calendar year. T his is the 16th of October. I f you look at November, you have got

-- you want to keep it on a Thursday? W e have the 13th and the 20th of November. A nd I don't know maybe if somebody like Jim can tell us if there are other su bcommittees thathave picked dates already. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: D ennis, I bumped into my "low bidder telephone" and it disconnected. So, Jim, can you tell us if any of the other committees have picked

-- actually the 6th, the 14 and the 20th. You know if o ther committees have already picked dates. JIM PECHT: T he 6th and 12th are taken. T he 20th is open. DENNIS CANNON: W e are not going to do it on Thanksgiving. S o that is the only date we have left. A nybody have a problem of setting the 20th of November? UW E RUTENBERG: Twentieth of November is fine with me. JOSE VEGA: Twentieth of November is fine with me. DENNIS CANNON: O kay. H earing no violent objections, we will make it the twentieth for Rooms and Spaces, same time, same channel, right. <<<: Yes. BLAIR SLAUGHTER: S ounds good. DENNIS CANNON: A nd, unfortunately, I think you are done because you didn't get that document. UW E RUTENBERG: A re you going to email it to us? DENNIS CANNON: S orry? I didn't catch that. UW E RUTENBERG: T he document that you prepared, are you emailing it to us? DENNIS CANNON: Yes. I think that is a good idea. C an Igive it to Paul and Jim and have you send it out? JIM PECHT: S ure. W e can do that. DENNIS CANNON: S o is that all we need to do today, folks? MELISSA ANDERSON: D ennis, are you going to be at whatever phone number Jim has for you in 15 minutes or so?

(Off

-the

- record discussion) UW E RUTENBERG: T hanks, very much, Dennis. <<<: B ye. ROSE MARIE B UNALES: T hank you, operator for your help today. W e are adjourned. P lease disconnect all lines. (W hereupon, at 2:26 p.m. the meeting was adjourned)