Note: The output shown below is from the Communication Access Realtime Translation 

(CART) system used in the Boarding and Alighting Subcommittee Meeting #3 and is generally

unedited. Although CART services started at the beginning of the conference call on June 25, 

2014 (1 pm ET), problems with the CART output made the service unusable which stopped 

around 1:15 pm. Later, CART output text was provided by the operator.

x--------------------------------x 

 : UNITED STATES ACCESS BOARD : 

 : RAIL VEHICLES ACCESS ADVISORY COMMITTEE : 

x--------------------------------x

SUBCOMMITTEE ON BOARDING AND ALIGHTING 

 

TELECONFERENCE 

*DRAFT TRANSCRIPT*

 

Wednesday, June 25, 2014 

1:00 p.m.
Location: United States Access Board

 1331 F Street, NW, Suite 1000

 Washington, DC 20004 

Reporter: Sandra Gartrell
PAUL BEATTY: Thank you. Good afternoon, this is 

Paul Beatty. Welcome to the third meeting of the 

Boarding and Alighting Subcommittee.

As you know, since anyone may participate in 

subcommittee discussions, time for public comment has 

been scheduled during this two-hour call.

You may also note that we have a CART system in 

operation and it appears the chat box is functioning, 

but to allow the CART operator to perform her duties, 

for participants who are only using CART to participate, 

in a desire to raise a question, make a statement, we 

request to use email address RVAAC@access-board.GOV.

A note to the CART operator, I will send you a list 

of the committee members. I did not have time to send 

it to you for purposes of your duty.

For those participating in this conference call, 

please remember to give your name when speaking. As a 

reminder, the next meeting of the subcommittee is 

scheduled for July 24, which is a Thursday.

In this room Melissa Anderson is present and on the 

line we request those on the line to identify themselves. 

Speak up, please. 

MICHAEL PORTER: Michael Porter. 
DENNIS CANNON: Dennis Cannon.

PAUL BEATTY: Thank you, Dennis. 

CRYSTAL LYONS: Crystal Lyons. 

KENNETH SHIOTANI: Kenneth SHIOTANI. 

PAUL BEATTY: Operator, could you raise the volume 

on that individual.

<<<: Priscilla (inaudible). 

PAUL BEATTY: Anybody else?

FRANK MALDARI: Frank Maldari.

PAUL BEATTY: Thank you, Frank. 

Anyone else?

STEVE ROMAN: Steve Roman.

PAUL BEATTY: Steve, thank you.

MARILYN GOLDEN: This is Marilyn Golden.

PAUL BEATTY: Thank you, Marilyn.

ED HOFF: Ed Hoff.

PAUL BEATTY: Thank you, Ed.

According to my list, Gary, you're on? 

GARY TALBOT: Yes, sir, I am. Hi, Paul. Hi, 

everybody.

PAUL BEATTY: Sid Goldstein is on. And I'm 

looking at my list here, I think we have everybody. 

At this point I will turn it over to the 

subcommittee chair, Marilyn Golden. Marilyn? 
MARILYN GOLDEN: Thank you, Paul.

We have the agenda, which we are in a way continuing 

from last time and we are up to, I think .5.

Any discussion of the agenda? I have one or two 

quick points to cover before we jump into it, but I just 

want to deal with 2.0, approval point first. Going 

once? Twice? Okay.

Just real quickly, first of all, staff and I 

received a letter from Mr. (inaudible), the same 

gentleman who also spoke at our last meeting about the 

gap fill device. And, you know, reiterating some of the 

same points and reiterating some of the points from the 

last meeting we all heard. We will be considering all 

concepts in our committee deliberations, not 

necessarily specific devices. The staff is putting 

your letter into -- and we can talk about research 

funding that is not part of RVAAC purview, but the Access 

Board.

Another thing I wanted to point out is that our job 

is to make sure that our recommendations for guidelines 

are open to all such innovations but the specific 

products, railroad use to develop them is one issue for 

the railroads, rather than for the RVAAC, as I understand 

our purview.
The other thing is that in the interim since our 

last meeting, one of our active participants from NDR, 

Ken Shiotani, had raised with me whether a specific 

element is within our subcommittee purview or a 

different subcommittee. Ken, do. You want to raise 

that? 

KENNETH SHIOTANI: That is the issue of 

vestibules. This is relevant to inter-city and certain 

commuter cars, not relevant to light rail or rapid rail.

But on the inter-city cars -- actually, I 

guess -- basically on the cars that have vestibules, the 

sections at the ends of the cars where there are 

traditionally steps and a landing and the rest of the 

car, seems to me that this is boarding and alighting but 

it could be spaces. But I guess the question is, which 

committee should deal with it and then what fits into 

the agenda, I guess, are the current requirements 

adequate or do we need any changes. But it is the 

question of vestibules. 

DENNIS CANNON: I think that is interior 

circulation. That being said, I think there is no 

reason that anybody can't have an issue that they want 

to make sure gets covered by that. We don't want to lose 

anything accidentally by having one committee saying, 
"No, no, it is something else and the other committee 

doesn't cover it." So if there is a specific issue 

relating to that, you write warning -- the vestibule is 

the thing that you enter the first so, so in a sense it 

is where you go into the boarding area. And clearly 

things like doorways and turning and all of that is part 

of the circulation, but there is a question about where 

the circulation path begins, I guess, as opposed to 

inside the vehicle as opposed to on the platform.

So you can probably mention it if it is an important 

issue that needs to be raised. I think it should be 

noted, if not necessarily directly covered. 

ED HOFF: I think we covered a little bit about that 

in interior circulation. I think when Blair first 

started off we said we were going to start at the door. 

So we were discussing things like the envelope of the 

vestibule area, protrusions into that space, not just 

the clear floor space. So I think to avoid any 

duplicative effort, I think we could note it if we think 

of something and just make sure that it is being covered 

in that circulation subcommittee.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Yes. It is better to cover 

points than to not cover it and it is possible that the 

two different subcommittees may cover different aspects 
of it.

So I suggest that we err on the side of discussing 

any issues that are subcommittee participants feel are 

important and if we get too far into another 

subcommittee's purview, that staff can just point that 

out or anybody, you know, staff or anybody can point that 

out and redirect us.

Does that work, Ken?

KENNETH SHIOTANI: Sure. The other question that 

I had -- and I don't know, again, where it fits. It is 

related to boarding but it is also -- maybe it is 

interior circulation, but it is relevant to a particular 

type of rail car, which is the gallery car, which is used 

by, I think, a bunch of the Chicago commuter lines, which 

is used in light VRE in the D.C. area. And those cars 

have a center set of steps going up into a high floor 

car and then they have an upper level, but, you know, 

that is an interior circulation issue and I don't think 

this committee is trying to get upper-level circulation 

in a commuter car.

But it is the getting on to a gallery car, which 

does have this somewhat unique entrance, which has 

steps. I think the new cars all have lifts. But I guess 

the question is, how does that sort of fit into the 
regulatory scheme. It is sort of assumes level boarding 

is generally required if not feasible. And I guess is 

it just not feasible in those kinds of cars. Again, I 

don't know where that fits into -- whether it fits into 

boarding and alighting or it fits into interior 

circulation or a little of both.

FRANK MALDARI: I believe it fits into this 

particular group and I think it is going to get covered. 

But, you know, I don't think we are going to specify a 

particular way to provide access, but rather to give 

options.

Level boarding is always the best option and I don't 

know if we can stress it but it's not the only option.

MARILYN GOLDEN: I think Ken is saying that may not 

work for these cars can.

Ken, I think that -- other thoughts about whether 

it fits here? If it does, you should raise it, you know, 

whenever in the discussion it falls.

FRANK MALDARI: I'm not that familiar with them. 

If the car to be accessible, you have to get it. If a 

wayside lift is needed or, you know, some other way is 

provided, I think the regulations would leave it open 

to decide how to do it and not require one way or the 

other.
So, yes, you have to be able to get into that car. 

Is it level boarding? Probably not. I'm not that 

familiar with it. A platform lift or a car-borne lift 

would have to be provided for access. That is the extent 

of what we are talking about. You have to be able to 

get on it one way or the other.

GARY TALBOT: Can I ask a question? Frank, I 

appreciate you bringing that up because this is 

something I have been confused with for a long time.

If you look at the legislation for inner-city rail, 

it is supposed to comply with 504 and the ADA. The 504 

says that the accessibility you provide should be in the 

most integrated setting possible. There is other 

language, but that to me is one of the key pieces. Well, 

if the RVAAC committee is supposed to write new rules. 

It would make sense if someone to required to comply with 

504 would have a little bit of a different rule than 

someone who didn't have to.

It would get to Frank's point that -- I have been 

confused why a station-based mobile lift would comply, 

how it would comply with like a 504 requirement and ADA 

especially under a Title III or maybe even Title II. I 

would understand where that would comply. I understand 

that --
PAUL BEATTY: Can I interrupt you, Gary. I am 

trying to communicate to the CART being shown in our 

screen on the office, it has the entire right-hand side 

truncated off. The lead sentences can't be seen, so, 

Sandra, is that something that is at our end or our end. 

Is anyone else monitoring the CART and are they having 

the similar problem.

FRANK MALDARI: I see the same thing here.

PAUL BEATTY: Okay. We can't proceed until we 

have a complete CART projection.

(Off-the-Record Discussion) 

MARILYN GOLDEN: ... partially or fully fall in 

either subcommittee. I'm going to say that whatever 

minimal power, I may have as chair it is better to 

duplicate rather than to ignore missing something. I 

suggest you, Ken, or anyone to raise them when it is 

appropriate and that would be -- and this gives me a 

chance to transition into what our program for the day 

was, which is to go through the requirements per Melissa 

focusing us where it is our purview in them and discuss 

the different elements of the existing guidelines, what 

needs to be changed, what needs to be added, et cetera, 
and go through like that.

One thing I would say, though, I think there are 

concerns on the issues list. I think Ken's concerns may 

or may not also be on this. There may be concerns that 

looking at the existing requirements we may not bring 

up because they were not thought of at that time when 

they were developed.

So people who are interested in such as like these 

two topics, Ken, and at the end we should circulate back 

to our issues list. And anything going through the 

existing guidelines that has not been raised that you 

should raise it at that time so it does not get forgotten.

I just sense a substance shift in the discussion 

of your questions might hijack the discussion, the 

discussion of not doing it right now, just a ruling 

whether they are ours.

KENNETH SHIOTANI: That sounds fine.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Melissa, you sent several 

attachments, including current requirements and also Ed 

Steinfeld's memo about a clear floor space proposal. 

Did you want to direct us at particular sections? 

MELISSA ANDERSON: No.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Start with the coordination with 

the boarding platform and sort of work our way through 
the rules.

So you're saying all of it is our purview in this 

subcommittee. 

MELISSA ANDERSON: The current regulations that 

were attached to the meeting notice for today, it is not 

all of the current regulations. It is only the one that 

address boarding and alighting.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Ah-ha, why not start with the 

clear doorways?

MELISSA ANDERSON: The doorways is intermediate 

and I don't think it is something we can solve real quick 

yet. We can do it either way you want. I thought we 

would start tackling lists and ramps and bridge plates, 

but if you want to do doorways, give me just a minute 

to find that.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Not necessarily. I'm happy to go 

with your suggestion. Another subcommittee will do 

widths. This is really the whole issue of building 

block standards and what we're going to use. You're 

right, that it is a big issue. I would just encourage 

staff to make sure that when we discuss that, we discuss 

all of it and this is part of it.

For example, the Ed's memo is only about clear floor 

space and not about clear width and doorways but it 
impacts it.

MELISSA ANDERSON: I thought maybe we would start 

with getting people off the platform before we took them 

through the doorway.

DENNIS CANNON: One of the things I think Blair is 

working on from the circulation is kind of performance 

standard, which is an effect you would define a volume, 

a box, if you will, that has to be maneuverable 

through -- into and through the car to the space it is 

supposed to be. If you do that process and say, "This 

is the box that it has to fit", then that is a performance 

requirement that tells you how wide the doors have to 

be and how big the vestibules have to be.

So, in a sense, if you take that approach, which 

we are not sure it is going to work yet because somebody 

is working on it, then you don't actually have to specify 

minimum requirements for doors and vestibules. You 

only have to specify that this device can be maneuvered 

through the area.

<<<: The issue with gallery cars, we think level 

boarding is the gold standard. We want a platform the 

height of the floor and no minimum gaps.

If you specify that as the general requirement and 

say all new cars must be able to be entered and boarded 
from a platform -- must allow level boarding, that is 

the first thing. We are not going to get high platforms 

all over the country. Not going to happen for hundreds 

of years. But it has to be compatible with that.

If you have a gallery car, with has steps at the 

entrance and what that means and you might say it, 

actually call it out, all those steps have to have a trap 

that closes over the steps, like a current Amtrak cars, 

which have a trap that closes over the steps. You lift 

the trap up and the steps fold down but it permits level 

boarding. What you would say, yeah, you can do gallery 

cars but they have to be designed to allow level boarding 

wherever those platforms are going to be. And some 

platforms in some areas because of a variety of cars, 

you may have platform fix that is not necessarily at the 

same level of the floor of all of the cars. So some of 

your cars may still require a ramp to get into it. But 

if you specify all the new cars have to allow for level 

boarding, a platform at floor level, the gallery 

car -- we don't care if you have gallery cars, if you 

cover the step. We allow you to have them.

MARILYN GOLDEN: I'm struggling with a performance 

standard box that has to maneuver throughout the car. 

That is what didn't allow us to maneuver properly on the 
bus. And the revisions of the bus standards -- and 

there is probably work on it since a lot of us have seen 

it and don't know the latest version of it. To the 

extent we know, the board had proposed maneuvering space 

that had not been available in a lot of situations 

because a performance standard was used and was applied 

in a way that doesn't fully understand maneuvering space 

is necessary. So I hope that we won't do that.

FRANK MALDARI: You know, we talked about this with 

Blair for a while. The maneuverability of the volume 

that is going to be defined and maybe that addresses what 

one of the issues you had was. If you are assuming it 

was a wheelchair with four wheels and two pivoting, that 

limits the maneuverability. You can't move the 

wheelchair laterally, unless you make a bunch of steps 

to move it forward and back.

So limiting the maneuverability of the volume that 

is to be defined was the way that we had considered to 

restrict -- you know, putting a space directly adjacent 

to that you couldn't access because you needed 

maneuvering space.

So I don't know if that addresses your issues 

specifically. The intent was to come up with a volume 

and put limits on it that were realistic for most devices 
and that would allow us to design a space that you could 

move in and out of.

So does that address your concern with the way it 

had been working previously.

<<<: Conceivably it does.

MARSHA MAZZ: Performance standards are not easy 

to write. And I think before you make a decision about 

whether or not you want performance standards, I think 

it would be important to give it a try and make the 

decision after you see what people come up with.

I think what Frank is trying to say is that he 

understands that a good performance standard is going 

to do something more than just establish a rectangle, 

a box.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Yeah, yeah.

MARSHA MAZZ: Because, you know, a good 

performance is going to deal with how wheelchairs turn 

and that kind of thing. I think it is a huge challenge 

to do a decent performance standard. And the best 

performance standards also have a parallel, explicit 

standard that would go along with it. You either comply 

with the performance standard or you comply with the 

prescriptive standard, which would be my preference for 

Access Board rule, generally, if we went to performance 
standards. 

So you give people an option of the performance 

standard or the prescriptive standard because some 

people would just prefer to comply with the prescriptive 

and others who feel they can tolerate more risks would 

comply with the performance standard.

That, at least, would be what I would expect to see 

when and if we do performance standards. I think a 

performance standard has to do a whole lot more than just 

articulate what the ultimate outcome is in terms of, you 

know, provide equal treatment, which some of our rules 

have done in the past and with limited success.

I guess all I'm trying to say, in a very long winded 

way, it might be a good idea to hold that decision in 

abeyance until we see what people come up with.

DENNIS CANNON: I wasn't suggesting we go to that 

until we see what Blair comes up with. I was just saying 

as an example, as a way we deal with the vestibule in 

a different way. I'm not opposed. I think the idea of 

clearly saying even if we accept the performance 

standard, we want to make sure the door is at least X 

and the vestibule is at least Y and the aisle is at least 

Z and so forth. So that in the end we like the 

performance standard that somebody comes up with, we 
don't have to worry about it. I'm not suggesting we give 

up and just say, "Let's throw all our eggs in the 

performance standard basket." I'm not personally. It 

is going to be adequate, but that is besides the point. 

My main point was you don't necessarily have to deal 

with all the little pieces right now. The doorway width 

is one that I think we should just say flat out has to 

be a minimum of some number and then worry about whether 

the performance standard works or not.

The main issue was to require that all new cars be 

compatible with level boarding or they have an onboard 

lift because there are still lifts that will not be at 

floor height for a very long time. There has to be some 

way to get you from the car to the floor. But the new 

cars have to be compatible with level boarding.

In the future when the Amtrak stations are rebuilt, 

we will have level boarding across the country.

MARILYN GOLDEN: With that discussion, I don't 

know if there are any other comments but with that I'm 

willing to go on to coordination of the boarding 

platform. Anything else? 

STANTON SAUCIER: Marilyn, good morning. Stanton 

Saucier calling in from California. I just wanted to 

add from a systems point perspective and the concept 
that, you know, we don't want to necessarily write 

something that is going to restrict the use of certain 

new technology that we don't necessarily know about yet 

today. The performance standard element is a good thing 

to have. I think it was one of the earlier commenters 

that mentioned something about a parallel path with 

performance-oriented language and some prescriptive 

language with a really good approach. For the simple 

reason that, you know, we have this requirement that 

we're trying to meet and we feel that an (inaudible) can 

get it done. 

At some point down the road, technology becomes 

available that makes the size and shape of either the 

vehicle that is working its way down the trash -- down 

the pathway or the materials that make up the pathway 

itself may change in such a way that, you know, that now 

the prescriptive portion of it maybe has become obsolete 

and the overall community is better served if we can take 

advantage of this new technology.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is from a 

systems design perspective, something that provides 

performance oriented language in addition to the 

prescriptive would be preferable. Thank you.

DENNIS CANNON: I want to remind everybody too that 
we always have equivalent facilitation. And unlike 

Justice Department where you just kind of do it on your 

own, there is an actual procedure for granting 

equivalent facilitation and regulation. So there is 

availability to go over different options and different 

ways of solving the problem. Unlike the sort of throw 

your hat out and hope that you get something, there is 

a procedure whereby you can actually approve or 

disapprove equipment facilitation.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Yeah, good point. And we should 

remember that later when we are talking about 

performance standards.

Anything else before we move on?

Coordination of boarding platforms, did you want 

to introduce that to us, Melissa.

MELISSA ANDERSON: We are going to work our way 

through the prescriptive elements of the current text 

and, Stanton, if you have some ideas for performance spec 

or anybody as we get through these kind of identify the 

prescriptive parts, I think we are probably all very open 

to recommendations for specific performance 

specifications also. But let's save that until we kind 

of identify the prescriptive ones so we got something 

to start with.
The coordination with boarding platforms -- and 

I'm reading most of this from the rapid rail requirements 

because most of the requirements are the same across the 

different modes. Rapid rail requires -- okay. I'm 

just going to read it. "Coordination of boarding 

platform where new vehicles operate in new stations the 

design of the vehicle shall be coordinated with the 

boarding platform design, such that the horizontal gap 

between each vehicle door at rest and the platform shall 

be no greater than 3-inches in height of the vehicle 

floor and should be within plus or minus 5/8-inch of the 

platform height under normal passenger load condition. 

Vertical alignment may be accomplished by vehicle air 

suspension or other suitable means of meeting the 

requirement." And that is for new vehicles at new 

stations. I think we probably ought to start there.

And Dennis mentioned before that rather than trying 

to identify, you know, how big those gaps should be and 

what should be done for each type of gap, just trying 

to identify a gap at the point you need to provide some 

type of boarding and alighting device. So current 

requirement is no greater than three inches in height 

or in width -- horizontal gap is no more than three 

inches and the vertical gap is 5/8 of an inch. 
Does everybody agree with it or does somebody think 

it should be more or less?

DENNIS CANNON: I want to propose the other issue 

which is again to say that wherever the horizontal gap 

exceeds X and the vertical difference exceeds Y, there 

shall be a mourning device, such as bridge plate lift, 

et cetera, and not specify the specific requirement. 

One of the problems we got in with the rail folks 

or Amtrak folk was the idea we specified a four-inch 

maximum gap in some cases and three inches in other 

cases, but really can't do that. It gave people a 

headache to try to figure out how they could possibly 

meet that standard. We don't need to say anything about 

the vacuum of gap. We just say if the gap exceeds -- and 

I would recommend two inches. (Inaudible) already done 

it. And wherever it is more than two inches, you have 

to provide a bridge plate, a ramp, a lift, period. 

And then you don't have to worry -- you also don't 

have to worry -- because the way it works in the rail 

vehicles, we have new cars and new stations and new cars 

and old existing stations and existing cars in new 

stations. We have three different requirements. You 

don't have to specify any of that and make people's head 

swim if you simply say, "If you have a gap that is 
greater, horizontal gap greater than two inches you have 

to do something to ameliorate it. If the vertical 

displacement is greater than 5/8 inches, you have to do 

something to fix it." 

ED HOFF: I wholeheartedly agree with Dennis. I 

think as we went over last meeting, I just added the 

caveat if it is a bridge plate, that the bridge plate 

be somehow on the vehicle rather than platform-based. 

You can also have platform-based ones that are redundant 

but we should probably have at least one to serve at least 

one door or more doors within a certain proximity. This 

is something certainly in our purview because we are 

talking strictly about the vehicle and not about 

coordination with the platform itself. We've gotten 

past level boarding and the gap. If you have a gap that 

exceeds a certain horizontal and/or vertical, that we 

have a car-borne bridge plate or other devices. 

Now, other devices I'm not weighing in on, if it 

is a wayside lift, that is a deal. But if you are going 

to provide a bridge plate -- I'm sorry, whether or not 

you are providing any of those things, if you are in 

territory to ever use the vehicle anywhere where there 

is level boarding and there is not some type of lift or 

other type of wayside device, that a bridge plate be 
available either integrated in the car or even if it is 

somehow manually deployed somehow stored on the car. 

I have a big justification. I promised Marilyn I 

would write up the justification for the next conference 

call. There are many advantages, as I may have voiced 

the last meeting, for having the bridge plate on board 

the rail car. So, again, wholeheartedly agree with 

Dennis and say if the gap exceeds this, somehow you have 

to have a bridge plate and my addition would be the bridge 

plate be on board.

MARSHA MAZZ: Dennis, I have a question. Is it 

your intent to not establish any limitation on the gaps 

or height differentials?

DENNIS CANNON: Yeah, that was the idea, the point 

is -- as we heard from (inaudible) you may have an area 

where you can't get any closer than six inches to the 

platform --

MARSHA MAZZ: You're language has the potential 

for having an unlimited size gap. So it could be 

40 feet. I mean, it won't be.

ED HOFF: Can we establish, as it has already been 

established, the gap dimensions be in the design of the 

platform itself as it is currently under DOT regs?

DENNIS CANNON: There is a requirement. That is 
why the car requirements has this difference between new 

and existing and so forth. If you comply with the 

current or even the older ADAAG platform requirements 

for a new platform, you had to build it so that the gap 

was minimized. You couldn't -- in fact, complying with 

the ADAAG and the new ADA standards, you can't build a 

curve platform anymore, period. Some people have 

missed the idea that you cannot build a curved platform 

under the curved standards. 

<<<: The current DOT regs take care of the gap 

requirements where the gaps must be and the rail car will 

say as a result of that, if you are 

building -- encountering level boarding and you have a 

gap of a certain dimension, you must provide a bridge 

plate device.

GARY TALBOT: You have platforms being built on 

curves all over the place today.

DENNIS CANNON: It is very illegal.

GARY TALBOT: You know, they are approved.

<<<: It is a matter of gap, not necessarily a 

curve. You can have a gentle curve. It is a matter of 

the measurement of the resulting gap that is not 

necessarily illegal but the difficulty. At certain 

point you -- the RFA will step in and say you can't open 
a door at that point.

GARY TALBOT: The difference is where there is 

passenger only traffic or the right-of-way is owned by 

public entity versus whether you are on a freight main. 

If you are on a freight main you only have to do a six-inch 

platform anyway and they put them on the curves today.

<<<: We can handle this. We are just going over 

the fact that now you have a platform somewhere. You 

are really not concerned if we have gotten past all that 

and there is a small gap involved, that we will be using 

a bridge plate.

GARY TALBOT: Yeah, but my question is this: We 

have what are called setback platforms that are set back 

on the Down Eastern Line up by Boston to Maine. On those 

platforms the gap is 20 inches wide. For Marsha's 

point, for that I think you need handrails. That is like 

walking a plank. You are asking someone to go across 

a two-foot span with no handrails and you are 40 inches 

above the ground. That is what I would ask -- I think 

for standard gaps, Dennis is absolutely correct. But 

then there are the other gaps that exist because of 

freight traffic or Department of Defense traffic that 

requires you to build things, setback where you can do 

bridge plates. They will work, but they need to be a 
different requirement for the ones that are serving 

these further setback platforms and not the one I'm 

building but ones that are already out there today. 

Then you do like the four, five, six, seven inches. We 

have 10 or 11-inch gaps in high-level platforms in 

numerous occasions. These are mini high platform that 

may be 40 in length that is set back about two foot. 

Do you want the bridge requirement to be different 

than the ones that will only do maybe up to 10 or eleven 

inches? 

The other question I would ask beyond the 

handrails, is do you want those devices to be 

independently operable. And it gets to are they on the 

car or on the platform. 

Another question: Do you want them independently 

operable or is it okay if you have human intervention? 

ED HOFF: I would suggest the setback platform 

should somehow be regulated through the DOT regs that 

specify the platform height. So if you do build a 

setback platform, that you do provide a bridge plate, 

a platform-based bridge plate to provide level boarding 

and you wouldn't need necessarily one on board. So 

handrails, everything that goes with the setbacks, with 

those long gaps goes along with that type of platform.
As far as the bridge plate on board, at first, you 

know, depends on -- I would suggest that it be deployed 

by a crew member, but you could have ones that are 

automated as well. You could have automated, 

integrated, interlocked, a lot of language in there to 

provide either/or. But certainly a manually deployed 

bridge plate is going to have to be deployed by the 

personnel.

GARY TALBOT: I would just caution you on the idea 

that the handrail equipped bridge plate would be on the 

wayside, on the station side because you now have a 

two-foot gap for someone to get across that has to put 

that down. So you wouldn't want to ask your crew to jump 

over a two-foot gap to go get a bridge plate to put it 

down for somebody with a disability, nor would you want 

your ambulatory passengers to jump across the two-foot 

span.

<<<: How is that done right now? 

GARY TALBOT: They have a very short, very steep 

bridge plate that they put on board the vehicles that 

does not have handrails redesigning.

<<<: That sounds like an issue unto itself. It 

is not something that is necessarily -- that is a whole 

conundrum dealing with that right now.
MARILYN GOLDEN: I had a question for Ed on what 

he was saying.

DENNIS CANNON: This is technical spec for bridge 

plate we need to fix anyway. One is with the edge 

protection, we need to fix. I think we actually did one 

on the proposed bus. At any rate, get rid of the edge 

and far outer edge. As far as handrails are concerned, 

I think it is appropriate to specify the bridge 

plate -- could be a ramp because you could have a slope 

depending on the height of the platform. If you are 

trying to match different height floors with different 

height cars, you may have an intermediate platform. 

So in some cases you have straight across boarding 

and in some cases you have a ramp. But I think 

specifying handrails is certainly part of the technical 

spec or a bridge plate over the greater than some 

specific distance or length.

You also have the requirement in the current bridge 

plate spec that talks about the weight limitations. The 

assumption is that because it was like 300-pounds, this 

is a short bridge plate. Only half your weight is on 

the bridge plate, any given time, half is on the platform 

to begin with and part of it is in the car. 

If we have a long bridge plate that is like 24 -- the 
span of a 24-inch gap, then we have to specify a different 

weight limit for that because at some point you have the 

entire weight of the chair on the bridge plate. So we 

need to adjust that. Specifying handrails I think is 

appropriate for anything over some length. We can 

determine what that might be. Or maybe it is based on 

that vertical drop from the edge to whatever the ground 

is below it so that if it is only a couple of inches, 

maybe a handrail is not necessary, although a 

24-inch -- I think probably a 24-inch gap you still want 

handrails no matter what.

GARY TALBOT: I completely agree with you. Even 

though I have two- or three-inch vertical over that span, 

you can hang a wheel or someone could misstep or 

something like that and they have nothing to grab onto. 

Yeah, I agree with that. And I agree with you I think 

for both the ramp and bridge plate coming up 

with -- especially on the bridge plate, coming up with 

whatever the horizontal distance is, then you would 

specify a handrail and some cases you are going to have 

to find a way to put them on the cars because you are 

going to have to have the crews put them down before 

people can get on and off the cars.

<<<: I don't know if it still exists, they have 
a 24-inch greater setback. The crew member would enter 

a different door and go up the stairs and go to the 

mini-level platform and get the bridge plate out of the 

box and put the bridge plate down and open the door for 

people to get on and off. Certainly that is cumbersome 

and time consuming. You are right, you don't want to 

go in your door and have a 24-inch gap, but that is the 

way it was accomplished. 

ED STEINFELD: I am wondering about the wisdom of 

the idea that Dennis has. I'm wondering if it would 

actually lead to improvements or -- it may not be the 

best solution. It might leave it open for a solution 

that is not as good as it could be and retard innovation 

in new products. 

Basically what you are saying is you can get by with 

a solution that is less than optimal when what we really 

should be doing is coming up with solutions that are 

better. I don't know how we get around that problem. 

FRANK MALDARI: There is always a better solution, 

right. Depending on how much money you want to throw 

at something, you can always improve it. What you want 

to make sure of you want to get on and off the train. 

ED STEINFELD: Dennis can you repeat what your 

recommendation was before? 
DENNIS CANNON: The recommendation, whatever the 

horizontal difference between the platform 

height -- excuse me, the platform edge and the car floor 

exceeds two inches and/or the vertical displacement 

between the difference between the level of the car floor 

with all those things, ordinary move, and the platform 

is 5/8-inch was plus or minus must provide a device that 

ameliorates that distance.

<<<: To me what this does is say, okay, you can 

have a two-foot gap or 10-inch gap and you can have a 

device that is stored on the platform and brought out 

to cover the gap or it could be on the train and taken 

off and put on.

I think -- maybe this is good language, but we ought 

to add this device should be automatic and it should be 

on the train.

FRANK MALDARI: I don't know why you want to limit 

yourself to what you can do. Because if you have a few 

stations and a lot of cars, then it is different if you 

have a lot of cars and, you know -- a few cars and a lot 

of stations. I don't know why you want to be so 

prescriptive in how you accomplish boarding and 

alighting. You need to board, alight. 

With respect to gaps, wheelchair access is not the 
only reason why you want a small gap. I don't think any 

authority likes to have a 10-inch gap anywhere on its 

property because it is a safety hazard. It is not like 

there is no incentive for anybody to reduce the gap as 

small as they can.

<<<: What bothers me, this makes it too open for 

a manual solution and I think we have the technology and 

utility to create automatic solutions. I agree with 

you, I don't think it should be made too prescriptive. 

I just think we ought to be trying to get away from manual 

solutions.

FRANK MALDARI: Manual solutions --

<<<: We are talking about new regulations. We 

are not talking about, you know, dealing with the --

GARY TALBOT: I completely agree with that, Ed. I 

agree with you, these are new regs.

MARILYN GOLDEN: I agree with that. Ed made a 

persuasive case last time for train-based solutions and 

also automatic ones or maybe that was talking the other 

day. But, you know, we really have technology to do this 

now. It is almost as if -- I bet the first time, you 

know, automatic doors were suggested it was like, "Oh, 

my God, let's not be prescriptive" and now we wouldn't 

think of getting rid of them. So I think those are good 
ideas.

FRANK MALDARI: I think you should focus on Dennis' 

point of making sure you can get on and off the train 

and have the facilities to do so, more than you describe 

exactly how it is done. 

ED STEINFELD: I think we should be going beyond 

just going on and off the train. We want people to be 

able to get on and off the train safely but also without 

having to go through a lot of rigmarole to get this thing 

put in place. We know it is a problem. Things get 

broken, people don't know how to use them, they get 

misplaced. Having something automated adds one more 

level to it. It makes it part of -- how do you say? It 

makes it mandatory that the rail lines and manufacturers 

start to think about having a safe automated entry to 

the train. 

DAVID NELSON: I apologize. I arrived a little 

late. I missed the last conference call. I wanted to 

go ahead and clarify. 

So for the automatic solution, are we talking about 

automatic bridge plate that would roll out from the car 

to the platform without the need of using a bridge plate 

manually?

<<<: Right. 
DAVID NELSON: I'd advocate that. That is all I 

needed to ask for now.

<<<: I think there could be an exception for 

conditions where it is existing stations, whatever we 

need to do. I don't know how to put that exception, to 

make it right, make it work right in terms of language. 

But I think as far as new construction, new trains go, 

this is something we can do. I know it can be done.

FRANK MALDARI: Well, getting it done is one thing; 

getting it done reliably and safely is another. Easy 

to say how many different iterations of powered doors 

there have been over the 20 years to solve the problems 

associated to make it failsafe. There is a whole crew 

that went out there to make sure there are no mistakes 

and problems with automated side doors. 

You have to understand too you are adding 

complexity to a system and every time you add complexity, 

you increase risks and safety is the paramount concern. 

If somebody is getting on and off that train, you would 

like to have somebody there manually, with -- it doesn't 

have to be manual, but it would be nice if somebody was 

there to assist them should there be any problems 

associated with it.

MARSHA MAZZ: Frank, I'm going to jump in and say 
one of the purposes of the committee is to explore 

alternatives. Until we have something concrete on the 

table, it seems unproductive to shoot down the idea. 

Why don't we let people who have those kinds of ideas 

go forward and develop them and bring them back to the 

group for their consideration.

FRANK MALDARI: I'm not saying you can't have an 

automated device. I'm just saying --

MARSHA MAZZ: I know what you're saying. I am just 

saying a lot of time is being spent discouraging the 

thought, and we don't really have anything concrete to 

respond to at this point in time. Maybe we should move 

on. 

CHRISTOPHER HART: This is the transit industry of 

yesteryear. It is not the transit industry that is here 

today or will be here tomorrow.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Agreed. 

GARY TALBOT: If I can just add one last thought 

on it. If you think about the kneelers on buses, the 

kneelers were really put on there so the ramp angle was 

not so steep for those of us who use wheel mobility 

device. Most of your transit agencies today kneel the 

bus as part of their standard operating procedure 

whenever anybody gets on and off the bus because they 
save a lot of money on their liability and it is easier 

for their passengers. This could be the same kind of 

thing to me. Thank you.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Agree. I was going to say the 

same care in terms of development of successive 

generations of technology that Frank described as 

occurring on automatic doors should happen on this as 

well. And while we always should be concerned, with the 

second or third generation technology, we have to start 

with the first one. There is no way to avoid doing the 

first one. There is no reason this should not receive 

the same attention from designers and successive designs 

to make it work well.

It would be great if maybe the two Ed's and Dennis 

got together and proposed language for the next meeting. 

Does that sound right or are there different pieces we 

want to divide up? I think Marsha is right, we should 

move on.

<<<: The only thing I really had to add is that 

the device be deployed from the vehicle, but I would be 

happy. If Dennis wants to throw something out there and 

you can share with me, I would be happy to add whatever 

two cents I have.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Dennis and Ed Hoff will present 
something. Great if you have time to send it around 

before the meeting, if possible.

Ed Steinfeld, I don't know if you want to be part 

of that. 

ED STEINFELD: I would be happy to participate in 

that.

FRANK MALDARI: Is there anything that Ed 

Steinfeld could add to justify whatever gap is chosen? 

I know, Dennis, you are advocating two inches and plus 

or minus 5/8. Can you just have some research to suggest 

what that number should be? 

ED STEINFELD: No, we don't really have anything 

on that. I can tell you I just returned from Europe and 

I traveled on a lot of trains and they have really wide 

gaps there and it is dangerous for everybody and it is 

a real problem for travelers with luggage, strollers. 

There is a lot more attention now in Europe to 

accommodating bicycles on trains. I'm going to show you 

a very interesting photograph of one train that I was 

on. They have automated bridge plates. Many of you who 

have been to Europe, you have probably seen them.

The ones I saw -- I saw a lot of them that were set 

down from the platform. In other words -- I don't know 

why. If you -- they were below the platform in the floor 
of the train.

FRANK MALDARI: Maybe that is a gap of stopping 

somebody from falling. 

ED STEINFELD: Yes, I think it is more of a safety 

net. But that suggests it is a problem, doesn't it?

FRANK MALDARI: Dennis you probably know, three 

inches horizontal, plus or minus 5/8 comes from. It 

would be nice to justify whatever number is chosen. And 

I'm not sure it should be two or three or plus or minus 

5/8 is right. 

DENNIS CANNON: The 5/8 came from the actual 

specification from WMATA, which is Metro here at D.C. 

We figured if WMATA was going to spec that, we could go 

ahead and adopt their spec. They turned out not to be 

very happy about them because they often don't meet the 

requirement.

Aside from that, the three inches originally came 

from that is the best you can possibly do on a rapid rail 

car. We know that is not true anymore, that two inches 

is, in fact, doable. We have a couple of systems that 

have two or less, actually. So that is where the number 

two came from.

FRANK MALDARI: Depending on the system, it just 

seems to me -- it would be nice to say, if you could say, 
that "95 percent of the wheelchairs can negotiate a gap 

of this much, the minimum wheel diameter is this much." 

Because when you start looking and trying to justify what 

one location is doing for a gap, does not necessarily 

apply to other locations. WMATA is basically inside a 

building for the most part. You don't have outdoor 

tracks.

<<<: Sure you do.

FRANK MALDARI: Always.

MARSHA MAZZ: Tons of outdoor tracks with WMATA. 

CHRISTOPHER HART: I hear you, Frank, on one level. 

On another level I think it is important to remember that 

gap ultimately equals boarding -- so I can't imagine an 

issue because ultimately -- and really the gap 

issue -- but when you look at gate issues, that 

horizontal gap can be a huge, huge impediment. And that 

is where you are holding up subway time, as their time 

to negotiate a four inch gap and that is a real crux of 

the issue along with the wheel. 

I think it is always you play a cautionary role, 

but ultimately demographically for transport, gaps need 

the quickest service so it is in everybody's interest 

to maintain equipment and design both to achieve the 

smallest gap.
DENNIS CANNON: Currently there is a 

transportation research board project developing a

manual on gap accidents, essentially. Turns out that 

the biggest accident group for gap is children. The 

second biggest is women, because of high heels. But 

there is a lot of accidents all over the country, all 

over the world from gaps. So, yes, there are efforts 

underway everywhere to try to minimize gap. I don't 

think we are going to worry about the idea that somebody 

is going to make the gap bigger than they need to. 

ED STEINFELD: There was a major study in the 

Netherlands actually studied the gap in great detail. 

The only problem is the report is in Dutch. I have an 

abstract of it and I also know the author and let me try 

to follow up on that.

They actually built platforms with different gaps 

and, I guess, in an old train station that was not being 

used and they tested all these different situations. So 

let me check that out.

With regard to wheelchairs, the big problem is 

really the front casters, the small casters because they 

turn and then they slip down into the hole. And a 

two-inch gap is not going to stop that from happening. 

The question is how tight it could be and whether it is 
feasible to actually have a gap that would stop that from 

happening. The only way would be to raise the 

platform -- to lower the platform of the -- the best 

thing is to get rid of the gap entirely. Basically you 

would have to have the platforms a little lower than the 

train floor and then you would have to have a little gang 

plank that just flipped over and sat on top of the 

platform. That would be the solution. 

DAVID NELSON: I was just actually in California 

last week and had quite an interesting observation on 

the trains out there. One of the subway cars that I saw 

in Los Angeles, they built a cone -- there were cones 

that were actually on the platform that when the train 

actually pulled to a stop, the cones would actually be 

the location between the two cars so no person could fall 

in between the two cars. For example, if it was a blind 

person who thought they might have been going into the 

car but was actually approaching the gap between the two 

cars. I hope I'm saying this clearly. I don't know 

exactly how to say it.

I just thought with the platform it just has to have 

some kind of protection between the two cars. 

And, secondly, I wanted to add earlier there were 

some comments about -- for automatic solution and the 
first generation and second generation. I was thinking 

we should maybe go ahead and adopt the rules that the 

bus lifts, all bus drivers need to go ahead and test the 

lift before they go ahead and start their runs and route, 

a regulation to all crew; or the conductors needs to test 

the automatic solution before the train service starts.

DENNIS CANNON: The requirement for making sure 

that the lifts and whatever move and operate correctly 

are in the DOT rule. We are not going to be effecting 

that. But when DOT -- when these guidelines are 

finalized from the Access Board, DOT has to adopt them 

and make them standard. When it does that it will go 

through a rule-making process and at that point 

presumably you can also make recommendations about 

things that ought to be in the DOT rule regarding 

recommendations. Operational issues will not be 

(inaudible) rule from the Access Board. 

DAVID NELSON: I understand. Thank you, so much, 

Dennis. 

ED STEINFELD: To comment on the Los Angeles issue, 

those cones were put there to help visually ill impaired 

people to thinking the gap was the doorway and I talked 

to the people who developed that in LA. There are other 

ways of solving that problem.
In Europe they have on their street cars, you 

probably noticed pictures of them, they don't have any 

space there. It is like this accordion system. That 

is basically there to prevent people from getting in 

between the two cars. Not just visually impaired 

people, like kids and animals and other things, there 

are other things. There are ways to do that. The best 

solution is to have on a platform -- in a subway system 

they do this now in almost all the new subway systems. 

They build a full partition from floor to ceiling and 

the doors open up, the doors of the train open up. The 

Copenhagen system I just traveled is like that, the new 

Jubilee Line in London, almost any of the new systems. 

They don't do that everywhere because sometimes you have 

different length trains so that you can't predict where 

the door is going to be.

But there are other solutions to that problem and 

that is definitely something we should address.

DENNIS CANNON: There is currently a requirement 

for between-car barriers.

FRANK MALDARI: We have between-car barriers for 

that specific reason, just like a pantograph sitting off 

the end of the car.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Let's get to that provision and 
we will have that discussion.

David, you brought up a good issue and an issue that 

comes up later in the existing requirements. 

For people that joined late, we are going through 

the existing requirements, moving a bit slowly, but I 

think this has been an excellent discussion to see what 

needs to be added and we made some assignments for the 

previous provisions that we had already discussed.

Are we ready to move to -- do we need to -- anything 

else before we move on, I guess?

FRANK MALDARI: I just want to clarify what we are 

trying to do, if I can just say for a second. Dennis 

is suggesting that you have one standard and if you don't 

meet it you have to provide a provision. And he is going 

to write something up: What it is, new station/old 

station, new equipment and old equipment, this is the 

standard; you have to omit it or provide provisions. 

The second part Ed was going to see if there was anything 

in the Netherlands report to justify anything we do pick. 

Maybe something more. 

MARILYN GOLDEN: I think there are several parts 

here. Dennis and Ed are going to put their heads 

together on it and we have to see what they bring back. 

I personally am not comfortable describing what the 
homework is. This is the right time for us bringing in 

whatever innovation and brainstorm the sharp people in 

the subcommittee have to offer. And if, you know, if 

it goes where you don't like it to go, you can argue 

against it when we have it in front of us.

Okay. Anything else before we move forward?

MELISSA ANDERSON: I wanted to remind -- we start 

talking about rapid rail and we also need to take into 

consideration the light rail, commuter rate, inner-city 

rail and high speed rail and they all have similar 

requirements for a three-inch horizontal gap maximum and 

5/8 vertical gap. I don't know if you guys want to have 

any discussion on that. Or, Dennis or Ed, as you are 

working through that, to consider what you can do in 

rapid rail you can't do in inner-city or rapid rail.

DENNIS CANNON: One of the issues has to do with 

scoping, which is on a rapid rail vehicle where you have 

three doors, typically. The general requirement now is 

that all of those doors meet this requirement. When you 

have an inner-city rail car, Amtrak, typically there are 

only two doorways on each side, one at each end. The 

current requirement is at least one of those doorways 

on each side that passengers board has to meet these 

requirements. And that is the doorway that also has to 
have a vestibule that is big enough and an access pad 

to get you to the space. We don't require all the cars 

on an inner-city rail currently to be accessible. The 

same is generally true for commuter rails because they 

are often basically like inner-city rail cars operating 

on the same inner-city line. But there is plenty of 

inner-city rail cars that have three or four doors and 

all of them are generally accessible, assuming the 

platform is straight.

So one of the issues is scoping and I think for rapid 

rail we want all the doors to be accessible. For 

inner-city rail cars there is a reason to have both of 

those doors be accessible.

GARY TALBOT: If I could comment on that, Dennis. 

DOT requires that all of Amtrak's cars be accessible 

today. So the only exception to that would be like your 

dining car that has food service upstairs and the kitchen 

downstairs. So all the ones are supposed to be 

accessible today. I would fully support that. I think 

you are right.

DENNIS CANNON: Not that all the new cars have to 

be accessible. The question is how many doors on any 

given cars have to be accessible.

GARY TALBOT: Correct, and today it is not less 
than one, right? 

FRANK MALDARI: It is one.

GARY TALBOT: Right. And are you asking should it 

be greater than that?

DENNIS CANNON: Yeah. Personally I don't think it 

makes any sense because having the door at the other end 

of the car be accessible when the space is up at the other 

end of the car doesn't make sense unless you get an access 

aisle all the way through the car. And, secondly, if 

you do that as opposed to things like rapid rail where 

you have plastic seats with minimal padding and whatnot 

and they are not very wide, you can make the aisle wide 

enough. 

In Metro cars currently you can navigate a 

wheelchair all the way down the aisle. Other ones you 

have seats much more comfortable. Some recline and they 

are wide and padded and therefore you get those kinds 

of things because you are going to be on it for a long 

period of time. You can't use those cheap Metro seats. 

You need to have something bigger, which means you can't 

have the aisle any wider unless you have two on one side 

and one on the other and I think that would not sit very 

well with the ability to try to get maximum passenger 

loads.
<<<: I'm not exactly sure here, but I think for 

Amtrak, we have the two doors. I think one needs to 

be -- has to have a trapdoor -- I mean, a step with a 

trapdoor and the other door needs to be with the 

automatic solution. That might be more practical for 

outside of the northeast corridor? Again, I'm not 

100 percent sure what the future, what it will hold for 

us, will it be same level boarding or not. I leave it 

to Gary and the others with the expertise, their view 

on this.

<<<: May I point out that most new Amtrak cars have 

only one vestibule at one end. The ones people are 

picturing did have vestibules on both ends, but the new 

cars have one door on each side.

ED HOFF: The majority of our fleet in a 

very -- multi-level cars where there is definitely no 

way to provide access from one car to the other. We have 

two end doors and two quarter point doors on each side. 

So there it is. Obvious you have to provide 

accessibility at both ends so at least two of 

the -- quarter point and the end door on one side of the 

car has to be accessible as well as the -- one of the 

two on the other ends.

MARILYN GOLDEN: All of these schemes involve both 
sides of the car, right, access to both sides? 

<<<: Yes.

DENNIS CANNON: The way it is stated is access at 

least one door from each side from which passengers 

board. There is some operations, given the kind of 

stations that you obviously board from one side, but 

presumably that you may be moving those cars around to 

different lines, you clearly want to have both sides 

accessible. The current thing all sides at which 

passengers board, at least one door on each side 

passengers board has to be accessible.

MARILYN GOLDEN: So the developers of this big 

proposal that small groups are bringing back should take 

Melissa's suggestion to consider whether your proposal 

should be different versus light versus rapid, versus 

commuter, versus inner-city rail.

<<<: I like a clarification. What is a side?

MARILYN GOLDEN: By "side" I meant -- like I was 

on the (inaudible) yesterday, one stop, if I'm facing 

in the direction the train is going, on some stops the 

right side open and other stops the door on the left side 

opens.

<<<: You mean right or left? You are on the train 

and you are facing the front?
MARILYN GOLDEN: Correct. So, in other words, I'm 

not saying that Ed Hoff's trains, which he said can't 

provide access at both ends --

<<<: So an end is the front and back of each car, 

whereas the side is one side or the other, left or right? 

<<<: Correct.

<<<: Currently the rule requires an entry on each 

side but does it say anything about end? 

<<<: No.

DENNIS CANNON: Yes, it does.

<<<: It does. I'm sorry.

DENNIS CANNON: There is a current requirement 

that says you get from one car to the other through the 

end cars. The end doors is specified. The end door is 

specified at 30 inches and the reason for that is because 

of the design of cars at the collision posts required 

by FRA rules in the end that you can't make it wider than 

30 inches. We are now told from conversations from, I 

think, somebody from FRA or one of the other calls that 

currently is wider, is now 32 inches. So my advice would 

be we make it 32, since we can now do that. But it 

is -- maximum possible at the time -- 30 is the maximum 

possible at the time the rule was written.

ED HOFF: I think you said from one car to the next 
car is widened to 32. Ed was talking about if I have 

one car with two side doors, one on each end, do both 

need to be made accessible.

<<<: That is what I was getting at.

DENNIS CANNON: My comment on that was currently 

it is only one door on each side because typical rail 

cars has two doors on each side, one at each end. You 

go into the vestibules and you specify that vestibule 

as a minimum width and make a right angle turn and you 

go into the aisle and you go to where the parking space 

is. You don't require the other door at the other end 

to be accessible currently because there is no 

requirement for you to get down from that door, the 

length of the car between the seats to where the parking 

space is.

<<<: Joshua's point is a lot of the newer Amtrak 

cars only have one door per side on one end.

<<<: On one end; okay.

<<<: And explaining how New Jersey transit have 

multi-door, four doors per side, two at the ends and then 

two more doors quarter of way toward the center of the 

car. The quarter point, and the end doors give you 

access to the same end vestibule but between the two 

quarter point doors is the area where you go above or 
below to the two different levels. We have to provide 

access. This is the first time you definitely need to 

provide both or at least two doors per side that provide 

access and they would have to be at the end or quarter 

point doors at the end of our cars.

FRANK MALDARI: Yeah. I think Dennis was 

suggesting one door per side per car as currently 

written, which I think makes sense and he gave a very 

good explanation as to why. Because there are two 

location areas for seating there and you are going to 

put it in one end of the car and if you make both doors 

open, you would have to put another location at the other 

end or provide an aisle to get from one end of the car 

to the other end of the car, which means you are going 

to lose one seat in every row. Whether it is commuter 

rail and you have five across or inner-city rail and you 

have four across, that ends up being a lot of seats you 

lose. 

I agree with what Dennis is saying and suggest we 

leave it kind of like it is. Every single car has to 

have at least one door on each side of the car that is 

accessible.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Dennis is talking about the 

30-inch requirements the end doors. We will get to 
that. When we do we will discuss it.

We talked a lot about the subsection D. Is there 

any need to look at subpoints 2 and 3? We have been on 

subpoint 1, I think, for a long time.

DENNIS CANNON: Those two exceptions are to cover 

new cars and old stations and old cars in new stations 

and so forth. And it also talks about retrofitted 

vehicles, which we don't have. Under my proposal of 

saying "whenever we have some distance, you have to fix 

it," we don't need the exceptions. Don't need to spell 

out any of that stuff.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Why not? 

DENNIS CANNON: Because it is already covered. 

You say "wherever you have a gap of greater than two 

inches you have to put a bridge plate." And this one 

gives you an exception that allows to have a bigger -- it 

goes up to 1.5 inches vertical and more than four inches, 

I guess, on the horizontal, depending on what you get.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Yeah, good point.

DENNIS CANNON: Actually saying those things are 

okay, you can leave them alone. And my proposal is, no, 

you can't. You have to put a bridge plate there.

MARILYN GOLDEN: No. This makes sense.

Melissa, it looks like the subsequent parts of the 
list have similar provisions for different types of 

rails. The light rail has some accessibility 

provisions. I'm not sure, though, it makes sense. We 

are closing in on our end time. 

Anything further we can do at this time, do you 

think? 

MELISSA ANDERSON: I think basically the light 

rail, commuter rail and inner-city rail, I think 

everybody seems to agree with requiring some type of 

device over maximum gap. So the exceptions may go away. 

First we need to see if we have any hitches.

The next thing is if we want to start talking about 

lift requirements, we could start a discussion on the 

design load. I don't know if we will finish it, but if 

we stick to that one topic we might get through that.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Where are you? 

MELISSA ANDERSON: 1192.83B, that is on light 

rail. It is subpart D.

DENNIS CANNON: It is the mobility aid accessible 

provision which basically outlines the technical specs 

for lifts, ramps, bridge plates and so forth. Tells you 

what those technical specifications have to be. The 

fact the lift has to have a certain design load, has to 

have a certain width, has to have controls that are 
intermittent -- you know, you have to have continuous 

pressure. 

These are the assumption that it is not like the 

lift in a building where you assume that it is 

independently operable. We never assume that a lift on 

a bus, for example, or a bus on a light rail car would 

be something that a person in a wheelchair would operate 

him or herself from outside or inside. It's always 

assumed to be an operator.

MELISSA ANDERSON: These are the technical 

requirements I had hoped to go through today and get some 

of it sorted out. Because rapid rail requires level 

boarding more or less. It doesn't have provisions for 

lifts and ramps in it, but the light rail, commuter and 

inner-city rail do. We only really have seven minutes.

So I guess there is not much point in starting. The 

design load currently for lifts is 600 pounds. I think 

PRIIA upped it to 800 pounds. I can't find it quickly 

in their specs, but does somebody know it is true? 

<<<: Yes, that is true.

MELISSA ANDERSON: In the meantime between 

meetings we might want to consider whether or not we want 

to increase the design load. By the time these are 

published, the PRIIA specs will be built many times over 
and we will know it can be done and we will have prices 

for it. So that is something that we need to consider.

And I would ask that everybody review the current 

recommendations for lifts and ramps and bridge plates 

before the next meeting so we can focus on them and get 

through them.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Agreed. And I'm going to suggest 

that we maybe just start with the heading mobility aid 

accessibility. Because it has either floor space 

recommendation -- you may say that we are taking care 

of that by another subcommittee --

MELISSA ANDERSON: That cleared floor space is the 

cleared floor space for the seating area inside the 

vehicle.

MARILYN GOLDEN: I see. So it is here but not 

really here.

MELISSA ANDERSON: We will have platform 

dimensions as we go through the technical section. So 

the lift platform dimension and the ramp width and all 

of that we will cover as we move on.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay.

KENNETH SHIOTANI: Is there anybody from FRA on the 

call? I think we have been promised or discussed 

whether we can get the PRIIA specs a number of times and 
I don't think we ever got them.

MELISSA ANDERSON: The PRIIA specs are readily 

available online. They are pretty easy to find.

<<<: Can you send a link around, Melissa? 

KENNETH SHIOTANI: I have found excerpts but 

doesn't seem to be the full thing. I think I have found 

one chapter or something. Maybe I am just a bad web 

searcher, but I don't think I have found anything that 

looks like a full set of requirements. 

MELANIE BRUNSON: I will send the link around right 

after this meeting.

KENNETH SHIOTANI: Thank you. Thank you.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Any other final comments? I 

think this -- we always wish we could go faster, but I 

think this was a very useful discussion today. I thank 

everyone for their participation.

PAUL BEATTY: After the initial stop in the CART 

transmission, did anyone on the line -- was the CART 

working? It was frozen for me and I just wanted to see 

whether the problem is associated with my computer. 

Some other people were on CART, according to the display.

MARILYN GOLDEN: I had the same result. It was 

frozen and the mist -- I tried to closeout and get back 

in and it was frozen just where it had been before.
FRANK MALDARI: It is frozen for me too.

PAUL BEATTY: Okay.

MELISSA ANDERSON: We will get the link out for the 

PRIIA specs. 

MARILYN GOLDEN: Thank you, very much.

MELISSA ANDERSON: Dennis and Ed, do you think you 

can come up with draft language to start with? 

So our next meeting is July 24. Thank you for 

being on the call. July 24, 1:00 to 3:00 and we will 

get material set out with a little more warning during 

that time.

MARILYN GOLDEN: Thanks, Melissa. Thanks to 

everyone. Bye, everybody.

PAUL BEATTY: Conference call operator, that 

concludes our call.

(Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned)