### Note: The output shown below is from the Communication Access

Realtime Translation (CART) system used in the meeting and is generally unedited

. The CART system was used to provide an accommodation to persons with hearing loss and persons who are deaf, and was streamed in real

-time and available to the public on the internet during the meeting. 4th Meeting

- Rail Vehi cles Access Advisory Committee (Day 2 of 2) U.S. Access Board Friday, September 1 2 , 2014 Start Time about 9:30 am

.

>> PAUL BEATTY: Okay. Everybody we are ready to start if you could take your seats come to the table. Welcome to the second day of the RVAAC committee, opening comments critical ones we want to thank Terry for the donuts in the corner we understand we have milk for the coffee we have critical things we can now start. For those only participating via the CART system we do not have a chat b ox available just like yesterday if you desire to raise a question or make a statement please use the E

- mail address RVAAC @ access

- board.gov. Remember when you are speaking to give your name , members of the public come up and use the microphone if you wa nt to participate in the conversation. A s you noticed from yesterday we pretty much allow an open flow of information. M embers of the public if you have comments you can go ahead and give them. A ssuming that will be okay for Blair when that subcommittee starts their work. J ust as a reminder our nextformal meeting is February 26

- 27 in this room of course 2015.

And let's start with introductions again I am Paul Beatty I am an Access Board staff member. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Chris Hart Access Board public member liaison.
>> Let's go clockwise Uwe? >> Good Uwe Rutenberg from I cad helping I cat from month real thank you >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Blair Slaughter Amtrak >> Janice Schacter Lintz , Hearing Access Program >> Jonathan Michael from >> Robert Carlson , com munity and transportation association >> Andre Gagne >> Crystal Lyons >> Jon Holbrook >> David Hughson >> Carol Tyson , united spinal >> Ed Hoff, New Jersey Transit >> Marilyn Golden , Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. >> Cliff Perez, National Co uncil on Independent Living. G ot it right this time. (LAUGHTER) >> James Lucas , alternate for Stan Hunter, Cal Trans.>> Dave Martinez , Metro Chicago.

>> Frank Maldari, MTA New York.
>> Dennis Cannon, National Disability Rights Network. >> BILLY ALTOM: The Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living >> TERRY PACHECO: Terry Pacheco , American Council of the Blind. >> Melissa Anderson, Access Board staff. >> Rose Marie, U.S. Access Board.
>> Lisa Fairhall Access Board.
>> Bob Reut er, Access Systems and Colonial Paralyzed Veterans. >> Ken Shiotani, National Disability Rights Network.
>> Dan Viser. >> Don Mebius, LTK.
>> Francis Mascarenhas, Metro Chicago >> Gricelda Cespedes, MTA.
>> Larry Kelterborn, Interfleet technology >> Jen Hu , Texas central railroad. >> Emily Bacque, on behalf of BART. >> with BART. >> Lou with Virginia Railway Express. >> Rose Marie again. I do have people on the line. Starting with Michael Chisena, Calvin Gibson, Melissa Shurland, Glenn Millis, Sid Goldste in, Linda Martin and Gary Talbot. A nd that's everybody.>> BILLY ALTOM: All right. T hank you very much welcome

everybody. I hope everybody had a wonderful evening in beautiful Washington, DC we get to start our day off today we have a fairly light agend a that's kind of good but I am going to see if Blair can do everything would be to make us run over time that would be great. (LAUGHTER) >> BILLY ALTOM: We will put that ball in Blair's court for the day. (LAUGHTER) >> BILLY ALTOM: Exactly. H ow it is at Amtrak, there we go, you said that not me. (LAUGHTER) >> BILLY ALTOM: Right off the bat I do have a couple of quick announcements. S omething that should go without saying everyone put your cell phones on silent or vibrate. P lease use the confe rence area behind me to take the phone calls, try to keep our discussions as minimal as possible out in the hallway in front of our colleagues that have office space on either side that they would certainly appreciate that. I s there anything else that I wanted to mention? N ot off the bat. S o, without further ado we will jump off into this we covered our other three committees yesterday and we are lacking our on

- board circulation and seating subcommittee. So, I am going to turn it over to Blair meeting i s yours, sir.
Onboard Circulation and Seating Portion of the Meeting>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. T hanks Billy I appreciated that.

Normally on the train when I leave early from Wilmington bell where for this, I catch a little bit of sleep on the train but I found some problems on the training today that I had to deal with and so, I would almost volunteer Amtrak for anything as a result because I didn't get my sleep. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Anyway, today is a good day may be not for the railroad. O kay. I f we can run through the agenda real quick. I think I have taken the matrix that we worked through and tried to fill it out as much as I could based on our past conversations. T here is some key issues that we need to, I think resolve, and maybe close these things out. S o, we can
-- we can get to a position in the near future of having them as recommendations. Back to the committee as a whole. A nd then we have some new items to deal with as well. B ut if folks would loo k at the

-- at the agenda if everyone is okay I would like to approve that. T here are some items concerning surfaces, handrails, and grab bars that we will need to add into the mix today and hopefully if weary first we can get those well underway. So, anyone have any take any issue with the agenda? H earing none, I will take it as approved. What I would like to do is go through the matrix but perhaps itwould make more sense since they are up there on the screen, to

look at what is referred to as item 4 on the list, and look at the floor plans and what I have done, and this is just the beginning is to take what we have done so far what we propose so far and discussed and tried to lay that into existing vehicles or vehicle types to have an idea of what we are
-- what we are thinking we are going to create. A nd to get some clarification as well it's easy enough when we are having discussion toss talk about things and I get to the end of the day sometimes and I go, now what exactly did we mean? And I think th at would be good for us to

-- to clarify as well. So, if we

-- and I apologize I used Amtrak cars because I had the most access to those in and control over them. A nd then the third car is a generic 5

- section light rail vehicle. We are going through and taking information that was provided by various members and generating generic vehicles from the various modes that show sort of typical layouts and then we can apply what we are talking about and have that to chew on we are comfortable my goal is to have a good level of comfort going out the subcommittee going to the committee as a whole to justify what we are proposing. A nd have the best chance of what we propose, you know, going through with the industry. We
-- I am sure we are

-- we will take the stan d at some point and even being from Amtrak probably has the most issue with some of these things, I will say let's let them go. A nd see what happens.Because that

-- and let the industry chew on it and see what

comes back. B ut, again, we want to be as practical as we can without making things too easy. S o, if we can, look at the

-- this is the Amtrak regional car the upper view is essentially what is there now on most of the coaches. I have added to that the larger wheelchair footprint, the turning radi us is indicated in the lighted green, there is what I would designate as a transfer seat though it has

-- it doesn't have flip up armrests today that needs to be rectified and I placed the PRIIA recommended service animal size in there. S o, for those of you that know the cars you know that there is some things that would have to be rectified or sorted out to make it work exactly to work correctly. B ut that isn't such a pa bad condition, I can get the 60

- inch circle that's today if you want to measure that , that would be there. T here is a place for the service animal, and a two

- person seat. N ow, our big challenge on the railroad is making sure that when we go out in the field that something doesn't happen and all of those things are maintained and on a re gular basis and we don't get, you know, ugly surprises when folks show up expecting to have space and it's not there. The lower one shows the same

-- well, sort of the original space and then it shows adding the second accessible space with room to park a wheelchair. A nd I am indicating you know three service animal positions because if you make the transfer, obviously you want to

-- you don't want the service animal behind you. T hat canbe very disturbing for the animal. B ut that arrangement is

-- it's a

little different from what you would normally expect but it gives a lot of flexibility, I think to where you transfer, where the service animal might be, so, and that was, again, it's an existing vehicle if you were starting from scratch you would handl e some of the other amenities in the car differently perhaps, but as a layout I think it works. B ut what I want to clarify is when we talk about

-- we have accessible seating spaces, that you can park a wheelchair in. B ut then we have at least two transfer spaces recommended. T he folding wheelchair the great mysterious folding wheelchair, what happens with that? O r I can make space for a folded wheelchair are we assuming that the wheelchair isn't folding? I don't know the last time I saw a folded wheel chair in the train or anywhere else for that matter. A nd what are we really intending? Would we really be looking at two more full

- size spaces for an unoccupied or unoccupied wheelchairs? A nd that's where I am looking for clarity to make sure that

-- th at we are all on the same page with that. Any thoughts? C omments? D ennis? Yes, sir, Dennis? >> DENNIS CANNON: Yeah. I believe the statute says space to fold and store wheelchair. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> DENNIS CANNON: The assumption is the wheelc hair folds. So from the standpoint of what is legally required, I don't know what you do with a nonfolding chair but you statute doesn't requireyou to have an extra space for nonfolding wheelchair. Idon't know

what the answer to that is. W hat you woul d do for somebody who didn't have

-- I mean, theoretically a wheelchair could maybe fit in that luggage storage space

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well, in fact, I mean, you could

-- you could look at where the upper

-- the upper left wheelchair position is and there is a space there for the service animal, which is bigger than the space for a folded wheelchair. I f you siem that someone is transferred, there is arguably room for a folded wheelchair back there. We are doing changes to our luggage spaces now so t hat they can handle bicycles and things. S o make it

-- making it as a flip up chair in a folded wheelchair is not that big of a deal. O ne thing that you find is when you do fold a wheelchair depending on the guys some of them don't have removable footres ts and they actually stick out into the aisles so you want to store a wheelchair longitudinally instead of across the car so that you don't

-- you don't occupy the path with handle sticking out. S o, but I can work with that. T hat's

-- that's a manageable thing. S o we would be by statute space to fold and store two wheelchairs, correct, okay? Ed? >> I agree the point having a service animal obviously in close proximity in fronted or in clear front view of the person with the service animal is an importan t point. P ictorially you showed it not that it needs to be wordsmith could you put it in narrative as well to make sure whomever does their own configuration makes thathappen how ever they make it happen? B ecause I think that's a

relevant good point to have the animal not behind you or not like four rows ahead of you but in close proximity and in directly in front of the person. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Service animals are not baggage. >> Right. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: They have a job. A re there any thou ghts or comments on folks more acutely aware of how service animals work and

-- and how they are going to be best accommodated in these situations? Yes, Terry? >> TERRY PACHECO: What I am thinking, I think one of the points that you have to keep in mind a service animal needs to be man tanned on a leash and the leash generally is means that the dog needs to be within 30 inches of the person. I n order to not have the poor animal's neck being pulled on with a tight leash. I t really does need to be either b eside or in front of the person. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That's when the dog or the animal is in service would be there when you look at longer distance trips where

-- would someone take the dog or animal out of service so that they are off leash it at that po int? >> TERRY PACHECO: You would never want your dog off the leash. You might want them out of harness but off leash. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay.
>> Blair, I have a question.>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes.

>> CRYSTAL LYONS: You are talking about service animals p eople travel with a PCA if you are traveling with a PCA you can't see them. You are pretty much segregated from your PCA in this con figuration is there a way to do a seat that helps face the wheelchair user or

-- >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Like a

-- >> BLAIR S LAUGHTER: Um, what is the question going around the room what is a PCA? >> CRYSTAL LYONS: I'm sorry, personal care attendant, a person. Some people travel with a personal care attendant. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Or a friend. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well, if you look at the upper condition where we have, the seat is facing the person seated in the wheelchair, then you know certainly you have that, that's a more intimate arrangement that way. A nd, yeah, and for that matter, on the lower arrangement w here we are pointing out an accessible seat, there is no reason why I could make those

-- those

-- any of those seats rotate and face the other direction. >> CRYSTAL LYONS: Yeah. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Are you assuming a table? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I am assuming a wall

- mounted table, yes. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Okay.>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: If we have

-- if the rest of the car, if

elsewhere in the car there were fixed tables then I would have accessible fixed tables here. B ut in this c oach arrangement there
are no
-- there are no fixed tables so I would not

-- I wouldn't provide a fixed table I would provide something similar to awful other seats. W hat you will see in the Acela footprint because the Acela used fixed tables we have acce ssible fixed tables shown. S o,
um
-- >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Perhaps what I am thinking is if you have got two people sharing a table the wall mount may not work, because it's just not big enough width wise could you really get it two laptops on to a wall mo unted foot

- long table. A nd would it be stable enough where as, if you think about flip down on the regular seats, that's big enough, you could put your laptop down, you can put your can of Pepsi, I hope one day Coke. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Me too. (LAUGHTER) >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Next to your laptop as you are riding. >> This is Linda I have a comment when it's appropriate. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay Linda, go ahead. >> LINDA MARTIN: Well, I wanted to point out a couple of things. One is that in a car where the dining area was not accessible so I guess I am assuming a bi

- level superliner type car, and you need toprovide food service at a person's seat, which you know whether we

think it's ideal or not is an aside I guess, but there is a requi rement for a hard surface on which to eat which isn't happening right now, sorry Blair, in a lot of Amtrak service currently even though it's a requirement but though

-- I guess what I am saying is in a configuration where even though there weren't tables for others because those others would get up and go to the dining car to eat you may need to provide a permanent or temporary surface if you are intending on feeding people at their seats as opposed to giving them access to a dining car. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER : Linda thank you. T hat's a good point. And a good place to clarify. We have had tables on what we call club service years ago where the last seat rotated there was no tray table in front of it. A nd the attendant would bring a table that had a folding leg on it and it would engage to the side of the car and put a leg on the floor and the full width of the both seats. A nd was pretty ample. I f that is an acceptable practice, I mean, I think it is from the railroad standpoint, but where do we

-- I think we would almost be at a point where we would need a table that the person who is sitting there could use as their will, and then if it's going to be used for dining maybe there is an auxiliary table that comes and gets put in place so it's bigger, you know to handle all of the food service things. I s that approach a reasonable thing? B ecause that's something that is quite doable. B ut I know when we look atissues of independence whether they are you know the spirit of the

rule or the rule itself, I see M arilyn? >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Marilyn Golden from DREDF I would like to ask Chris his personal view about that table plan. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: I guess in a perfect world, assuming the track was always straight, and assuming that this table was really heavy a nd anchored well enough, it might be potentially viable but I just

-- I am just struggling with how you have enough stability that you
-- >> This is Linda >> CHRISTOPHER HART: That you fail to do it. N ow, obviously FRA is going to have to pass a (inaudibl e) but you think about your laptop which is 8 pounds or so, in some ways that's more stressful on a table to be typing and using a mouse or iPad then having a plate of food. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Probably depends how tough the steak when trying to cut it. (LAUGHTER) >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Generally the steak is the best item on the menu. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I appreciate that. Isuppose our service folks do too. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Is it where the RailPlan folks (inaudible) thinking about how you would tie it in structurally.But

-- going

-- go ahead Linda.

>> LINDA MARTIN: Sorry. Iroad on the auto train probably 10, 15 years ago. A nd it had a table like that, that was deployed for eating and then removed or it could be left there. I t was fairly solid. I remember being feeling that it was adequate. I don't

-- I actually don't think I worked for the FRA when I was

-- I road it I don't really remember. B ut I remember it feeling adequate at least at the time. S o, it might be something that could be loo ked at. Could be looked at. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Rose, I believe Gary was trying to get in and he couldn't. >> Operator can you unmute Gary Talbot's line if you can hear me Gary the line was muted there was background noise apparently. M r. Talbot your li ne is open.
>> Hi can you hear me? >> Go ahead Gary.
>> Oh, thank you. Yes sorry about that it's quiet as a church in here but maybe it was something else picking up. I just wanted to comment if I could please on the first diagram that Blair had commente d on the one at the top. A nd then also on the one at the bottom and really for two issues. I think the accessible table piece the tray table or table or whatever I think Chris is right on that, that you know we just need to find a way that someone can st ay in their chair have access to the hard surface and maybe it's like Lindasuggested maybe there is a portable type thing that can snap in

place or something to do that. A nd likewise with the transfer seat as well. T he other issue I did want to raise th ough is on the stowage space for unoccupied chair. T he train that works the best for me today, and probably ride the train more than most folks with a disability, it's the Acela. A nd I choose it for several reasons. One because I can get in the door not damage my chair I can get down the aisle and not damage my chair. W hen I jump in my transfer seat, I can slide my chair, my empty unoccupied chair on the other side of the table and I set it there. N ow, it works good for me but it's really not the right thing to do. B ecause in that configuration I am consuming someone's occupied space with my unoccupied chair. S o, the advantages are huge because then when I need to get up and use the restroom which happens on almost every Wilmington to DC and back, I a m able to do that independently I don't have to push a button ask anybody to reach I know I have to use the restroom I pull my chair back around jump into it and go. S o, I think the proximity of where that unoccupied chair is. M y chair does fold although I don't have to fold it on the Acela. T hat's why I don't choose to fold it there. T he other reason that I don't usually fold it is because it won't stay up right with all of the loading and yawing of the vehicle, it tips my chair over and bangs it into something if it's up folded I don't have to worry about that. I was thinking about the luggage storage area. I f there is away to have an area that could be used for luggage but it had a

priority purpose where an unoccupied chair could be in there that
m ight be an option where it's not perfect because any time that you try these dual use spaces, you know, it's going to fill up with luggage first and stuff like that. B ut I think with some decent signage and stuff like that that's a problem we have on the Acela today it's not perfect the occupied wheeled mobility space is a luggage space until we show up. Ido think it's hoped over the last two, three years we are getting better at keeping the space clearer and let people know if I need it you have to move it. I wanted to address that. B ecause I do think that those of us who are blessed enough to be able to transfer it's just really awesome to stay independent and not bug everybody around you to reach your stuff if it's possible. T hen I did want to just reiterate on the table I just think the other reason that I ride the Acela I get a table and I can work I have a problem sitting for an hour and a half and two hours not working. I can't work off of my lap. S o, you know that's, for me, why it's so important we have access to the same amenities if anybody has questions please let me know, thank you. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Thanks Gary. >> Jonathan Michael, RailPlan. I had

-- going off of Gary as comments about the

-- Gary's comments about the luggage storage space and the wheelchair space, I think there should definitely not be next to one another. I think it would justencourage with proper signage the likelihood of the luggage space

merging into the wheelchair spac e even with signage is a lot more likely and it should be separate. A nd it should be designated purposefully by the signage. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I mean, a lot of that becomes a policing issue. I t's what I referred to as the soft side of the railroad. We deal with the hardware that's the easy part. Quite often. I t's the soft side, the

-- a lot of

-- when you look at a lot of conductors some can be hard

- nosed about things and follow and enforce the rules a lot of folks hate to inconvenience anyone well t here is a space no one is in it why sure put your bags there. Yes, sir. >> DENNIS CANNON: Dennis Cannon. T he

-- that reminds me, operational issues are some of the worst. T here is a little tiny, in the car, there is a little tiny trash receptacle that w ill hold maybe a cup or two. A nd it gets quickly filled and it turns out that that nice big restroom there is a great place for them to put the big trash
can. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I can tell you there is a lot of conversation on the railroad about that. A nd it creates more problems than just accessibility problems. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. Iwon't even go there. (LAUGHTER)>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: It is one of my pet projects my pet peeves

with the railroad. A nd I

-- >> I als o had not comment possibly about the tray table and having it either removable or even being able to slide permanently attached to the wall but being able to slide maybe two or three fetal long the wall to accommodate different configurations if you are in a larger power chair versus a hand powered chair. A nd also being able to possibly flip the seat so you end up if you are traveling with a spouse or someone accompanying you that you could flip the seat so that you were facing one another. A nd have it ac commodate both patrons. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Again if you start with a blank sheet of paper there is a very good chance that the most similar thing that I can think of off the top of my head there are low co

- motive seats that cantilever off the wall and move quite a ways so if you could move the table to accommodate either someone just at the seat or in the wheelchair and seat or perhaps they are seated further back yes, sir, Dennis? >> DENNIS CANNON: Well, the thing that I like about the Acela aside from th e fact that

-- except for the fact that they locked down the folding table, with the post underneath, those two side flaps that flip over to make the table bigger and bring it toward you. Yet, in their folded condition they allow you more maneuvering
room
. T he other issue I don't know what the specific cars are that Ihave ridden on, but typically you have the wheelchair space and

then there is a double seat. Across from it. B ut there were a couple of cars that I have ridden in, in the past and I don't know if they still exist that had a single seat opposite the wheelchair space. And it rotated. A nd you can turn it around and face it any direction that you wanted to. I often would transfer into it and turn around facing me. I don't know whether that' s current whether that's still in existence obviously you lose a seat doing that. T he other seats can be turned around but they take a little more work they are not the kind of thing

-- this particular seat had a button or catch release on the side that you could push down and it was relatively easy to flip it around. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yeah, that

-- those seats were on I know they were on the Amfleet II cars and some of the Amfleet I's what happened when we had a more strict definition of the space to

-- because I think the assumption was at one time most people would transfer that was not always the case. A nd there wasn't really I don't think the there was a good definition prior to ADA for what the footprint needed to be for unoccupied wheelchair. By the time the ADA came around, a lot of those seats were simply falling apart. A nd so, we opted to go to the bigger double seat. S ome of the thinking was that having just the single seat as the transfer seat sort of said here I am. A nd it was a different seat from what everyone else had in the train. S o, I mine you could take that bothway ins a single seat is more accommodating that may be the way

to go. B ut, yeah, I remember those seats and they had the flip up armrests and turned at 90

- degree increme nts and could face across the car if that helped with transfers. B ut that was the story of those they got eaten up by the progression of space. C hris? >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Just liking

-- just looking at this bottom diagram, potentially depending on how you layout the table, you could actually allow one person to ride forward and one person ride rearward facing. F or some folks reward facing may actually be more comfortable. S o, it's something to think about if the committee want today weigh in as to whet her or not flexibility is important. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well, if you look at the lower, the lower position on the bottom diagram, you probably can easily enough move the single seat so it would become library the Acela is now the single seat is against th e luggage and you have the wheelchair on the other side and that would give you one an option for travel either way, yeah. A nd for that matter, if the train was going the opposite direction, if the tables were wall mounted, then both positions both people could turn and face the other way in their wheelchairs. B ut then you

-- fur with a companion you would be facing away from them maybe. At least there would be the option. So, that's a good point. We have

-- there is flexibility there. T he other thing that in looking through PRIIA and this may be just mymisunderstanding. T he way the regs are currently for inner

- city,

it's number of positions, number of accessible seats equal to the number of coaches in the train. A nd PRIIA takes that to every coach having two positions. A m I understanding that correctly? That's what we are talking about here for inner

- city as well? >> Well, thank you, see you tomorrow. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Any comments? B ob? >> LINDA MARTIN: This is Linda. >> I wasn't waiting to c omment but that is the ideal. I mean I was married and my wife used a wheelchair also, that becomes a problem when you have to ride in two different cars. S o, when you have a family, yes there should be two in each one. Iam not sure exactly how they are interpreting the regs with the PRIIA but it did say equal to the number of the cars on the train. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right but I think Linda I think you were >> Bob: You are discussing change. >> LINDA MARTIN: Yeah, there is

-- the difference with the PRIIA cars is that the space is larger the space to park a wheelchair is larger. B ut there is not a requirement for two spaces. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> LINDA MARTIN: I mean, there is still the requirement for the store and fold space and the space to stay in a wheelchair but it did not expand it to two spaces. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: So it's

-->> LINDA MARTIN: For a car it's one per car. Two if you counted

the transfer. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Now, that brings me back to another question. W hat we have talked about in our matrix here, I think maybe I just put that in there, because of my misunderstanding, was two positions. O r let's see

-- >> For commuter. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: But I had I thought because a PRIIA was spilling over to inner

- city. And that's one of the things that I want today clarify. A nd along with that, if we are going to have I will speak for Amtrak, we made a decision at one point we had two positions in each

-- I mean every other car so that we could get up to speed and have some chance of complying. A nd then, we made the decision to put

-- go back to one position per car and every car had accessible restroom or the accessible nonaccessible restroom as Dennis calls it. A nd operationally that's beautiful because he just go ou t in the yard and get the cars for the train. B ut if

-- and if we were going to continue to do that with the single position, that's fine, but I

-- what I hear a lot is we would rather have two positions in the accessible car, and with respect to avoiding the cattle car syndrome. B ut because people travel together, you know, it's in a train that's not packed full. I mean you have the condition today if an ambulatory gets on a train or couple or friends or whatever and the train is packed you can end up s trewn all overthe train that's not the norm. B ut if you are arriving in a wheelchair

in the positions are only in every car, at least for inner

- city you can get strewn along that seems not a reasonable thing from my point of view. S o, I would

-- if it i s desirable to have for inner

- city for the two seats in the car, I would put the operational pressure back on the railroad to deal with that. I f we are still only dealing with an equal number to the coaches. Yes, Dennis? >> DENNIS CANNON: This is

-- this is Dennis. J ust about every other mode with the exception of paratransit vehicles and maybe some PRT vehicles and so forth has a requirement for two spaces. The Amtrak says because of the statute says at least one, no more than two. A nd the default the n is to go with the minimum. S o, it's been basically one. A nd the recommendation

-- my recommendation would be to put it to two to make it like all the other ones for all of the reasons about traveling together. T he issue about the number of spaces per coach, were actually two interim provisions in the statute that are generally referred to as the one car pertain rule. B ut it's actually more complicated than that. And those deadlines of

-- have long past. T he first one was you had to have the number o f spaces equal to 50% of the cars. S o if you had a 10

- car train you needed to have 5. I f you had

-- then it changed after a number of years and I forgot the dates, you had to have one for every car so if you had a 10

- car consist you would have 10. B ut you could put them in two per car to make that up.So that you only had to have 5 accessible cars. T hat was done to

make sure that you didn't make

-- force Amtrak essentially to buy a whole bunch of brand new cars in order to comply. T hey could take exis ting cars, take out some seats, and not have to do everything. B ut that

-- the dates for those requirements are passed. S o, now it's back to the every car is accessible and how many spaces is at least 1 no more than 2. A nd I am pushing for 2. >> BLAIR S LAUGHTER: Dennis, I understand that. Ken? >> Ken Shiotani: Yeah, I think

-- I think that the member of the disability community subcommittee were very clear we didn't want to go with the statutory minimum of one but were pushing for two. And in addition to that, we had Blair incorporated a note that one other provision we want, you know, probably won't be used all that often, but is really important from time to time is when a group of people who are using wheelchairs wants to travel together, that
some seats be removable. S o that there be extra spaces. I t's not going to happen very often but when it happens it is something that, you know, airline moves seats around all the time I think Amtrak seats are probably similarly removable. We removed a whole bunch of seats when we did the trip to test out the bridgeplate. T hat was an additional provision. We need two because the statute says no more than two. B ut then have that option that additional seats can be removable. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yeah. Ken, t hat's something that youknow Amtrak has done through the years. B ut I do think it's

important that we make it more official so that it's

-- because it's

-- things change over time and some things need to be consistent. A nd I think it's important to incl ude that. B ob? >> Bob Reuter: O ne of the things that we discussed at the subcommittee we never came to a conclusion but might be worth bringing was the concept of three. O ne fixed wheelchair seating one transfer seat and one that could be either or. W h ere the transfer seat folded up and became a wheelchair parking space. I don't think we ever came to resolution on it but we did discuss it rather extensively at one point. T hat would be something to throw out here as sort of a half

-way point between the two. >> Blair? T his is Andre I have a small comment I would like to go back on the tables? >> ANDRE GAGNE: Deployable tables the indent intent is not to have them acting as containment device in case of a crash right >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Tier 1 equipment, yes. I mean tier 2 and we will talk about that in the next slide that's a whole other ball of backs. >> ANDRE GAGNE: Okay. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I will throw that back at our friends at the FRA. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. M arilyn was next.> > MARILYN GOLDEN: Marilyn Golden from DREDF yeah two

obviously important Bob's idea about three being ideal is good and if there

-- if they are foldable then

-- you know the statutory requirement was well meaning but naive so now we are try to go get aroun d it. A nd anyway, it seems to me that there is some real potential for that. W ith the way that third one if we could find space for it the way Bob described it. I, you know, I don't know how much you can do on one car if we could bring back that rotating design Blair that you and Dennis was discussing it seemed like a very good one. I don't know if

-- I don't know what is required in that. B ut it seems like it's a good idea that history should not be lost to history. I thought Jonathan's idea about the way a table could be sort of fold in behind the row of seats is good unless Chris and you will find that it's not sound enough structurally in which case I withdraw my support of it but

-- >> I think it would have to do with

-- you would have to engineer it properly but we put people on the moon, so it has to be done. I t can be done. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Yeah, my general sense is if rail hooked up with (inaudible) in Detroit and Amtrak needs to absolutely test. And then involve the community in the proto type evaluation. T hat might make folks more comfortable. B ut ultimately you are going to put this thing on a shake rattle and roll table and vibrate the thing till the cows come home and figure out if it's really going tohold up over a million miles.

>> MARILYN GOLDEN: Yeah. Iam sure they can handle that, no problem. (LAUGHTER) >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Jonathan Chris laid out a good testing plan for a moment ago check that out. A nother thing that I was going to say was

-- I know you have things we haven 't gotten to yet and we are sort of jumping the gun. I don't know if the seats past the test far enough from the bathroom close enough but far enough to not be disturbed by it, I am not the one knows how close is too close but

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Maril yn you make a good point there again I will say that this was an existing car layout, with the things superimposed if we are starting from scratch, and our discussions now are even around eliminating in some cases the unisex restroom and putting a truly mo re accessible restroom in there so in doing that or things so you have close but not close as well. B ecause that's

-- that's a universal situation. N o one wants to be sitting across from the restroom door. A nd in situations where we create that conditio n, what we are looking at if you look at that diagram there, if we took out the unisex restroom and put in seats they would not be seats designated accessible or transfer. You would still

-- the idea is if there are options through the car, I look at it a s the options need to be as equivalent as possible. A nd if there islesser conditions those can't be the default accessible conditions

that's the way that we are trying to go at that. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Right. I think just to PS to that, I mean, wheelcha ir users have lots of experience in other context like in a movie theater et cetera, where the least desirable seats are made the accessible seats. S o we know

-- we know not to do that there time around. T he other thing I didn't want to lose I forgot to mention is that on your note where we have the fold down seats to make it optional for groups to come in. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I know Amtrak has done that at times. I don't know

-- I mean, there is

-- I guess it was Ken that was s aying somebody airlines maybe Dennis airlines move seats around and trains could do it too I am sure there is more difficult and easier ways to make that designable to happen. I t should be designable to be as easy as possible. The other thing that's not Access Board issue but it's going to go on my list of recommendations to DOT, is that in our experience when Amtrak has removed seats for groups to travel there has been a very, very pricey charge on it for something that logic does not dictate to be that h ard to do. S o, I am hoping that the regulators that have jurisdiction over that don't let all of the people at Amtrak that aren't Blair do it that way. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think, and I would have to go back andtalk to folks at Amtrak. B ut I know if yo u reserve an entire car

regardless of whether it's for accessibility needs or whatever there

-- it's considered a special move. We do those kind of things group move those things all the time. I don't know if there is

-- if the application of fees are eq uivalent, that I don't know. T hat may
-- I would hope it is. T hat we are not singling out a condition

-- >> Blair, this is Gary, can I speak up on this? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Sure Gary, thank you.
>> Gary: Yeah I have personal knowledge of this since my t ime at Amtrak. I would think for RVAAC I would hope RVAAC could do something like state that the, you know, if we could state something like that the seats are removable

-- the seats shall be easily removable so that in the event you need additional space the cost can be minimized. We had a situation from Chicago to St. Louis where a group of folks wheelchair users were trying to go down and fight for some really righteous stuff not that they had to by the way they could have been going to a theme park or whatever, and the cost to remove the seats was in the thousands of dollars. A nd you know, so it just seems to me that we are

-- it's like Marilyn and others have said when you are not involved sometimes people look at it there is a request that comes in hey I have 12 wheeled mobility users need to get on the train the answer comes back well it was 6500 to remove the seats and put themback in. S o there is just got to be a way. T his is public

transportation. T here has to be a way that seats can be very easily removable. I think they are easily removable now. I mean, if we could write something like that into the

-- into the language for inner

- city especially and it may be applicable to commuter rail as well. T hat you know you just remove the seats. C hris and I did it at the T on many occasions where we needed some additional space but if you

-- if you are not pulling them out and putting them in on a regular basis, I do understand where that would be more expensive than if there is a way to handle it rulemaking wise you make the comment at least when there is a charge hopefully it's a couple hundred bucks versus 6500 or whatever. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Yeah, I think Access looks forward to an eventual refund check. >> I don't think they paid for it Chri s they showed up with regular tickets everybody got on the train I don't know how I wasn't there. T hey didn't get the reduced fare tickets to my knowledge they just showed up. B ut they got up there and fought for what they are fighting for. T hat's my po int we shouldn't have to do the stuff. Today the issue is resolved because another of

-- another kind of Blair clone Mo in Chicago ask a wonderful person and understands how important it is always of a sudden I am told it's no longer an issue. T hat's gre at as long as we

-- they are like seeds we need more of them it would be nice if the rulemaking told folksthat is what you have to do. W ith the right people it appears there

is not an issue any longer, if we didn't have them I think it would be. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Dennis? >> DENNIS CANNON: Dennis. T he statutory requirement that says at least one but no more than two, I am not an attorney but I think that that means in terms of providing the specific space and requiring it to be there. T he issue of havi ng seats removable so you can accommodate more, I think that doesn't necessarily violate the law. S omebody would have to look to see if that does. I think that's okay. T here are incidentally collapsible seats using over the road buses, basically the seat itself flips up and the seats are on a track and they slide them back. A nd collapses them against each other it's done by the driver. S o, I mean it's not something that you have to do with a crew or whatever. T he problem is that you lose six seats for every wheelchair space so you know, but there may be something like that that could be used that's much easier to do than having to unbolt seats and carry them off and store them somewhere. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. I mean, the situation with inner

- city versus commuter and transit and things like that is very different. R ight now note 4 if you follow down it's in the commuter column as well I don't know if we want to leave that I am looking at my commuter buddies around the table here. B ut so back to youknow one of the original points that I wanted to clarify was we are

sort of stuck with the statute that says, one but no more than two. And now it's every car. S o, they sort of painted us into a corner is that correct? T hat

-- and here is where I am going. I f you look at the numbers that I have got up there next to the impact of making

-- if we replace the existing fleet on the northeast corridor, you end up with a lot more cars for the same or for the level of accessibility if we put two in every

-- if you follow the strict letter there. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Technically that works in your favor because you need more cars. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well, we need more cars but also

-- there is the other

-- >> It's expensive. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER : There is the other

-- the other extreme is, you know, it costs money to move those cars and take care of them. So, there are economies of scale and we are always looking to see, you know, how many more folks we can get in a vehicle without

-- and still charge a fair price, hopefully a fair price. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: I am teasing. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I know that. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: I know

-- I know even the down Easter would love to get 3 or 4 more in one car per train (inaudible) Andsell out those se ats. B ut this will become an issue more on the

(inaudible) analysis. B ut to the extent that you guys already have capacity issues, there actually isn't that positive in the long run. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Because it helps drive a discussion of what does it really take to operate service versus what are we stuck living with. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: You make a very good point Chris. T hat's always the frustrating part. Particularly in our world. W hen we see MTA buying 600 cars we are jealous. Even though ones they are replacing are truly worn out. B ut we would love to buy 600
cars. B illy, yes. >> BILLY ALTOM: Quick one. N ot being a novice train rider I have driven the one on the top I will say from the exactly the layout of what I have ridden, and that is plenty close to the restroom. Right there it's

-- very accurate representation with the box and the toilet my question is more along the lines of looking at the bottom drawing I am a consistency kind of guy all of the passenger s eats are flipped facing backwards is that a consistent thing does that happen on trains are they always facing forward facing? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: It varies. >> BILLY ALTOM: Okay. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: There is discussion

-- Amtrak is traditionally rotated s eats for the direction of travel there is a lot ofdiscussion around doing half and Hoff seats now because there

are
-- there is a lot of potential space gains weight savings amenity concerns if you have nonrotating seats that you can now put controls and things in the seat that don't get twisted apart when you rotate the seats it's a real nightmare. S o, you could have that same vehicle with

-- today with all of the seats facing the opposite direction because we have the rotating seat situation. I t would

-- what that does it lets us do things now like go to Maine and not be able to turn a train around but turn the seats around. In some cases we set the seats half and half anyway. A nd that is very much where things are trending is to go to that all over t he place. >> ANDRE GAGNE: I have a question Blair. T his is Andre. About the space for service animals. M aybe it relates to Dennis because he has a dog that's under the table. A nd so the space I see on the layouts is in the aisle so somebody could step on the animal that would be possible if the car is full of passengers. S o, would there be a Ben knit in having some kind of protection for protected area for the service animal and not just a space that could be placed anywhere? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That's a very good question that's why in the lower plan there are two single seats with the showing the service animal space adjacent to them so the service animal is in the space that's gained from taking that seat out. A nd I didn't

-- Ididn't overlap the wh eelchair space with the accessible animal

space. I kept them separate you would assume there is overlap in the spaces if it were a double seat condition the dog would be sitting in the middle of the aisle I don't think that would be acceptable at all.
>> DENNIS CANNON: Typically, first of all, typically you have two by two seating. A nd I am thinking the Acela about, if I sit with my wheel at the aisle in line with the center aisle seat there is plenty of room on the side between me and the door from my

-- for my pooch, me and the wall. S o he sits on the other side between me and the wall there is plenty of room I don't have to be in the aisle I can stay just inside the aisle in order to do that if it's two across. I f it's one across then I have problems. He would have to be somewhere else. >> TERRY PACHECO: Could I have

-- because I can't see that from there. Iam also

-- I think the other issue that we need to be concerned about with service animals for animals that are not accompanying someone in a w heelchair. We need to be very certain that they can be sitting they would be sitting in a regular seat quote unquote but that dog has got to be able to well out of the aisle as well for safety reasons. F or everyone's safety for dogs and other passengers I am hoping that that is on there.
>> PAUL BEATTY: Can I interrupt the subcommittee chair a moment?>> BILLY ALTOM: With permission of Blair we are going to take a

small break for a moment we have folks

-- >> PAUL BEATTY: Do the comment and break. >> Excuse me? >> Is this where your 5

- minute breaks that are going to be 15. >> BILLY ALTOM: Exactly. M omentarily we have

-- do have a few folks on the phone I know we have one person who would like to make a public comment who may not be able to join us fo r the entire call we are not sure when this will end Mary Ann opportunity to make her public comment Mary are you on the line >> I am ready. T hank you. I am going to read a statement into the record, I will send a final copy. T hanks for the opportunity to provide public. Robert
>> Mary Lamielle executive director for the national senator health strategies over 30 year's worked to address needs with people injured or disabled by chemical and environmental exposures people with environmental sensitivities are disabled by environmental barriers, they experience debilitating reactions from very low level chemical and environmental exposures and to electromagnetic fields. Poor indoor environmental quality in rapid light commuter inner

- city and high

- speed rai l as other forms of public transit and public transit restrooms and buildings the poor quality is harass does to people with disabilities and precludes access to all public transit. 1 /3 of Americans report problems withpesticides perfumes and fragrance t obacco smoke adhesive

cleaning and maintenance products and auto and diesel exhaust many among other exposure. 1 3 to 16% of Americans report unusual sensitivities and up to 60% myself among them are disabled by low level chemical and environmental exposures people with disabilities are unable to use public transit we are not able to use paratransit vehicles cabs and trains. T hose who may have to use the transit options may experience severe reactions they may need to resort to masks there are a number of steps that would make rail transit all public transit more accessible for this disability group. T hese include: U sing nontoxic fragrance

- free products remove all scents and fragrance emitting gasses (inaudible). I n rapid and high

- speed rail. Restrooms and buildings and facilities. Use only fragrance free hand soaps if alcohol

- based hand sanitizers use unscent scented products without additional ingredient. Eliminate use of pesticides in favor of less toxic alternatives. S elect least toxic materials for rail transit vehicles and for construction and remodelling of buildings including avoiding carpeting and adhesive stain proofing and minimizing the use of plastics. Banning smoking in all rapid transit vehicles and buildings if not already a policy. A nd within 50 feet of entrance. People with electromagnetic sensitivity are impacted cell phones smartphones WI/FI and flashing lights among other exposures these would need to be removed or shielded. Each if all environmental barriers limbmated or signi ficantly reduced people with sensitivities would need

the cooperation of public transit staff and the public in order to use public transportation. At minimum employees should be encouraged to avoid smoking and retrain from fragrance scented products fell ow passengers encourage to accommodate people with the disabilities by avoiding problematic activities including things such as applying scented hand lotions or nail polish in transit. I refer the members of the Rail Vehicle Access Advisory Committee to U .S. Access Board 2006 indoor environmental quality project report that focuses on making public and commercial buildings and spaces healthier or everyone accessible for people disabled with chemical and electrical sensitivities two sections the place and
m aintenance section is relevant as well as a section on designated cleaner air room to path the travel which identified cleaner air spaces with a pictogram of a fan with six blades indicating a space more accessible for people with disabilities and identifi es those characteristics the rail committee showed immune supports products practices programs and actions would make rail travel more accessible for people with these disabilities, this would include support for action by the Access Board to take a lead r ole in creation of inner agency or cross agency committee to address this and develop technical guidance materials to address disabilities based in parted on environmental quality project report. A lso recommended justice department develops guidance onre quirements for people with disabilities. Ithank you so much.

And I really appreciate taking this call especially with my cell phone which is not exactly the best way to listen. A nd if you have any questions please let me know. >> BILLY ALTOM: Thank you Mary very much. A nd please make those comments to us as well.
>> I will do that, thank you. >> BILLY ALTOM: Want to take other comments? (Discussion off record.)

>> BILLY ALTOM: Okay. I s there anyone else on the phone that would like to make a public c omment at this particular moment? Hearing none. W hat we will do is we are going to break to the top of the hour? W ill that work? Yes, that's our unusual 5, 15 minutes.
>> Top of the hour is top of the hour.

(Short recess taken.)

>> BILLY ALTOM: Al l right folks, if we could make our ways back to our seats. A ll right. T hank you very much we set a new record 5 turned into 20 today we are getting better. (Discussion off record.)>> BILLY ALTOM: Man, if I could do it with money we would be

all right. Thank you much for coming back I hope our folks are still with us on the phone I would like to turn the meeting back over to Blair. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Thank you Billy. I f we could go to the next slide. Ithink we have worked the poor Amfleets. W ho dr ives the slides? O h, okay. N ow, if I had really been using my brains I would flip them over for the same orientation. You have to turn your minds over I am sorry for that. T his is the Acela business class coach car, which is the two and two seating ver sus the two and one for those that saw the car on the PRIIA call. T he upper level shows existing condition and which has issue that Dennis and others are aware of as far as the little table area but as it was originally intended there is the 60

- inch turni ng circle. A nd the condition that exists today I mutt the service animal space in there and the other accessible seat which is across the aisle with flip up arm that's as that car exists today. T he intended space for folded wheelchairs was there is a sma ll bulk head behind the first seat luggage area that was a dual

- use places that actually width wise would accommodate two chairs if you could in fact get them that small. The lower level shows doing sort of the same thing we did with the Amfleet, that is e xpanding the spaces, and you can see to the point that Chris made earlier about the tables in this case it's thefixed table and you have got access to that as well. T he seat

impact and again this is working over the top of an existing layout so the affects are maybe different than they would be if you are starting with a clean sheet of paper. T he seat impact is actually two seats higher in dealing with this because the other

-- the other thing that has occurred is to deal with the crashworthiness issues for tier 2. We had to take space on the

-- from the passenger seating the other passenger seating to get to that table. W hat we are actually looking at is maybe reducing the pitch of the other seats and not losing as many a seats and I show in the drawin g. You can see the same thing of

-- you can see the same thing how we can position folks and service animals so they are where they need to be. S omeone pointed out in the Amfleet if you put the single seat to the aisle side that would create a nice littl e nest to the wall side for the service animal. B ut it just occurred to me one of the reasons we went to the single seat was to get the aisle width so you could get down the aisle with a wheelchair. S o, that's sort of where we would

-- what we would be t hinking. You can see where, again, where we are looking at in every car a fair amount of impact in reality, we would probably just add cars to the existing

-- if we were buying the same trains over again we would make them a car longer anyway based on what we found the service needs to be. B ut that's the impact that we are looking at. A nd you know, again, I was looking for clarification. I think I got it from theAmtrak viewpoint of if we are looking at two positions per vehicle I

wanted to sort of give folks an idea of what some of the potential push back is from industry when we look at the number of impacts on these things. Idon't know when Amtrak is going to by brand new trains again I know we are working on the next generation high

- speed rail we a re hopeful that that will work out. I don't know how the next procurement and the new rules are going to

-- what's going to occur first. I t obviously would be nice if the rules occurred first and then we could deal with the trains but they we would be a long ways off getting trains. We would rather have trains, I think, and deal with them. S o, that's

-- that's that. A ny questions on the on the Acela layout, yes Frank? >> FRANK MALDARI: I just had a quick comment about the impact that you show there. I ncreasing the fleet size is an option provided you don't have capacity issues. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: On the railroad, yes. >> FRANK MALDARI: That's one of the things it seems like you buy extra 10 cars 20 cars not a big deal if the train is already packed yo u don't have anymore slots to go into Penn Station for example we chaired

-- we share that with you if you have more trains it affects us. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: If we both have more trains we

-- >> FRANK MALDARI: Some of these impacts is maybe not obvious. In order for us to put more cars on more trains we haveto have more slots if you don't somebody else has to pay the

penalty. S o it's not always, you could add a couple more seats or couple more cars, the length of the platforms is fixed the infrastructure is only four tubes in and out of Penn Station that's a lot considering the foresight when it was built so many years ago. But we only have so many lots. S o, there are operational concerns associated with buying more equipment. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Thank s for pointing that out that was one of the points I hop I would remember to make. I know here we are 20

- some
- odd years after original ADA was enacted we learned some thing. S ome things you can't tell we learned. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: But th ere is quantity and there is quality. And quantity of accessibility does not, to me does not mean quality of accessibility. A nd I would like for us to make sure that we ensure that what we

-- what is accessible is the right amount but that it is rightly accessible. I t's not halfway that it's almost as good as it should be. A nd I mean, that's

-- I don't know, you can look at it both ways. I t would be best to have, I guess,

-- well, no I think the best condition is the right amount and the right quality of the
access. S o that we serve as many folks as we can and as a percentage of the community versus just raw numbers. >> Blair? S orry, I had a comment, I think yesterday you made the comment about there was originally there was big pack backwhen Amtrak switched from women and men's restrooms to the

unisex and then possibly maybe even getting rid of the unisex entirely and making accessible one accessible restroom per car. O r every other car depending on if it was a fixed

- consist train would either have one accessible restroom and one unisex and then just have one accessible restroom in every other car. S o, you could probably gain two seats or a pair of seats here and there which would over 10 cars would give you 20 seats. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes, I'm so rry. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Interesting question because the infrastructure for that doesn't make sense and I am guessing it doesn't because nobody's done it internationally. B ut would it make sense to have a car that is all seats and then an adjoining ca r that is half seats half restrooms, does that make it easier operationally to maintain those restrooms you know, is it essentially a neutral thing or is it a benefit? Iam guessing if it's not a benefit because nobody's done it in Europe, and they are pretty smart over there. B ut I don't know Blair. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well if you are looking at fixed

- consist trains to the point that Dennis made yesterday you probably could do

-- if every other car had the big accessible restroom, then you probably could gain back some of the

-- >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Or all of the restrooms. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well

-->> CHRISTOPHER HART: That

--

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: The latrine car, as I once referred to it in discussion with Amtrak, yeah I mean

-- I think the risk there is because the system is local to the car if you lost that

-- the system on that car you would

-- you would lose a lot of toilet capacity en route that might be a very troublesome thing. B ut it's worst looking at. I think

-- I think the challenge is depe nding on how

-- how the rules finally come out and then in thinking about how to justify what we are recommending as time marches on is going to be to get creative on how we manage the spaces. A nd yet stay within the statutes if

-- it's probably going to be easier with fixed

- consist trains or articulated trains where you can make safe easy transfers from car to car versus what we refer to as single cars or locomotive haul cars you make a train up according to what you need to do. Every car needs to stand independently typically. That's the ideal, yes Uwe? >> Uwe Rutenberg: T his is Uwe. I t seems to me what we are try to go do here is a retrofitting. A nd, I think these are very commendable ideas to what we can do with existing cars. T he question is: S h ould we not look in our recommendations more to the future of, you know, we are talking about high speed, next generation cars. A nd try to develop recommendations how ideally and accessible section or car should look like from the moment they are boarding let's say from the lift to the vestibule, to the pathto the lavatory, or wash room, and to the

-- two or three or more or

whatever position that we have. Ithink you know, there are two things here, one is retrofitting what we have, and what we can do. And then the next would be what would be the future and should we develop recommendations of what should be when new procurement will take place. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well, you make a good point. T he

-- of course, I use the existing vehicles because there are things in people's minds and they are running. T he Acela development sought to do a lot of that kind of clean sheet of paper thinking. We hear a lot of reference to the Acela restroom and accessible spaces and why people like them better than the ex isting trains. But the physical impacts, once you get to the place where you are having seating, regardless of what you do between there and how the restrooms and the doors and things are configured, that impact is because we are defining space is the same and there is not a lot that you can

-- not a lot that you can do about that you are actually going to run where you draw the line (Discussion off record.) (Brief recess)

CART web stream had stopped so the committee stopped its work until CART was up and running.>> PAUL BEATTY: Hello everyone. We are back online.

**NOTE: S orry for the delay, CART is back online. >> Rose Marie: Attention. >> BILLY ALTOM: All righty. Ithink we are back live again. Yeah, there we go. I am trying to get Don Pardo's old job. (LAUGHTER) Okay. I think we are back. A nd once again, I like to turn it back over to Blair Slaughter. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. Iwill put my glasses back on so I can see what I have written. O kay. O kay. S o we were discussing the Acela. A nd I don't think we need to spend much more time on the slide but we can move on. But I thought it was important to show with a vehicle that

-- that a lot of people think has been done relatively well, maybe it's far from perfect. W hat those impacts would be. A nd when you

-- when you

-- because we are talking about spaces. O nce you get beyond the utility spaces the restrooms and the electrical cabinets and luggage and storage and all of those necessary things and you are in the bottom of the coach
area. T he impacts are the impacts. B ecause we are talking about square feet and squa re inches. S o that was the hope was to show that here is the raw impact and now the challenge then becomes how do you

-- how do you deal with that with changeable devices, and overlaps and things

-- Dennis? >> DENNIS CANNON: Did I understand correctly fro m somethingthat the

-- trying to go going to go to overhead bins like airlines

for more carry on space is that happening somewhere? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well, we have

-- I mean on Amtrak we have overhead bins anyway. >> DENNIS CANNON: Well do you have a sh elf but I was thinking more of the airlines. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: The Acela is a closed cabinet. T hat was done to help with managing things in should there be an didn't and those sorts of things those are the same reasons on luggage racks there are partiti ons every 7 or 8 feet that's to keep luggage from coming off in a severe impact. T hat's the big reason that they are closed they look nicer too. You will get more luggage in Acela space than you will in any airplane I will tell you that. T here is also t he need to have lower space for folks that you know, not I won't call it overflow because the Acela has plenty of space if people bring big bags. S ince that has been done there is a more of a move to limit the size of baggage and things like that so we have space for everything that we need to do. >> DENNIS CANNON: Just like we have on the airlines. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes, hopefully we have not gotten that mean about it yet. Yet. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Hopefully never. We are the railroad weare not supposed to be that way. Yay. A s I said once looking at a

car that had just been overhauled there was news folks looking at it wow this is really nice. I pointed and I said no oxygen mask will ever fall from this luggage rack. T hey wrote it down that was in the Harrisburg news. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: If we could go to the

-- >> CHRISTOPHER HART: One observation I just picked up on. I s 59

- inch space is completely dependent on resolving the post issue. >> BLAIR SLAUGHT ER: Yes. Well

-- >> CHRISTOPHER HART: As Linda and (inaudible) I know they worked on this because they got several complaints open on the Acela at this point. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well, we have

-- we have looked at several options on how we can address that we are still working on it because the

-- what you

-- what even we thought might be an easy thing turned out to be very complex. S o,
-- if I could just get the FRA

-- we have got to sit down and talk some more. I f we could

-- anyone have any other thou ghts about or questions about what I have shown here? >> Hello, yeah. J ust in the calculation of the impact we just discussed I wonder if you could factor in putting flip seats in those locations lessening the potential seat loss. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: that's a possibility. O ne of the things thatsets Amtrak apart sometimes from commuter where you are

looking at fairly short trips is do you compromise comfort. Again, the challenge becomes to make a seat that is when flipped down it's near like every other seat as possible.
>> James: S ure if I got on the train I had the choice of standing or being on a flip seat >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: You will sit on the flip seat. >> I will take a flip seat if this is a definite go with the two spaces it seems like some mitig ation for loss of seats. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: But would you ask for your money back >> Possibly.
>> There is a difference between $2.50 to ride as opposed to riding the Acela. T here are things to consider. I t creates challenges how to solve those dilemmas

. C hris you started to say something and we will move to the next slide. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: No, I

-- I think we are good. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> Write that down. (LAUGHTER) >> BILLY ALTOM: Chris had no comment. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: I think th e ergonomic table folks are good. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. S o,
-- >> I just had a comment based on during the break about maybeadding a category to married pairs possibly. I just

-- I just think,

you know, if you are able to spread the accessible space and the restroom over to two cars and married pair fixed

- consist you are going to minimize the infrastructure needed in each car and utilize the space maybe one bathroom for four accessible spaces versus having it in each individual car. >> Isn't that what was discussed yesterday. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: What Jonathan was talking about it's obviously easier when you are talking about fixed

- consist trains like an Acela. Even in locomotive right now where it's individual cars if you have married cars making up an 8

- pair train you wouldn't have the confines of how you maintain, when you maintain the train set if something breaks the whole train set comes out. I f you maintain individual cars one car comes out you put in another car life goes on the married pairs may give an option somewhere in between. I t gives you the car to car accessibility but you are

-- you can still build trains that are not that can be based on the market demands versus a completely fixed

- consist. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: And I might add easie r to repair. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. >> I would encourage I don't know if anybody's I know Bombardier and Altrom in France provide 3

- 5

- 7 cars (inaudible) it's something that I think we should look at even if it was just from an operations standpoint, I know the railroad is way different than it isin Europe. B ut you know use it as inspiration for the future of

American rail. >> BLAIR SLA UGHTER: Right. I t's important to point out we are not

-- it's easy for us that are designers and engineers to start solving the problem. B ut I think it is

-- it is important as we move forward thinking about what we want to recommend that we have an idea that there are solutions that there is not impossibilities. And I think that's the key point of the discussion. S o, that we
can
-- we stay focused on what we want to do as a committee with some security that we can at least from the industry side that we can answer the we can answer the a call. F rank you had a comment? >> FRANK MALDARI: Yeah just a quick comment. T he aisle width what's the aisle width? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: The aisle width between the two and two seating? >> FRANK MALDARI: Yeah. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I want to say it's 22 inches. >> FRANK MALDARI: The point I was getting to the question is why do the talking areas wind up next to the bathrooms. Ithink what you are seeing here is the reason why. You need to provide accessible path to the parking area and accessible path from the parking area to the bathroom. A nd if you wanted to move the parking area down the aisle you have to remove a seat everylocation that you move it away the from toilet.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. >> FRANK MALDARI: It's just a consequence you only have so much space in the car, you are trying to maximize seating and provide space for wheelchair to access the bathroom and access a parking location. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Thank you. O kay. A nymore comments? >> DENNIS CAN NON: This is Dennis. J ust the statutory requirement is that if you have a restroom for the public you have to have an accessible restroom. A nd so, the issue with the

-- that we were discussing the other day is there is

-- in that fixed

- consist train prop osed for Texas is there is no public restroom in every other car. T here was only a public restroom in alternate cars. A nd the question then is: B ut each of the cars has to be accessible so, each has to have wheelchair space and transfer space. S o, the question was: D o you have to put another rested room in that other car because the way the regulation is currently written, for Amtrak, says: T he wheelchair spaces must be adjacent to the restroom. W hereas in commuter rail it says they have to be in clo se proximity to the restroom. A nd the question then was: Does that mean you have to put another restroom where that other wheelchair space so you have to have in the cars that normally wouldn't have a restroom you now have to have accessible restroom. A nd the whole point of the discussion the other day wasis it permissible to have the restroom in the other car as long as

there is a pathway to get to it. T hat only really worked

-- that only works in a fix

- consist train or nonfixed

- consist train

-- you d on't want people in wheelchairs going between those cars to get to the restroom. S o, that was the

-- that was the concept of having the restroom that serves the space in one car be in the other car provided you have a fixed

- consist that allows you to make that transition from one car to the other easy. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That was some of the conversation we were having while off line was that the married pair concept two cars instead of an entire fixed train set. >> DENNIS CANNON: Two fixed

-- and maybe t he definition then is the not talk about

-- we can worry about that. D efine something other than fixed

- consist meaning the entire consist is not fixed but that the two cars are fixed. We have to think about that. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. Well the

-- t he nice thing about that is it gives you or could give you operationally the opportunity to have

-- to do both. A nd maximize your seat capacity and have full accessibility with restrooms and all at the same time. I t could be a good thing. A nd then you a lways know your trains are either equal number or odd because they have a food car. O kay. >> FRANK MALDARI: Just a quick comment I think you mentioned it yesterday Blair. B ecause the cars are permanently coupled together doesn't mean there won't be movem ent laterally reducingdoor opening that's more of a factor of the truck spacing and track

conditions. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: And the way

-- and the way >> FRANK MALDARI: Permanently coupled >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: And how they are handled as well for sure. Ken? >> Ken Shiotani: B ut you know if you are doing a mix of matched pair whatever the pair is, you could have wider doors in those entrances than you would have on the other end so you know you could mitigate that sort of to Frank's point. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER : That would be the whole reason for doing the married pair is that you could get that kind of geometry working.
>> The wider opening so if there were cars with the fixed trucks you have more space to work with. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: If you went to the other ends of the cars coupled to other cars you would have that same sheering condition always. >> Just on this a neater way to specify this is to maybe say, in trains where the through passageway maintains a minimum diameter in all situations, you shall be ab le to do XY and Z. T he fact where there is a married pair and what kind of train it is irrelevant really there articulated whatever. S o that's an engineering solution. Let's do a performance requirement thatsays, you can have a car without

-- you can h ave cars without

restrooms, period, as long as the through gang way remains in any situation it's up to the systems engineer to look at the car configuration and all of the other factors that determine that. Because you are just I think it's simpler I am thinking to some of the not necessarily articulated but there is a push for open gang way trains in Europe they are not articulated but they have

-- the gang way is almost the full width of the train and it's the transition from one car to the other is com pletely level access it's not even a single lip. I am thinking of the Bombardier electro star specifically located on the east London line. Very, very neat solution. A ll right? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: A little commercial for Andre there. (LAUGHTER) >> B LAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. Yes Bob? >> Bob Reuter: O kay. You don't have to go quite this far as Europe Toronto is taking delivery of Bombardier cars with the full width gang ways about six cars I believe. A nd they are really amazing when you get in there an d see them. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay Frank. >> FRANK MALDARI: One comment I made on the FRA track cars, FRA compliant cars even at the B end you have collision and corner post to deal with it's not that there is not. You still have to worry about making the space available. I t's not always that you can do.But if it can be done it's nothing prohibits you from doing it that's

the wording Dennis had in his

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: It's a creative way of solving a fairly complex problem. T here have been cars in the U.S. that were full width they preceded the FRA rules that they have done. S outhern Pacific diners that were full width I don't know what they would do if you put them in the press today and squeezed them. (LAUGHTER) >> LINDA MA RTIN: This is Linda I would like to comment. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Linda? >> LINDA MARTIN: Yes, I just

-- I am hearing like feedback on my phone, are you guys okay? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes, we can hear you fine Linda. >> LINDA MARTIN: I just wanted to clarif y that restrooms are required in passenger coaches used in inner

- city. T he rule regarding whether if they are provided for the public they should be accessible applies only to commuter rail. S o that's been the challenge with accommodating car designs whi ch have bathrooms in every other car. I t's actually in the statute that the

-- a passenger I am looking at it, single level passenger coaches shall be required to and one of the items is have a restroom usable by individual uses wheelchair. I t's actually in the statute that the question is can the term passenger coach be, you know, be massaged in some way to allow it to be in every other car. B utthat's the challenge. I am not saying not

-- that it's not

-- not

something that we should try for I am just saying that's the challenge with inner

- city rail. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. B ut if I build that unit and give it one car number in my world it's a car. >> LINDA MARTIN: There you go. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Now they are inseparable if they ta ke it apart I can't identify it I don't know what it is. T hank you Linda. That is something we often

-- we often miss is there is a lot of preexisting rules that are on the railroad that have nothing to do with accessibility but they are done to ensure m inimum quality of travel back when Amtrak was first created, there was a lot of activity around that even to requiring food service during certain hours which I think some of that is changed. I t was driven by the fact railroads in an effort to drive passe ngers away so they could justify getting rid of money losing trains to the ICC they just kept lowering the standards and driving folks away. T hat's where you got the term "roach coach" from on some railroads. O ther railroads never did that there were som e that did.
>> (inaudible) (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Technically service does sometimescrawl.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Hmm. (LAUGHTER) >> LINDA MARTIN: This is Linda I have one more comment about that. I mean it's more than being in the regulation it's in the statute. T he regulation of course you know is something that we can easily

-- not easily, nothing is easy about it in this process. But that can, you know, we have some control over the statute of course is congre ss's that would be more challenging. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Linda, if you get the opportunity could you forward me the citation for that statute, I knew it existed. I thought that it existed but I haven't had the chance to research if. >> LINDA MARTIN: Sure. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. I f we could go to the next slide. He abandoned his post I think is the correct term. (LAUGHTER) >> MARILYN GOLDEN: While this is mapping

-- happening this is Marilyn Amtrak is the undeserving beneficiary of that problematic history they didn't do it themselves so

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Thank you Marilyn. I appreciate that. (LAUGHTER) >> MARILYN GOLDEN: It's the facts historical facts. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Amtrak was created to either prosper and improve inner

- city rail p assenger process or calmly usher it out ofexistence depending who you are talking to.

>> MARILYN GOLDEN: We are helping pull you back in the other direction. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We are always being pulled back from the brink, thank you. (LAUGHTER) Okay. T his is a generic five

- unit light rail vehicle. A nd if it looks familiar to some people it's

-- there is a reason. B ut anyway, there was an effort and we are continuing that in my office to go th rough and try to generate based on information that was provided previously to me, a floor plans generate generic versions for the various modes so we can

-- in that we are leaving what the accessible space is today and we will apply overlay what we are ta lking about here in the committee. S o, what I have done here is, I think that that was a flip up seat that single seat there. B ecause it did look like it was a 30 by 48

- inch footprint as it existed without flipping that up. B ut I applied the new

-- the 32 by 59 service animal space right over that existing condition. S o, I

-- it looked like it all works still in the same space that first double seat may be not

-- may not be of use anymore yes Uwe? >> Uwe Rutenberg: People mentioned before this is Uwe. I think Dennis also mentioned the lasted time very often in other LRTs a passenger in the wheelchair rides side ways. N ot necessarily in the direction of travel. S o, if you put some person inside ways you might actually require less space. You know, you

are showing here on the lower part the big space because you put it this way. B ut if you oriented it side ways you might useless, I don't know. B ut it seems that a lot of people actually are traveling side ways and feel safer this way. >> BLAIR SLAUGH TER: I will make a quick comment brings up a very interesting question. T he

-- when we talk about the foot print the 32 by 59 or 30 by 48 or all of the things in between and beyond that, the 30 by 48 was established and I think what we have seen happen, a nd somewhere correct me if I am wrong, is that that's what you got. A nd that was it. A nd that could be from seat to seat or seat to wall. A nd that didn't mean that you could really get into that space. So, my understanding on where we are trying to be n ow is rather than saying, and sort of softly say, and space to maneuver by establishing the larger footprint we are guaranteeing the maneuvering space to get into that situation. S o, I don't know if you are doing a transverse

-- if you are parking in a transverse manner what that does if you start projecting that across the car you are now into the aisleway I don't know how

-- how you want to deal with that. B ob? >> Bob Reuter: I f I am not mistaken, some parts of the code prohibit seating like that, you have to be facing forward or aft. >> DENNIS CANNON: Buses>> I thought it was rail.

>> DENNIS CANNON: In fact, in rail because there is no actual requirement for securement, which means there is no specified position facing forward rearward anywhere else, in the rail vehicle especially in the rapid rail and so forth, all that is required is that there be clear floor space somewhere in the vehicle. I n most cases, or lots of cases when you ride Metro, people simply pull in the doorway and stop. A nd that's p erfectly okay as far as rules is concerned as long as there is actual clear floor space there is no requirement to create a bay for the chair to be in. Technically any of

-- as long as that space is there, any of those chairs could be in the

-- you know i n any of those open spaces not necessarily confined to that particular bay. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay any thoughts for clarification Ed? >> EDWARD HOFF: I agree with what Dennis is saying I caution if there is nothing in there currently I would caution us t o put something in there 30 by 48 space should be provided with 48 being parallel to the length of the vehicle only because mobility devices despite the fact the stresses on the reason why there is no securements on the rail vehicles the same acceleration deceleration doesn't happen on rail vehicles as it does to rubber tire vehicles but nonetheless, if you have mobility device especially manual wheelchair, there is stresses that are put on the axles and the bearings such as when the vehicle is stopping and starting it's notusual for that mobility device. S o I would say we want to make

sure that we provide 30 by 48 as you have with the 48 or whatever the longer dimension is I'm sorry 32 by 59, lateral to the vehicle length. T hat would guarantee us yeah yo u can come in sit side ways do whatever you want at least you have the option to face the direction of travel or the opposite way. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: And Ed raises a good point because it's one new light rail entity and I won't name the car manufacturer, who designed around a transverse arrangement. A nd there was nothing per se that FTA could hang their hat on. A nd so, you now have a light rail since the wind is blowing (inaudible) but really every car is set up for transverse seating. A nd it just makes for awkward issue, because you can't easily fit.
>> This is Robert Carlson. W ith respect to longitudinal seating on the rail cars, I would caution if you are going

-- if you are going to do it that way you make it possible to s it in both directions because we do operate trains in both directions you wouldn't want to force a person to sit facing backwards because of the issues of what they refer to as lethal whiplash in a collision. You want to be forward and thrown out on the floor rather than the other way. S o, the side ways position in many cases in rail operation I feel is my personal opinion is that it's much safer if you are up against a seat siding side ways you are not going to go further than the seat. B utI always rid e when I am riding on the train think about how far am I

going to go down the aisle even with my wheelchair sitting here secured.
>> Like an engineer. >> Robert Carlson: Well, yeah, it was a joke at this speed I would go six rows or five rows >> Sounds li ke an SAT question. >> it comes down do the fact if you start requiring things talking about the securement or the requirement of longitudinal seating you have to accommodate all of the combinations. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. A nymore thoughts on that.
>> (inaudible) >> CHRISTOPHER HART: One thing that you all my want to think about is also doing diagram of a 100% full car and showing the access route from all doors. Irealize folks are predominantly more familiar with 60 and 70% low floor vehicles, but 10 0% low floor is actually going to the defacto standard overseas, and for new light rail, where you are not already at the (inaudible) right

- of

-way or in a streetcar situation the 100% full car may be a better option. >> EDWARD HOFF: I have a comment. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes? >> EDWARD HOFF: That question, I think is best posed to the designers. B ecause the only reason that I am aware of that we don't have 100% low floor is for engineering reasons. F or the sizeof the trucks, on the vehicles, and to achieve relatively low floor

boarding, most

-- owl light rail vehicles are approximately 12 inches above rail I think it's about 13 and change actually. To do that, you do have smaller trucks in the lower floor area but then you
-- we require the larger wheel s izes near the ends of the vehicles as I understand it. Iam not a car designer, but I think it's not

-- it's only a matter of that engineering

-- that causes that to be light that. I s there a solution that provides 100% low floor perhaps? B ut it's reall y -- it's really against the design. I don't think anybody said hey let's put a couple of steps up in here for vanity purposes or anything else. S o, I tell you the truth when I ride light rail I sit in the back only because no matter what vehicle I
am on I try to get out of the flow because I am usually going from one end to the other anyhow. Igo to the extreme of the car that's the reason I ride up there. I f I happen to be riding a short distance one place to the other I ride in the middle of the of t he vehicle because I am close to the door and I get in and out. D epends on the size of the car, it depends is it a percentage? C ould we squeeze out a little bit more low floor space, perhaps. I think the question really comes down

-- it's really an engi neering question more than a preference by the railroad or anybody else. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: If I might clarify. D epending on the light rail system, you are dealing with (inaudible) older cars. I t becomes difficult to meet your crashworthiness clearance , I wouldsay, taking a 1980's LRV and crashing it into 100% low floor car and

so that's why it's difficult in older systems in am fleets to go that route or if you are on shared freight right

- of

-way you have FRA crash worthiness issues playing. W here you have got a brand new system, like a D C Street car, you have more flexibility in terms of, you are not going to crash into a 1970's Boeing LRV that weighs twice what a new Bombardier right rail. T hat's my understanding, Jon and Andre could clarify that. But that's been my understanding why some systems just don't have the option. C ertainly in Boston, we looked at for the next procurement we could not do it because of crash issues. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. B ob? >> Bob Reuter: O kay I am killing those t hings. T he low floor 100% low floor is almost defacto standards nowadays almost every new system is going to 100% low floor. Baltimore red line, Montgomery County purple line they are built around 100% low floor. B ombardier and I hate to keep giving kud os to one company but they are not delivered 100% low floor 5 section cars to Toronto again as streetcars so farther not having any problems with them to speak of. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. Well, we are at 12:05 in the afternoon. H ow do we want to handle breaking for lunch. Because what I see us doing is jumping into the matrix and hitting some of the high spots on the list that I was handed for handrailsand surfaces. S o,

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: This is actually a good diagram

-- handrails and stanchions and using the photos on the wall. S o, if folks want to think about that during lunch. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: That would help Blair. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: And look at the matrix very closely during lunch you could use it as a place mat if you like. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Read through the ketchup. >> BILLY ALTOM: We have options depending on the material to cover Blair we could go another half hour before CART person needs to take a break. O r we could take a break now and c ome back. I t depends a lot on I think how much ground we need to
cover. K nowing this group that could be 5 minutes to 5 hours. So

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yeah. Well, I think it's

-- it's I would let the group tell me honestly how far you want to go today do we wanted to go to 3 o'clock wind up earlier? I am very flexible. There is plenty of work to be done. A nd a lot to be discussed I want to make

-- there are issues in the matrix that I want to

-- I would like to if we can close out the numbers on th e matrix itself, even if we don't get through the notes, and if we can concentrated on the things that have changed since the last time that we spoke,that would be really great. A nd those items are listed in red. S o,

my goal would be get folks free to g o as early as they can it's Friday afternoon. Barack Obama my proposal then >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I will let the committee tell me. >> BILLY ALTOM: I propose go next 30 minutes see we are at we have to take a break let's do another half hour see where we ge t. Marilyn do you have a quick comment on that. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I would just

-- I would request to get

-- you are going to rapid rail next? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Um, not particularly, no. T his is the end

-- this is my last slide. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Well , I would hope that we can spend time discussing rapid rail sooner than

-- sooner
-- not the very end of the day if possible. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. Iam open to that Marilyn is it

-- >> (inaudible) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Everything is there when we hit rapid rail is the top of the list okay. >> BILLY ALTOM: Again here is the plan, we will continue for another 30 minutes. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. >> BILLY ALTOM: See where we are at then take a break and go from them. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes.>> BILLY ALTOM : Perfect.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: There it is the matrix unplugged. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Very worrisome movie the matrix. O kay. So, the items that are listed in red are changed on the matrix. And

-- I'm sorry you can't

-- yeah red the colors don't come out very well. B ut one key issue from the last discussion and if every remembers that lasted call I was driving around rural North Carolina trying to find a signal for my cell phone I went to the highest hill in the county and still this was ne ar Rolley still had no signal. T here was a question around the

-- -- I had in my notes there was discussion around a 34 by 62

- inch space, and I honestly do not recall the details of that discussion. We have been talking about 32 by 59 for a while. I gue ss the big

-- >> Hello? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Where do we >> Hello, yes. H ello? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Hello. >> Hello? >> CHRISTOPHER HART: That's Melissa. >> (inaudible). >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. S o, again if there was some discussion around 34 by 62. A s the

-- the accessible space. A nd then I also had a note that someone had sent a note we had haddiscussions around 33 by 56 which accommodates I believe

according to Ed Steinfeld's information 95% of mobility devices including scooters I wou ld really like for us to nail down what we are going to recommend for that space. I think we have been talking about it since the very beginning. T hat is note 3. A nd I think in that note, the way it was originally written was 32 by 59 is required when t he space is confined on three sides to ensure adequate maneuvering space. I think what I heard this morning is that that clear floor space should be provided, that's the number that we want to go to, regardless of how it's bounded. B ut is that the number

. S o we have

-- the way I see it there are three numbers out there. 3 2 by 59, 34 by 62, which I am not real sure where that came from and the last

-- in the last discussion and 33 by 56. O bviously in some cases more is better. B ut from the

-- from the provider side of the house, it just creates more challenges for

-- for you know getting everything in the car that we need to get in there. Yes Bob.
>> Bob Reuter: Wasn't this morning 32 by 58 pretty much what everybody decided was going to be the space in maybe we should just keep it uniform >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: You said 58

-- >> Bob: 5 9 I know there was a singular number used all morning I think we should stay with singular number. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: 32 by 54?>> FRANK MALDARI: I thought 59 was maneuve ring space it was

listed exactly that way as maneuvering space >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Do we want to say 32 by 59 when pound bounded on three sides and 32 by 54 is the always minimum clear floor space regardless? I see heads nodding this is beautiful. Okay. >> DENNIS CANNON: That's what we decided the plat form on the lift. Yeah the 32 by 54 was what we decided for the platform on a lift, so that's like the space for a chair and then the 59 was really for maneuvering clearance. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. G oo d. T hat's

-- everyone okay with that? >> Yes. >> LINDA MARTIN: This is Linda. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Linda, go ahead. >> LINDA MARTIN: I just wanted to make a comment not really to derail anything so to speak. T here has been some question recently about the increasing the platform size for lifts to 54 in the sense of

-- this isn't really for this group I pose but just something to flag

-- in the sense of when you extend the platform for the lift, you extend the amount of platform that you need to lower th at lift on and to give turning space off of that lift. A nd so I heard at some point some discussion around perhaps not having the two

- inch lip go all the way to the end of certain bridge plates. Ijust want today throw out there the idea that if you are going to

extend the length of the platform, of a lift, that you make

-- might want to consider ways to deal with platforms which may not be wide enough to deal with the additional

-- the additional 6 inches of platform size. You have already got old stati ons with the obstructions with other

-- other reasons that there is already a challenge getting foe being

-- getting folks off the end of a platform on to a platform and then to be able to make a turn without driving the wheelchair off the other side of th e platform or into a post or whatever else might exist. Astairwell or

-- just a thought. >> Hi this is Gary Talbot can I chime in on that >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Go ahead Gary.
>> I would say this Linda I don't disagree with you at all but I would say the va st majority of where we board and alight is on a crossing

-- is on a crossing. I

-- we board on more crossings when we even have a side platform. M ost of the side platforms
are
-- I am not aware of a whole bunch of side platforms where we wouldn't be abl e to accommodate the additional 6 inch. T here are locations where I guarantee you that probably would be the case it would be difficult to do. B ut I do think in most cases, because we board and alight so much in crossings, and that type of thing, that I don't think it would be that much of an impact. I don't have, you know, 100% data on 520 stations in the system, but just from myexperience, we have more issues with using a center platform that's

only three foot wide to board and alight that where nothi ng can fit on it. Yet there is a crossing there for the lift we would use the crossing. A nd you know for this type of thing for a car

- borne lift I would imagine we would do the same. >> DENNIS CANNON: This is Dennis. C an I add in, the

-- we are not goin g to fix the problem with existing stations. Iknow there are places where even with this short bridgeplate there is a, a support pillar right inside just on the platform or an escalator or stairwell that you don't have enough space to actually get off th e
-- you know, and make a turn to get through there. Iknow Dick Cogswell was trying to talk about making a requirement that there be a minimum of 6 feet, I think, from the edge of the platform to any obstruction but that would

-- >> LINDA MARTIN: That is in the new boarding rule did you

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: We can't deal with any of that it may mean that you are going to

-- you are going to have to re

- spot the train if you run into that kind of a situation or if there is enough room in the aisle allow the person to go to a different car through the car or something. S o, I don't think that we can do that. T he only alternative would be to make the platform smaller and if we do that then we are running into problems with the

-- with accommodating chairs. S o I think that's a problem that's going to exist for a very long time until there is a lot of reconstruction muchstations.

-- reconstruction of stations. S ame with buses too there

are places where you can't deploy a lift or ramp that is just something th at you have to live with. >> LINDA MARTIN: This is Linda again. W hat about the idea

-- is the Ricon are the Ricon folks in the room? T hey aren't there yesterday. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: They are not here today. >> LINDA MARTIN: Okay. I was curious whether lifts can be designed so that there is a

-- so that the lift is either flipped out on the very ends in the back or the sides or there is some way to accommodate not having to come back

-- back or go forward straight off of a lift until your back wheels cl ear the lip and are able to make a turn. >> This is Gary if I could chime in on that. Iam not aware of any side guards that are automated that would come down as a result of like grounding the flapper deploy on the bottom side of the lift. I mean, we actually, you know, the back flapper was never there 20, 25 years ago probably even a little bit less than that actually. B ut somebody fell off the lift and that's when the SEC committee changed that and required there to be an integrated flapper at the end

. S o the side

-- you would have to actuate it so the sides could flip down but you may

-- you know the got the mechanism up against the edge of it I don't know how you do that even on a single arm on one side you are going to have the lip armmechanism th at you probably couldn't do that.

>> LINDA MARTIN: It might be something that you want to flag because I know when we have the issue with Talgo cars out in the northwest, they redesigned the lift so that it did have some kind of flip down sides so that the profile was smaller when it was undeployed to open up the vestibule space. S o, I think, you know, given the whole man on the moon thing. People can do what they

-- >> Gary: Yeah that's unoccupied position you can do anything then. >> LINDA MARTIN: Right.
>> Gary.. I am talking about flat in use the Talgo one the problem that you are describing is exactly the problem I had when I was on the car out in the northwest one station north of Portland. And that was because the crew didn't stop the car in the proper location because they are supposed to use the at grade crossings which are kind of like for folks that don't it's kind of like a sidewalk cut across the tracks it's at the level of the top of the tracks. A nd they didn't hit that they stopped ju st along the way on the platform and it's on a curve there. A nd so when I went to get off the car, and I was on the platform when the platform came down I couldn't get off because of the side edge guard I had to get back on the train on that car you can roll through I went to another car lined up with the crossing I got off on that one. I t's a real issue. I don'tknow how you would like automated, you know flip them down

when the platform is being used because to me anyway I would never want a normal fun ction to be one where if it happened it was occupied somebody could fall off you know what I mean? T hat would be

-- but again, I think the mechanism is so close there when it's in use. W hen it's not in use, you are right. You could do anything then it's little cam levers what you

-- whatever you need to do you do. W hen it's in use you want the sides to stay vertical in fixed whenever it's in use and you use the front flapper to gain access to the vehicle and then when you slide down it goes vertical and the one in the back behind you is always vertical. Even when the front one is deployed you want the back one vertical so in the event somebody hits the wrong joy stick direction or takes off their brake it's on a slight decline they roll up against that back edge that's vertical. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: So, Gary, this is Chris. Ithink you snow, just

-- you know just thinking back in old lift history. I think it was the old (inaudible) II lift that was a single pole lift had a flip down side edge but, agai n, that was not a cassette lift and this is, I would say 15 years ago. B ecause people have full

- size Econoline vans you get into tight spots where you couldn't necessarily get off that lift. That was the response. I don't even know if it's available sti ll. >> Gary: Idon't think so I don't think those were tied into thetransmission of the vehicle we required that

--

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: No, just to be clear, it was on personal vehicles. O n the old Ford Econolines. >> DENNIS CANNON: Could we not redesi gn lifts. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I was going to toss this over the wall to Dennis since it's boarding on alighting. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. B ut we have got it we captured it we know we have to talk about it more. O kay. S o, have we resolved something. Let's go to the matrix and we can start at number 1 Marilyn said she had a rapid rail issue something she wanted to discuss. Let's go to the top of the matrix item 1 rapid rail subways. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay. O ne of our Marilyn Golden from DREDF one of our subcommittee meetings I am trying to find the right column. I didn't use a place mat thing. But we talked about we had a discussion about

-- to have a pull for more hand holds or not to have a pull. To provide better wheelchair access, you know, with a strong footnote that these access needs are not necessarily in conflict and we can find a way to achieve both. D on't

-- no newspaper should start saying we access needs and conflict they love to say that. I t's not true. Anyway, but there has been controversy about it. B ut you know at the rail station the gentleman from WMATA told us at thesubcommittee meeting they got rid of the poles at the end of the

car to provide better wheelchair access circulation and his dwell time was reduced Me tros Washington Metro's dwell time was reduced because people

-- I think my memory is because people didn't congregate near the doors. We want to of course make sure there is adequate stanchions poles handholds other places in the car so that everybody di sabled or not but very much including people with disabilities who stand, who may be unsteady on their feet for whatever reason have adequate handholds in the car Anyway, WMATA testified it was improvement for them to get rid of the poles. A nd I remember a discussion that the subcommittee had decided

-- Dennis, you can refresh my memory, but you read the provision that's in the current standard that discouraged roles near the doors but we didn't

-- or something in the area of the doors or something to that effect but we didn't know in the area meant how far did that extend. U nder WMATA's contribution to the discussion, the subcommittee had decided to recommend that if you have like

-- the door width, a

-- a
-- if you take the door width the full door widt h measure for the rapid rail car that you would require a clear space all the way across from the doors on one side of the car to the other. A nd not have that pole. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I don't know if you have a column for that
> > BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I tell you what if you look at note 5B. A nd5B says vehicles that do not

-- this is around the whole concept of

vestibules or the lack of vestibules we are designing space. O r otherwise physically defined separation between entrance an d passenger occupied areas and require 90 degree or similar turn to reach the accessible seating space must have a clear space across the vehicle free from panels or stanchions equal to or greater than the opening width of the side doors there was suggeste d change that's in red, to set the stanchion minimum at 44 inches like it's a vestibule, to provide safe refuge for ambulatory passengers less stable or short of stature to find themselves in the space with no chance to move further in the vehicle. T his was suggested to avoid a vast no man's land when cars have large side door openings. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Right. A re A and C about poles or not. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. A

-- well, A is more about vehicles that have a defined vestibule. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: O kay. T hat's

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That

-- >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Not like rapid rail that I am familiar with. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That could even be inner

- city it's all in thinking we get specific to the mode where it's appropriate, but at the end of the day it's about creating the clear space

-- clear pathways unencumbered pathways and also living with how that mode works. O bviously in rapid rail you are filling up across the full width and length of the vehicle. T here is no vestibule that isonly used whe n you are boarding and alighting. S o, C we said

stanchions provided adjacent to doors to a boarding and alighting passengers whether it wheelchair or ambulatory maybe be 32 inch minimum or door width whichever is later. Stanchions across the width of the car between the side doors must be at least the width of the door apart or 44 inches which is greater. A nd there was suggested change. To change that to the distance between stanchions adjacent to doors, may be no less than 32 inches or 6 inches less th an the clear opening of the door

-- I'm sorry less than the clear door opening apart which is

-- whichever is greater. T he reasoning there if you have a big, wide door you want a stanchion that you can grab coming in. A nd if you tie the stanchion width to
-- to the being clear of the door, you can't get it when you come into the car. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: To help you enter. Isee. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: No case would it be less than 32 if it's a small door condition. A nd that would apply to even inner

- city. If you think

-- right now, for example, the Acela has a vertical it's not a stanchion a vertical handhold to runs to the floor and runs very high it's very different from what you would find years ago on the train that can't stick in the 32 inch clear door opening. T hat was >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Blair it might be worthwhile just to point people to where Bob Reuter is and that would be a good visual cue of

-->> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes.

>> MARILYN GOLDEN: Sometimes the doors aren't by that end of the car wal l. B ut technical point, I don't know if we can get these notes up on the screens or not. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yeah they are on the slides right? >> MARILYN GOLDEN: That would be helpful. I

-- and I am curious Dennis' thought and everybody's thought. T he dis

-- I see what your saying about the 32 inches. I t is a conflict with the current standard to have a stanchion right near the door or maybe it isn't depending how the current

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think the idea was to define

-- if the definition mai ntains the absolute minimum no matter how the car is designed at 32 inches clear, the idea was that it would

-- that we wouldn't prohibit stanchions being where they are readily accessible as long as they didn't encumber that 32

- inch clear path. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Right. W hich they will

-- they will encumber somebody's path unless they are right near a wall or edge of the door the edge of the door is okay. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yeah that's why it says stanchion provided adjacent to doors to aid boarding. T h e ones that you get further in you wouldn't create. Let's say that you had a 32

- inch clear condition that's bounded by the stanchions at the door opening because that's the way that vehicle is designed. A s you progressed across the car, that

-- that cond ition couldn't occur again. Youcouldn't have 32 inches between stanchions again they have to go

out wider to a minimum of 44 inches. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I do also want to make the point that the issue of having adequate places to grab to steady yourself for people who have ambulatory disabilities is very serious

-- ambulatory disabilities we didn't want to provide too few. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I am not sure that I know or anybody yet maybe knows enough to know what that balance poi nt is. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: But I am glad that the language is here. And just wanted to make sure it

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We could take the language you know off line we can take the language and try to see what happens when you apply that. A nd the other thing that I noticed when Gary was doing his ramp studies at Union Station was that when you are boarding if the condition isn't ideal, and you are in a wheelchair if it's a manual chair you may reach inside and grab the vehicle being able to grab, you know a handle that's intended for you to grab instead of part of the car I would think would be a benefit as well. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: On rapid

-- I don't know if that's as important on rapid rail where you have level boarding but m aybe it is. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Terry?>> TERRY PACHECO: Thank you. I personally am in favor of

leaving the not having the stanchion in the

-- that area between the doors. B ecause
-- and I think if we recall the gentleman that came from WMATA that did al l of the slides of the new cars that they are using, had the wind stream next to the doorway. S o that it would protect both the

-- whether it was a seat or wheelchair space. A nd if those wind screens have a vertical bar to hold on to, then that eliminate s the need for a stanchion in the middle of the doorway in the middle of that pathway which makes it much, much easier for anyone who has any kind of a mobility disability to be getting in and out especially if they have a service animal and to be getting off and on the vehicles as quickly as possible particularly at rush hours. When people get on the train, they hold on to that run right

-- the first thing inside the door and you can have 15 of them down the middle of the car they aren't going near them i f there is one at the door it does nothing cause back up. I t's especially

-- I wouldn't want to guess how many times I have seen people, particularly with a mobility disability, miss being able to get off at their station because of that crowd at that doo rway we would be creating a much better safety issue if we I believe if we promoted vertical handholds
on
-- even attached to those wind screens as opposed to a stanchion you thank you. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: With that we are at we are beyond 12:30 for 12:38>> Could I ask for schematic we are talking the narrative it's hard

for people to visualize this I looked at it a little bit I couldn't have done it without seeing a graphic I think it would be helpful to try to figure this out. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That is something we can do outside of here and talk about it again. I t may be that it's something as simple as the stanchion goes to the floor but it's offset so it takes care of those issues. B ut

-- >> ANDRE GAGNE: Could I make a comment on the last comment t his is Andre Gagne the idea of having a stanchion on the wind

-- is a good idea we have used this configuration before. B ut if it is good if you have a narrow door side door if you have a very wide door 54

- inch wide door you only have stanchions on wind s creens you get a dead zone where nobody can hold itself on to you need stanchion to compensate for that. T here is not a single configuration to take into account there are many different types of
cars. > > CHR ISTOPHER HART: A nd at some point you all will need to also wrestle with the horizontal grab bars or grab rails that are built? To the ceilings and above seats and how you want to handle that. Gary and I have pretty detailed specs up in Boston with a lot of input from the community and we have applied that to the current cars that are being bought right now. But happy to share that with folks that want to view it but,generally, there is no one size fits all solution.

>> TERRY PACHECO: I think that's true the one addition in all due respect for what you just

-- for your comment, as well as keep in mind that while you have a 54 inch door at no time is anybody less than

-- more than 27 inches from a vertical hold. >> if it's right there. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: We should go

-- I don't know that

-- I don't know exactly how to decide when we have adequate places to hold on. I mean I would love to get rid of poles. We certainly don't want poles in the middle we need to have enough handholds somewhere for people for people with disabilities as well as everybody else. A nd I wish that the horizontal poles higher up worked for everybody but there is a number of people who cannot reach them. S o, we have to figure this out. B ut I think we can at least

-- one thing that seems fair leisure is that there is a lot of interest in this advisory committee to not have poles in the center of those car areas toward the end of the subway of these rapid rail
cars. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think the drive has got to be that the ideas t hat you can get on to the vehicle and get to the accessible space and yet not have the number of stanchions reduced to the point that you create easily create unsafe conditions. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: That's right. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yet you also have to have enoughhandholds and things to get safely on to the vehicle. A nd so with

that I think we should take the break we are past our

-- we are eating into lunch. >> BILLY ALTOM: What is the pleasure of the group and of the staff here do we want to take 30

- minu te come back continue the discussion? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Works for me. 3 0 is perfect. Let's do 30 try to get back here as quick as we can if folks want to get out early that means you have to come back here early. B ut we are going to dismiss we will b reak for 30 minutes and come back (Lunch recess taken.) (RVAAC meeting will resume in 5 minutes.)
>> BILLY ALTOM: All right. I hope you enjoyed your lunch we will resume in 5 minutes. S o, be ready to rock and roll. (RVAAC meeting will resume shortly .)

>> BILLY ALTOM: Okay. F olks, let's resume our places. Ihope everyone had the opportunity to go grab something and go outside. What a beautiful fall afternoon it is. M y goodness. T hat should give us incentive to wrap this up it's beautiful out th ere. College football is in the air that's great out there. (LAUGHTER) >> But now that we are back I would like to turn the meetingback over to Blair. B efore we do that Blair I have a quick

announcement to remind our committee chairs that Terry Maril yn and Dennis Blair and myself will meet as a group afternoon everyone is adjourned we want to have a quick meeting with staff. So, back to you Blair, thank you. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think I am in trouble here wait until I get back to Amtrak. >> BILLY ALTOM: The pressure is on you. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: All right. Let's

-- if we can, we left off with the conversation about the stanchions, and rapid rail vehicles. And we did have some unofficial conversation out on the street. And one of the things that c omes out of the discussion is, I was thinking purely if I extruded the dimension of the door within the handrails, across the car I would just go out of the other side. B ut I guess if the

-- if the idea is that we keep

-- in referencing the 44

- inch vestib ule type space or established space for maneuvering, if we can maintain that path, so that we know that we can make those turns into the accessible areas you wouldn't necessarily mean that you wouldn't have a stanchion in that space across the car but tech nically within the

-- if you extruded across the car it would be within the space between the handrails, but if you scribe the path you would scribe a 44

- inch path around a stanchion and out the other side. B ut that kind of thinking could address both con cerns, Marilyn?>> MARILYN GOLDEN: Yeah. M arilyn Golden DREDF I mean the

problem is that the cars are crowded and so if the car was empty, you know, you would have the standard clearances would work. You know, rush hour cars

-- there was discussion also poles that hugged wall stanchions that hug the wall when you get on that are horizontal and go vertical. S o, we are still figuring out

-- I don't know the right way to word these requirements. U m, I am a bit concerned about seeing the clear space from on e end of the car to the other be minimized to any of the wheelchair clearances that have been suggested, only because of the car crowding making those not as relevant. I don't know that I have the answer yet though so maybe we should keep it just

-- you k now people will keep talking about it this isn't our last meeting, and I don't know that we need to take up more time now on this issue. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. Well I think that

-- I understand the concern and I think it's worth putting it on to a diag ram and see how that looks so we can get our heads add around it. I think the commentary made having stanchions near the doorway needs to be balanced with a very real need to board and alight safely, so

-- >> TERRY PACHECO: I said but

-- I said but the po tential of removing that stanchion is what makes the safety for people with disability mobility

-- with mobility disabilities, removing that stanchion is what makes it safer. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think the concern is if you have someonewho is stepping on

-- stepping across from either going from the

car to the platform or the platform to the car that having a handhold whether it's a stanchion and it's all the way to the floor or otherwise projects into the space, is a worthwhile thing. A nd >> TERRY PACHECO: That's what I am saying is worthwhile. What I am saying is not worthwhile is the stanchion in the middle

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: In the middle of the space >> TERRY PACHECO: No that's what I said we need to have the vertical ones on the wind screens.
> > BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. J ust >> TERRY PACHECO: For just that reason. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: What you say the middle of the space

-- >> TERRY PACHECO: I'm sorry. Ithought I had

-- I thought in my mind I had said it. I am talking the stanchion in the middl e you have a door here door there and a stanchion in the middle in between them that's the one I am saying is not safe

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Very the very point we wanted to make
sure we cover. T hat's the way I had written this was the 44 inches was the minimum once you get past the doors, it grows from a 32

- inch minimum it will be much larger it grows to a 44 for the pathway and my thinking was that that

-- that would go all the way across the car. B ut based on what I am hearing from the BART folks and Marilyn can speak to this or Andre is that you may need something that is in that space across the car but you can still keepthe 44

- inch maneuvering pathway, so it may not be a straight shot

across the vehicle but you still have a nice, wide pathway to ro tate and come into the body of the car. B ut we have to plot that out. I don't want to get wrapped around the axle and detail of it. >> DENNIS CANNON: Various configurations work for lots of different things. I f some of the Metro cars you will see wind
s creens are right inside the door that are solid below a certain number and then there is a tan shun on it. T here are other ones where there are no wind screens and there is a grab bar horizontal along with a space that's intended for wheelchair users and then at the door it makes a 90

- degree pivot and goes vertical. S o, that it's right immediately inside the door, you have a handrail that you can grab on to >> TERRY PACHECO: Exactly. >> DENNIS CANNON: But it doesn't interfere with anything there is n o wind screen either there is a lot of open space except what WMATA said last time the rep when they took a lot of things out and replaced them with other kinds of stanchions on the wind screens or on the wall that they actually had a better design because there was a lot more free flow, in addition to accessibility and yet there were plenty of things to grab on to which reach for people who were short and couldn't reach the over shed bar, for example. S o, there is lots of configurations I am not sure that we want to delve into trying to design the interior stanchion placementof cars, we need to set some requirements that are

basically

-- make sure they don't do dumb things like put vertical stanchions in the middle of the pathway, or have a trap latch on the door in a rail car that sticks out into that 40

- inch

-- when we say "clear," 44 inch clear, clear means clear. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. N ot clear but

-- but clear. >> DENNIS CANNON: We want to make sure people understand that that means anything not just oh, well that's just a little latch sticking out there who cares. W hy do you

-- it turns out that trap latch is right about the location of my control. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: You could not have designed it and gotten it in a worst place. (LAUGHTER) >> TERRY PACHECO: I am in complete agreement with you Dennis. T he one point that I will clarify was with all due respect to the gentleman that came here from WMATA that sent us all of the slides that was showing us the future cars the 7

-- what is it 700 0 series pointed out that every doorway will have a wind screen. S o, that

-- that is already

-- I understood from him that's already the way that those are being configured. >> Blair, Jon Holbrook. I just looking at photos online and you just Google you know, WMATA 7000 series photo and you see the
new cars. T hey went back to the wind screen. B ut I can remember during 6000 series development WMATA did a ton of studies andyou know passenger information and all of that, and wind screens

went totally away

. You know, then on the very next zero re,
-- next series they are all back. S o I don't

-- I agree with Dennis, we can't

-- we can't design for the authorities but we can certainly give the guidance. You know like 40

-- what was it 44 inches. >> 44.
>> 44 on 50 or 52

- inch doorway the stanchion will be 6 to 8 inches into the doorway from the end that doesn't have the wheelchair I guess so

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: My

-- here is my

-- my thought process was if we take vestibules at 44 inches and we have clear door openings at 32 as the minimums, not the ideals but the minimums, and you establish a pathway that is bounded by objects whether they are whole walls or panels or stanchions, as long as we don't encumber the pathway that's created by that maybe we are okay. That was to try to give some definition to it so we wouldn't get stanchions that are clearly, you know, in the way. A s you museum through. A nd how we need to massage that I think

-- I think we are possibly close but maybe we need to work on that some more. But I think the principle is there we want to make sure that
we
-- we provide a

-- a reasonable and clear pathway to get to the defined accessible spaces and yet don't discount the other safety needs of ambulatory or people using wheelchairs th at need astanchion or something to hand on to it gets worse when you get

into crush loading at the beginning and end of the day. O kay. I f
we can
-- I think we captured the need, I think we will have to work on the detail on that one. M arilyn you brough t up rapid transit was there anything else

-- that was the big thing there right? >> MARILYN GOLDEN: (Nods head up and down.) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: All right. O n the last call that was a question that was

-- that came up about it was around the PRT the pers onal rapid transit but also all of the other

-- the vehicle types that were maybe under defined, and Bob Reuter sent me a nice list of vehicles, and I added those in as part of the notes just so that they were captured. T hat is up for discussion, I don't know if it's something that we want to

-- to hash through today. B ut if you will notice that in item 3 light rail, which includes new straight cars there is also reference to notes 8 through 14 that talks about streetcars monorails, automated light rail t ransit, cable tramways, cog railways, mag lev, PRTs

-- I'm sorry PRTs are not in that list

-- they are item 15 excuse me. S o, I am not sure if everyone has looked at those I don't want to spend much time on them unless we need to move something from one p lace to the other. But that was our first stab yes, sir, Dennis? >> DENNIS CANNON: Yeah, I want to say that some of those things that we can talk about to some extent like we are say in the current reg we include high

- speed rail and mag lev. S ome of theother things may be trickier. I n the current regulation there is a

final subpart which is basically "other," and what it says is if there is a system that doesn't fit nicely into these convenient things that we have described, doesn't mean that you don't have to be accessible, what you have to do is you have to present an accessibility program or design or program whatever that will meet the needs. T hat that has to be presented to DOT in consultation with the board or approval. Basically the oddball thin gs there have been including some cable

- driven devices that have come up for discussion

-- it's not quite the same thing as equivalent facilitation. B ut essentially says there is a whole bunch of stuff that either we haven't explicitly dealt with like PRT or something that somebody is going to come up with in the future and what we want to say is just because it's not listed doesn't mean it doesn't have to be accessible. T hat you have to present an accessibility plan or design and that has to be presented to DOT and the board for agreement before you get away with it. S o, that's where you capture some of those oddities that probably there aren't very many of them. We can spend an awful lot of time trying to define every single little strange system and g et nowhere because then

-- and then somebody would come up with a new design that we wouldn't be able to handle. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I would like take away the "other" but I think from the

-- coming from the design end of the world, the more definition that you can have going into something, and maybeavoid having to even go down the equivalent facilitation path with

what may be in "other" today if we can add those by name here, it doesn't preclude us having other. S omething that doesn't exist

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: There are issues with things like PRT where the way in which it is written the definition of "fixed route" and "demand responsive" in the DOT reg says fissioned

-- gosh

-- fixed route is fixed route and fixed schedule. T he PRT said we don't have fi xed route so we have demand responsive. Ihave tried to disabuse of them. B ecause PRT is very small vehicles designed for maybe only two or three people at the most that we probably don't want to have the requirement that they have two spaces for wheelch airs in those but those things need to be fleshed out. Those are the ones that I am particularly aware of. A nd then we do need an "other" too to cover the oddball things that will crop up. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Bob? >> Bob Reuter: Yeah, the PRT of course is listed under here and it does have its own thing it says one location and if it's small

-- this actually came up do me because I got caught between a rock and hard place with a cog railway that will remain nameless two. O ne says we don't have to do not hing because we are no in there. T hey built brand new cars they are not accessible. T he other one says we want to be accessible but I am not going near FRA. A nd they just sort of

-- they wing it. A nd they are sort of accessible and they are sort of alm ost there. I think as many ofthem as we can define, should at least have a minimum standard

like saying be light rail they can always come in ask for equivalent facilitation. S o, I think we should at least name them as say, you are like light rail unles s you ask us otherwise. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That would be

-- that would be my thinking. J ust from the design side, if you

-- if you are designing you like to know what your parameters are. I f you know that you have got to handle it in the form of equival ent facilitation right out of the chute I think you run the risk of really over burdening the process. B ut there will always be the others the things that fall between

-- between the cracks of these things. A nd always the ability to come and ask for equi valent facilitation if someone gets creative and things of things we couldn't fathom today. S o, I guess the big question is: D o we leaf those things? D o we keep them in as reference or do we leave them as other for time to go on? >> DENNIS CANNON: My op inion is there are few of them we need to at least nail down some pieces to. I t doesn't hurt to mention them. T he problem is, what you usually say in a list is, shall include but not limited to. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> DENNIS CANNON: Lawyers will te ll you that that doesn't work, somewhere someone will say you didn't mention my system therefore it's not covered. S o, we have to be careful on relying on that to mean that everything is covered. S o but the extent that wehave some information about some of those, that we can tie down, I

think we should do that. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. B ob? >> Bob Reuter: T he other thing we listed PRT here specifically was to get around that try to go claim we are paratransit by saying PRT is and has to be like this ( indicating) you have them nailed down. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Yes. W hen there is actually a real PRT system. >> (inaudible) >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Global warming, right? H as already been here a long time. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. S o unless a nyone has any differing thoughts I will leave that in there. S o
-- >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Can I just, at the risk of having a stone thrown from the staff table, (inaudible) from Oregon asked me a very good question. T hat is what do we do about the aerial tramways IE in Portland, Oregon and some others that are being considered. Ithink in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. B ecause, yeah, it's not technically a railroad, it is technically on rails. A lbeit cable driven, where does it fall? A nd I just

-- I politel y said call FTA. (LAUGHTER) c but it does raise an interesting question. A s you guys think about either you may want to perhaps give us at theboard some guidance as to where things like that belong. I f they

belong here, or elsewhere, or we don't rea lly care about 10,000 feet using that aerial tramway to get to the hospital. >> Chris footnote 11 covers that. By the way, footnote 12 does not exist it should be on under light rail. I t got left out. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yeah, I have noted that on my she et. Thanks for reminding of that Bob. A nd, also, we have a note 10 which is automated light rail automated sky trains, et cetera. T hen we get into cable tramways as well. H opefully if we need to add another in there we can get it >> DENNIS CANNON: Part 37 says public transportation it has to be accessible period. A nd this came up with some aerial systems that were being developed for the Olympics in Utah I guess it was. They were claiming there was a

-- there's an exception in the DOT rule that except s recreational things. M eaning, you know, the things at amusement parks and whatever. T hey were trying to claim that this was a ski lift for recreational purposes. (LAUGHTER) >> DENNIS CANNON: Therefore not covered and I think it was pretty clear that FTA said no, no, no, no. I t's not

-- you are using this to transport general population people to different venues for the Olympics this is not a ski lift. T his is not a recreational device to take people to the top of the mountain so they can ski down

. And therefore it's covered. A nd it must be accessible.>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: If they come back down on the same thing

they went up on not a pair of skis that seems to take care of that problem. (LAUGHTER) >> Bob: T his brought up that recreational pa rt the monorail came in there. T he Las Vegas and Disneyland use exactly the same vehicle one is recreational the other is public transit. >> Arguably.
>> Bob: Yes. D isney has a reasonable argument I don't think Las Vegas does >> DENNIS CANNON: The Las Vegas monorail is very accessible. The gap between platform and inch

-- about a inch even though rapid rail system it's very level. A nd very nice. S o, I always point to that when people say we can't make, you know, reduce the gap. That there is a system that in fact does a great job of it. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Blair? M arilyn Golden from DREDF even if something is recreational DOT and DOJ got together back before the original regulations came out to make sure that each of them
were covered by one of their regulations. S o, even if it is recreational doesn't mean it's not covered. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. I f we look down the matrix, just looking at what is red, if we move down

-- move to the far right under accessible seating deta ils. I added that column, and it refersto note 17 and 18. A nd you know I put 17 inches in there I think

that was from my notes is that the right number is it supposed to be 18 for the seat height? S eats considered transfer seats must have a seating surface that is at least 17 inches above the floor.
>> I thought it was 17 to 19. >> DENNIS CANNON: Water closets are 17 to 19. A nd typically a wheelchair seat is lots of them at least are 18 mine is a little higher than that

-- generally we

-- in the buildi ng facilities, the standard height is 17 to 19 I believe. Iknow it is for water closet maybe Marsha is in there I think it applies to other things as well. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think the driver was a lot of seats are below the 17 if we want to bracket t hat 17

- 19 to be consistent? Okay. >> FRANK MALDARI: Blair Frank MTA again. I s 17 really typically when we use human scale to set our seat heights it's around 16.7 which seems to work good for the majority of the population so your legs don't hang and you are fairly comfortable. S o, 17 is pretty close to it but it's a little bit over. Would it really matter that much if it was 16 and a half or not? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well, I think that

-- I mean from what I read before 17 and depending on the type of se at it is if you go through the range of seats and the way they are configured, not for accessibility issues but for purpose issues you could have operator seats and things at 17 or above. J ust because of the way that yousit. S o, I don't know when we

-- that's a call that I would throw out

to the committee. B ut 17 doesn't seem so bad if you are that close. (LAUGHTER) >> Jonathan Michael, RailPlan. I seem to remember when we were doing the view liner interiors

-- interiors we decided to go for 18 inc hes because many of the wheelchairs, if you are transferring and you do not have the strength the full strength to transfer, you don't want to be having to go up to your wheelchair. W hen you are transferring back. You want to be able to be at almost at a level playing field so you can slide if necessary. >> EDWARD HOFF: Blair? I think in like boil let seat heights where usually you are talking about a hard surface it's much more critical. W hen you are talking about any type of seating with a cushion you have a little bit more of it's a little bit more for giving. If you measure to the top at 17 know when I put wait on it with my hand I am compressing it down to 16 or less I don't think it's that critical of a measure talking about padded seats anywhere here as much as it is toilet seat height which is hard surface. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. I started to try to put language together around cushions I left that alone because that gets to too mushy so to speak Marsha? >> MARSHA MAZZ: Okay. T his is a much more complex issue than any of us appreciated. We are actually funding some researchfor medical diagnostic equipment to look at transfer heights. We

have some current research underway for transfer heights. I don't know whether you really anticipate a lot of people will be transferring or not. B ut this gets to be pretty dicey. 1 7 to 19 inches is the number that is in the current standards for transfer. And so putting it at 18 puts it squarely in the middle of the current standards. B ut the research that's underway is going to look at who the current standards serve and who they don't serve. S o, you may want to simply articulate a position that the height should serve the X percentile from X percentile to Y percentile or something like that. A nd le t us figure it out as we get more research. A lso, you might want to be clear as to how you might measure that because most seats have some contour. S o you are going to put a straight edge across the stop of the seat and measure it at the high points or a re you going to measure it at the low point. S o, again, there is a lot of issues here. Again, I would rather than pick a number pick a principle. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: It would be

-- and if I were writing what the measurement is, I would give a weight on a certain size and that's what you measure from. B ecause you could have seats contoured all over the place with crazy wings to get it where you wanted and not serve the purpose. I t would have to be more involved than that. We could leave it at a percenti le but is that going to be a moving target over time? Percentile

-->> Blair this is Gary can I ask a question on that

>> Sure. >> Typically we

-- we always measure the highest portion of the seat bottom because that's the height that people who are doin g a transfer that have to get over. A nd then you can also put like
a
-- you can combine with that what the seat angle is for what kind of a you have on the seat bottom. T he transfer is different than a compressible seat surface. You can do it the way th at you are talking about I am sharing we typically would say the absolute top of the seat that's what we have to clear to make the transfer so we would measure to that. A nd I just offer that as just experience for what we did. >> MARSHA MAZZ: Okay. >> BLA IR SLAUGHTER: Marsha I'm sorry go ahead. >> MARSHA MAZZ: That's okay. Again, I am not suggesting that you
-- that the standard would dictate a percentile, I am suggesting that you would suggest a percentile and when we have the research to help us to unde rstand what percentile of people

-- where people would fall within the range, then we would establish the number to

-- to correspond to the percentile that you recommend serving. At the time that we write the rule. B ecause you know, the data may change. But we are not going to have a moving target in a standard. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay.>> MARSHA MAZZ: Rather than just pick a number.

(LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well, I mean then you get into is it the 5th or 95th. >> DENNIS CANNON: It seems to me picking a number for the percentile is as arbitrary as picking 17 to 19. A nd I don't know what the percentile

-- let's say 100%. J ust for

-- no, 95,90, what's that number? W hen you look at the standards that currently exist for all kinds of things, like reach ranges, and all of that, they vary all over the place. T hey are not all 90 percentile or 95, some of them go down to 50 percent time. A nd so, you know, Ed Steinfeld is trying to zero in on some of that stuff but at this point it seem toss me for us to pick a number like 90, 95, 85, is purely arbitrary. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well and the other

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: No more arbitrary to pick 17 to 19. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Isn't there also the problem if you are looking at it from the perspective of tran sferring. T he device that you are transferring from how relevant is that always to the percentile that you are in. >> DENNIS CANNON: That's right. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: It's a dimension versus

-- you get things tailored to a degree but it may not be within that tailored range. >> EDWARD HOFF: Ed Hoff I am not sure this transfer is unique other than perhaps to a water closet. To any other type of transferthat you may do in society. S o, I don't think we have a unique

situation here. W hatever the percentile works out to be for the number of people that actually do transfer it should be that number. S o, I don't think

-- I don't think we have a unique situation with people transferring in this environment versus some other environment again other than perhaps water closets I think we should just

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Perhaps

-- >> EDWARD HOFF: Whatever is decide upon for the number would still apply here. T his is not a unique situation. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. A nd what I was saying the percentile may not be people based but device based is that

-- >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Blair being I am just going to do a time check it's 2 o'clock here. A nd I would suggest we better move on to other matters. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I would agree. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Okay.
>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: All right Bob real quick. >> Moving on editorial thing on footnote 19 you say must be at least 17 inches from the finished floor but there is no maximum there it could be 48 inches and still legal. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We can put a cap on t hat as well. I f we do the 17 to 19 I think that's just to avoid genius coming along later and saying it's only 24 inches.>> I have a car stool.

>> LINDA MARTIN: This is Linda I had one comment about that too. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. L inda? >> LINDA MARTIN: Well I think we favor a range like that because if you say 17 or 18 and then it turns tout to be 17 and a quarter or 16 you know 18 and 5/8 somebody is going to complain about it. Having the range is to shoot for is probably a better idea than saying just 17 or just 18. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> LINDA MARTIN: That gets my vote. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Everyone think that's okay I tend to agree with that I was transferring what I had in my notes trying not to think too much about T. that's w hat you guys get paid for. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. A ll right. O n that happy note. Let's see if we move down the line and look at there are notes 14 and 16

-- wait a minute. 1 4 and 16 that were added to inner city rail. O kay. T hat was just lumping mag lav in there with them. Oh, 16. C urrent regulations required the number of coach seats to equal the number of coaches in the train. B ut that in fact is not the case anymore, right? S o my mistake. Ithink we were

-- we talked about th at earlier. S o 16 is really going to go away. B ut I will try to come up with something along the we were discussing themarried pairs and things like that something to tie that down. S o

scratch 16. I will eliminate that in the conversation for now. All right. Let's see what was 19 we took care of that. O h, did I add in 19 I thought this was important. T he very last sentence in note 19 says, no portion of the seat frame or shrouds may extend beyond the passenger seat bottom or back. T he intention wa s if you are making a transfer and a cushion maybe not in some transit situations certainly in inner

- city and some commuters the cushion is going to compress if the frame of that seat is somewhere near the height of that cushion you could

-- if you are not worrying about transferring you could compress below that's it's no big deal if you are trying to transfer from that suddenly you impact the frame of the seat. I thought it was important to put that in there as a matter of definition. S o, okay. Just as a note I had included note 4 in a number of places but it got chopped off I think in the translation. N ote 4 is under number of mobility aid seating locations spaces and it goes down the line it's in

-- it's in light rail, I'm sorry it's in subways or rap id rail. I t comes all the way down. S o, unless someone thinks that should not be a particular spot it says some quantity of seats should be easily removable or convertible to temporarily accommodate groups of individuals using wheelchairs. T hat goes across everything the way I have the notes right now. I s that Frank? >> FRANK MALDARI: Yeah I had a commented on that. Ithinkthe applicability being able to remove seats maybe is more

appropriate for Amtrak service inner

- city service where you have, you k now, attendant who is starting at a location, you don't have the flow of passengers that's as quick in and out. T he point with these removable seats one you have to have a place to put them if it's really removed and somebody to put them back if it's a
re movable seat, 2 who are you expecting to do this you are not expecting the passengers to move the seats around I am not sure what readily removable actually means, and to apply it to commuter and you know rapid rail is not consistent with the operation whe re you are moving people quickly in and out those places are crowd typically. T rying to take a seat out of there in a crowded

-- crowded car is really not an ideal situation. I t's a little bit different, I think for inter

- city when you have an opportunity at a terminal location that you are starting off at like New York or Boston or Washington where you have an opportunity to get in there and re

-- and set up the seats. I know you do that depending moving front and back that's something that kind of gone away from passenger commuter rail. We used to have flip over seats due to concerns about crashworthiness and making sure the seats are locked down appropriately and not having passengers do that, it's really gone away from that industry. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTE R: I think the concept was it's something Amtrak has done if a group of folks going from Washington toPhiladelphia you are making essentially a special move and it

really

-- it's sort of insists that your seat and installation design lends itself to that readily removable maybe seat system versus hard bolted material. T hat was the intent from the discussion standpoint. I don't

-- I mean I

-- I can't argue the applicability of that that is something that the committee needs to

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: This is Dennis. I t doesn't

-- it doesn't generally apply to things like rapid rail, for example, because we don't have designated spaces and there is clear space and I have seen there have been people groups of people from ADAPT come into DC and because every ca r is accessible and balls you only need open space, they just sort of move on to the car 5, 6 people in a
car. I f that's filled you go to the next car behind it. A nd so, the idea of having removable seats for something like rapid rail or even light rail doesn't seem to make any sense. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. We can strike it off of any of those slots that the committee thinks it ought to be taken from. Again, I tried to put things down where I

-- so, we could

-- it's easier to see them and whittle the m away than miss them. C hris. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: My general recollection is this is only for inter

- city high

- speed rail. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: I don't see anyone nodding against that. So

--(LAUGHTER)

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We ll that's easy it becomes Amtrak's problem right? >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Well that's true. B ecause there is (inaudible) rail there will be California high

- speed rail God willing. And hopefully some other high

- speed rail. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. >> EDWAR D HOFF: Blair could I jump on that bandwagon it's Amtrak's problem. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: What about railroads that operate over Amtrak

- owned routes Ed? H uh? (LAUGHTER) >> Blair James here I got a question how this works in practice. Wit h this option is it always the case that pre

- booking would be required and some additional fee would be paid to kind of reserve the area? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Pre

- booking yes I can't speak to the fees that's a policy issue. B ut typically what would happen is the situation would arise there would be some planning to go with it, and somebody would be directed to remove the first 6, 8, 10, 12 seats from a coach.
>> Presumably you would have to prevent other passengers from sitting in these seats earlier.>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: They would be sitting on the floor.

>> You removed the seats at the start of service

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Depends on the nature you can reserve entire coach then you get into money. Imean that's a policy situation that I don't know how if it's within the realm of this committee to even discuss from a physical

-- from a physical standpoint, the way it's handled is, again, you say look they call the yard sake so many seats out of an Amfleet coach tell me what number it is that car gets put in train 152 and when it's at the station, probably at one end or the other of the train so it helps keep some control over folks boarding.
>> Presumably, this option is available to able

- bodied people as well. To reserve a section of the car >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Absolutely. You can
-- there is it falls sometimes into the charter operations I am not sure which desk handles that you can reserve portions of a car. W hole cars, some people find that is fun to do if they are traveling together. A nd you know reserve half a car I know they got it all and the whole party is there scaring everybody. >> Checking the process is effectively the same whether able bodied disabled

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: It should be >> You are not providing a service over and above thi s it's available to

-->> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: The only thing that makes it different you

are physically altering the vehicle when you take seats out and put them back in >> (inaudible) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: The other end of the railroad necessarily. But part of the hope was that

-- that maybe if you have this sort of readily changeable situation that you do have a bank of seats at the shop in New York or Philadelphia or wherever

-- or the car just simply runs half a car back and ends up getting fixed. I t requi res some effort but it's not like we are not going to the moon. T hat sort of thing. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: And, again, this is all ultimately a DOT regulatory adoption piece. >> DENNIS CANNON: Our issue design the car we want to have the seats removable that's the end of our obligation. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. T hat part of it is

-- I mean my only recommendation to the other providers is if you use that kind of system it makes your life a lot easier down the path than hard bolting everything to fixed dime nsions. B ut anyway, that's another story. M arilyn? I 'm sorry. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Marilyn Golden DREDF I agree with Dennis I agree our sort of literal job or whatever ends once we figure out the car. B ut we can still suggest issues to the

-- to pass for the Access Board

-- for the Access Board to pass to DOT. I f we haveinput like that, I mean, I am starting a list others can you know,

develop what they want or compile a list or whatever. I think it's a good idea if we have implementation suggestions b ecause our physical car specifications in some situations may not be useful at all if they are not properly implemented so the intent should be conveyed. I think. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. B ob? >> Bob: O ne of the things we discussed we hadn't come to
co nclusion we were going to bring up here to the committee is at what size do we go from one seating position to two seating positions footnote 8 does mention it at 30 feet if your car is short 30 feet you need one wheelchair position if longer you need two. What is the answer? I mean this was something pulled out of the sky and it was meant to bring to the committee. A s a whole to discuss. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. D id everyone catch that? N ote 8. >> Actually going off that comment, I think something th at we haven't discussed is the bi

- level inter

- city accessibility (Jonathan.) and Vertical Access. D id we? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We have but not today. T hat's >> Jonathan: T hat is something for later

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yeah, that

-- in my reporting, I think we decided that there will be Vertical Access that the sticking points are to what vehicles. A s far as I am concerned the burden rightnow is in my house to do some application so we see what the

affects are. I would say at a minimum, for special ty cars like the sightseer lounge they have the Vertical Access. A nd that would be as a minimum. I t's a nonrevenue car and it's also a key feature car that makes that bi

- level long distance trip really worthwhile. S o, I think it's

-- we know it's been d one. S o we can't say it can't be done. I t's

-- I think it has a lot of real value over time. Universally. S o, we can argue about coaches and sleepers and things at a later date. B ut I think having if we have accessible lounge we can

-- we can take care of better accessibility for dining as well. W hich we did talk about some yesterday in spaces. S o, I don't want to

-- we have got other things to hit so we will

-- we will discuss that in more detail when I have more information which other won't be muc h longer. So, back to that the streetcars number 8. B ob that
was
-- anyone have a thought about that? D o you want to mull it over to the next conversation? >> Bob: T hat's we discussed it at the subcommittee meeting a couple of times but I don't think we ever came to thing anything I think you said bring it up here find out at what size does it go from one seating position to two. R ight now I just when I did the matrix for you, I just grabbed 30 foot out of the sky. Ithink that was a bus dimension. S o
-- >> DENNIS CANNON: The bus dimensions change at 22. A ndthe definition in the proposed bus rule is the distance is measured

from bumper to bumper without the OAM bumper to bumper. That doesn't work on a rail car. S o, there needs to be incidentally th at is something that we haven't talked about we may need to add some definitions. B ut one of the definitions or one of the questions we need is how do you measure the length of something like a people mover an AGT what do you measure it from. Presumably you don't include the coupling but what are those outer boundaries that's probably a later

-- a later discussion. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I would assume that it would be

-- you don't want it to be decorative plastic shrouds you wanted it to be the buffers or a nti climbers the hard structural points of the vehicle? >> DENNIS CANNON: Something like that. H eavy >> EDWARD HOFF: I have a question bus is also is based on seating capacity or passenger capacity. M aybe rail cars should be based solely on capacity and not the length of the vehicle itself. >> Bob: T hat's why we brought it up. >> EDWARD HOFF: Yes I think it should be tied somehow to capacity or percentage of capacity something to that effect. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. C apacity not size. A nybody have th oughts what that should be or you want to think about it and bring it up at the next meeting >> Think about it.>> Janice: W hen you say that what do you mean by capacity?

The number of people? S o, let's say if you are doing it based on number of people that may not

-- number of people who could be potentially on the train then number of people potentially on the train let's say it has low ridership. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: It's design capacity. >> As long as we include that. >> It's sheer ignorance on not kn owing trains >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: It was a valid question >> This is Robert Carlson going with capacity would take care of whether it's single level or bi

- level you get a lot more people on shorter train if it's bi

- level going by capacity not length is the better way to go >> EDWARD HOFF: You are agree. T hat was actually

-- that was my thought when we first when New Jersey Transit got multilevel cars was, hmm, this doesn't seem right we can stack these things and get many more people on here we are not increasing the capacity of people with disabilities who could right on

-- ride on these trains because it's based on per car. W ithout any dimension given. S o, I think it is a much

-- a more appropriate way of calculating it based on capacity. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: One thing you guys want to decide is, is it questionable capacity or

-- or seating capacity. A nd I did say that because the cars specked both ways. S o
-->> EDWARD HOFF: If it's based on crush capacity it's a smaller

percentage if it's seating capacity it's a higher percentage get the number that you want the number that you desire work backwards what number do you really want on a certain capacity. A nd work back from that. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think you would want to go

-- like your average we do average weights and average capacity or, yeah, I don't think

-- the question gets tricky. >> DENNIS CANNON: When I was in LA they used bus capacity to be number of seats plus 50%. S o it was 50%

-- assuming you had 50% of seated capacity is standees that was considered to be the capacity of the vehicle. S o, that's one way of doing it. >> In my experience capacity is measured as a fixed number of people per square foot. At different levels of crush (James.) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We were talking about street cars if we look it

-- took it inner

- city it's strictly seats we try to avoid standees. T hough certain horrible times of the year we have that condition. O kay. I f we could, what I would like to do is touch surfaces and that's appropriate right surfaces a nd handrails. Unless anybody has anything that's on in the notes or on the matrix that they really are passionate about speaking to I would like to spend our last few minutes with surfaces and handrails and things if we can. >> FRANK MALDARI: I have a cou ple of quick comments I missedthe discussion on the service animals. You have a provision that

requires two per car where currently there isn't any that's to be located near the wheelchair parking area I am assuming. I s that right or wrong >> BLAIR SLAU GHTER: Yes. >> FRANK MALDARI: The reason why I am bringing it up depending on the layout of the car in our particularly case with 2 by 3 seating to put that animal in a safe location which is against the wall you really can't do that on a two

- seater side you only have to do it on the three

- seater side. T he question I am asking is do you really need two or could you get by with one and not every person in a wheelchair needs a guide animal. A nd if you are somebody who is can sit in a regular seat there are facing seats for guide animal to use the space between them. S o, I think it's

-- just in the context of trying to minimize the affect on the passenger seating it might be better to have one location. >> This is Janice Schacter Lintz we need to be clear se rvice animals is not just used by people with wheelchair used by people visual and hearing impairments and other issues we can't just get by whatever percentage the ADA requires in all locations we should look to those and be consistent. I mean if the per son has Andraea mall tell them to get off? (LAUGHTER) >> FRANK MALDARI: No there is space on the train I mean whenyou allocate the space for wheelchair to the concern I have is what I

stated you wind up taking more passenger seats away. I f you want to say, you can have you know to your point, if it's more fib and you only have the allocation in the wheelchair location then not everybody wants to sit in the wheelchair location there has to be flexibility as to where the animal can park. >> BLAIR SLAUGH TER: We look at

-- we are honestly looking at the concept of some of the newer seats if they don't rotate I have more space underneath where the animal could safely and comfortably tuck under and be where they need to be. T hat's the other thing. T he serv ice animals need to be in a particular position relative to their person. A nd that can't be in the baggage car. >> Not only that what about husbands wives partners who have each have a service animal and we are assuming that all service animals are German shepherds or large dogs many use Susan misery someone familiar to all of us has a cute little dog very teeny. >> The question was right now in the matrix we have the definition of two service animal spaces do we

-- what do we want to do with that? I t

-- it does, depending on the definition of the space and the allowance for overlap I showed no overlap in our situations, there is realistically though a probably a fair amount of space for overlapping that space. B ut there needs to be some thinking that way, I guess. A ny thoughts about that? I f you want we can park it and pick it up again but I think it's worth discussing. E speciallyfrom a definition standpoint. Yes?

>> TERRY PACHECO: Can I just add briefly, Terry Pacheco. As

-- addressing to your issues Frank, most

-- let me put it this way: M any if not most people who would be using for instance a guide dog or

-- or a service animal says specially

-- especially a small dog like Rosie, Susan Mazzrey's dog doesn' t need an accessible seating accessible seating area as we

-- as the type that we have been talking about here all day meaning a wheelchair accessible seating area. W hat that person is more likely to need, and be more safe for the dog is an appropriate ty pe of seating area where, for instance, the dog can get under the seat. T hat often is the

-- that's why in many rapid rail systems now, you will see that the seating area for someone with a disability tends to be the side seats. Oftentimes that's because the fronted or rear facing seats are solid beneath them. A nd the dog cannot actually get under there. T hat's much more an issue we should be looking at or it's an additional issue that we should be looking at as far as service animals are concerned is t hat we have space it doesn't necessarily have to be in that same space as the wheelchair accessible dog assistive dog location. B ut we do need to be able to have that dog get under the seat in which the person is sitting. I f that helps. >> CHRISTOPHER HA RT: Terry, one thing that I was just

-- I would just point out that we put into the (inaudible) material is that area has to be clear of heating elements. S o that we do not cookrosy.

>> TERRY PACHECO: Very good point. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Depending on wh at I do go up to I think 25 degrees help me out Andre I

-- so depending on what the unit is and what the blower is it can be rather toasty down there. >> Okay.

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> TERRY PACHECO : The point is it needs to be unobstructed. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Let me do writing on that we had discussion maybe in the last meeting or side bar about the having vertical space which could be under seats and things like that. S o, let me chew on that I wi ll probably reach out and ask questions about that as I try to write it. O kay. S o, surfaces, handrails, as soon as I find my note that Melissa gave me which I had. A nd then hid from myself. O kay. T hinking along the lines of what Dennis has brought up with moving between vehicles it makes surfaces very important. We have had now over 20 years to deal with thresholds and nonslip rubber floors and all of those wonderful things different transition devices within cars, so, hopefully we know by now that do esn't work. A nd some of what does. B ut we also know that we have conditions like we have on the Acela where we have a fixed diaphragm condition that ramps down and is somewhat rough and you go up the other side which we thought was great whether we did i t so much better than everything else wehad. B ut now we have seen that, that's the benchmark that's where

we go from. W hat do we do to define those internal ramps. F or those transitions I would also say it's been helpful through time to have the ADA to lean on for defining the coefficient of friction for nonslip surfaces. We have used it as a good baseline when people tried to use things they shouldn't for floor surfaces. S o, that's been a handy stick to wave at people. B ut they also realize, of
cour se, that in walking and in other moving around that you can be too skid resistant you have to slip a little to walk and not trip and so consistency of surfaces can be very important. D o we have any baselining or any other activities that going on now next to the board of managing or defining those slopes and surfaces? >> This is Melissa Anderson traditionally it's a quarter inch vertical and up to a half inch if the top quarter inch is bevelled. Maximum slope in a building is 5%. You know, the cross slop es and typically are 2% or less. A nd something else that I didn't get on your list was where you have a grade break where the slope changes or where you have abrupt surface you might want to consider highlighting those demarcating them with a stripe contrasting stripe. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> DENNIS CANNON: This is Dennis. Irecommend that bee start from the building facilities standards that are

-- what were just mentioned the half, quarter inch half inch bevelled 1 to 12 ifit's bigger than that an d talk about firm stable and slippery

assistant there are some things in the public right

- of

-way guidelines proposed that might be useful to pull out to talk about surface discontinuities or openings requirements that you can't have grade

-- it used to be gradings in the old standards. We want to probably look at those kinds of things. A nd just I would suggest sort of pulling

-- and I will be I volunteered to do that pull a bunch of things from different places and create surfaces of lists bullet lists if you will that we can look at and decide whether we want to modify some things, keep some things throw them out or whatever that's we can't

-- I can't do that right now. Ineed to leave in a few minutes to go meet somebody back at my apartment so I have to
-- I can't be around I was going to I was volunteering that do that for later discussion. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. D ennis I appreciate that one thing that I will throw out along those lines, is as an example when I have side doors and end doors on vehi cles we also have water tightness concerns driven by not the vehicle is sitting statically getting rained down but creaming down the railroad at 125 miles an hour, sometimes slower. A nd you don't want to fill the car up with water. It is a

-- it is a battle to get that to work. >> DENNIS CANNON: We ran into similar things with respect to vessels because vessels typically have combing on the doors which is a four

- inch to six

- inch high sill to keep water out we had todecide how to do that. T here are thing s like that where you have

to have special rules that don't work in buildings, that I peculiar to these kind of things. T he issue of cross slope on the surface I don't think we can define that, because the cars roll. T hey have at least two degrees of fre edom and maybe a lot more. A nd so, you can't

--you can't necessarily determine fix that number. I t's difficult in vessels too. B ecause they have 6 degrees of freedom. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think we can

-- we have to assume work everything off of a static condition. A nd assume that the vehicle at rest is on level track and that the vehicle is

-- is relative to itself the things are level relative to the vehicle that there aren't crazy slopes and things within the construction of the vehicle. I mean we do a lot of we have done a lot of things to try to comply with the current rules and still do all of those other physical things that have to be done to make doors seal and drain water away. S ome of it is acrobatics. A nd trying to get water to do things th at water doesn't like to do. S o, just I would keep that in mind. A sk you to keep that in mind. I can dig up information of things that we have tried and worked and didn't work just to help that along. I t's always good to challenge the industry but we h ave run into my situations where it's just no matter what we do, we have got some of the new cars have nice thresholds, that are probably going to leak over time. Oh, well. H opefully the floors are heated and we won't have to worry about them freezing. Okay. S o, the other issue was aroundhand rails stanchions location and diameter. We talked about that

before in the matrix at the leaving them at the current standard of let's see. I nch and a quarter to inch and a half. T he architectural is up to two inches right Melissa? >> DENNIS CANNON: It's defined a little differently in terms of its
cross
- section which relates to the perimeter and so forth. D id you get potentially oval as opposed to just round it allows more variability in the design of

-- but t here are things about the force that they have to sustain and surfaces being not slippery. A nd a variety of things that probably could be pulled out in the

-- the other questions other than the physical requirements for the handrails grab bars themselves, are things like location. A nd that's what we are talking about earlier. W here do you put these. A nd there are some requirements in the existing rule for inner

- city rail and commuter, I think as well. T here is an exception because there are some handra ils that are defined at FRA >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. >> DENNIS CANNON: That have a specific mandatory
cross
- section. T hey are actually quite thin. T hey don't meet the standards for accessibility. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: They are functional devices primaril y for the exterior of the vehicle. >> DENNIS CANNON: We had to write a provision exempting those. We have to look at whether in general those things that arerequired and specified by FRA won't be subject to this particular

provision. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We actually on current vehicle work we have run into that

-- that line drawing that line between the two situations being very difficult. A nd because FRA is very strict about not the capacity of the attachments but exactly how things are attached. B olted and nutted and not welded and on and on and
on. Regardless of what their capacity is. A nd some of those are quite antiquated provisions but we understand why they are there. But when you make the transfer to something that is for accessibility, you can use a little more logic and less very old rules. So but where the line is becomes the tricky part that's where the arguments start with the various offices at the FRA. Let's see. There was an interesting comment about the grab bars or handholds on seats in the priority and accessible seat areas. B ut it's they are quite common on a lot of transit vehicles. What definition do we need to give those if any, and because they tend to be corner right

-- either right angle or other corners like Bob's pointing t o over there on the MTA car (indicating) what is the diameter because that holding surface because it's in the curve can be different than just the straight diameter of the device. S o, do we want to wrap ourselves around the axle on that and give it some definition? I t's one of those things that

-- that from a design standpoint could be very worthwhile to have it nailed down.Versus up to conversation and things later. A ny thoughts on that

>> Jonathan Michael, RailPlan. I had I think we should define i t more as a percentile of

-- of 95th percentile hand sizes versus actual diameter dimensions just from the standpoint that you could have a ball or some other shape that is left up to the operator or the design team versus just a regular diameter. >> DENNI S CANNON: Those

-- this is Dennis of the those numbers and designs or whatever are based on a very extensive hand anthropometric study that the board commissioned several years ago and studies from Ed Steinfeld those numbers and configurations are already based on that issue the issue of doing that is when you define the

-- when you give people some numbers of things that they can measure it's a lot easier to enforce. T han to have them try to figure out, you know, go look up human scale 123 to find out what the numbers are. S o the configuration in the current guidelines is in fact incorporates all ever that anthropometric information. >> I do understand the anthropometric data I am just saying if we are limiting ourselves to a circle versus ellipse or anot her shape that meets that criteria I think it should be left over.

-- left open. It shouldn't be a diameter. I t should be the minimum diameter of one and a quarter as lodge as your hand can reach around it. B ut it shouldn't be limited to a circle. O r t hat shape. >> Melissa: T here are other perimeter one and a quarter twoinches are there are perimeter limits that allow different shapes.

>> Okay. Ishould

-- we should copy word for word. >> EDWARD HOFF: Ed Hoff, New Jersey Transit. A s the picture by B ob points out one thing we haven't talked about is how much of a handhold to provide what the length is, what the

-- whether horizontal vertical on an angle. I f you can imagine that had
a
-- that the opening itself that that handrail causes or hand grape causes was such a small diameter you couldn't fit your hand through or around it perhaps. S o, are there minimum sizes we want to talk about minimum length of handrail at some point

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: Standard also specifies clearance between when it's m ounted on a wall. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: The tricky part with those corner handrails or grabs and we have looked at them even on inner

- city before, and it got to be so tricky with how do you do that and we are also try to go avoid looking like transit cars no offense. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We do charge more than they do we should look a little different. B ut in some cases it came down to say it's okay people are going to grab the tops of the seat they are not going to grab the person in it when t hey grab the top of the seat. Particularly when you have standee conditions and things those handles are going to be useful not just for ambulating or moving but to secure yourself while the train is moving

-->> That's the case in the light rail vehicles

. We have hand holds

integrated with the seat back itself. T hey are of similar design but they are on top of the seat actually. B ut they are a small diameter. I mean it seems to be a little bit of a free for all. Ithink that's what you are looking fo r is more guidance to nail down a design without being too restrictive but give some

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Always nice

-- as a designer it's always nice to have some bumping post or else you are forever designing and arguing and justifying. W hich you know, if you know what the givens are then you can spend your time on other worthwhile things. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Blair I would like to suggest, this is one area where reaching out to seat manufacturers might be worthwhile endeavor on the bus side it's really only two major seat manufacturers rail is a little bit different but it might be worthwhile to begin to get that data because ultimately whatever you choose the board is going to need something from the seat manufacturers that says, there is it 8 di fferent options available in inner

- city seats. And 5 of them have lips and three of them don't. We are going to need to have some of that information. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> DENNIS CANNON: This is Dennis. S ome of that was collected from the notice of proposed rulemaking on the buses, there were quite a few comments from seat manufacturers the bus proposalrequired a bar across the back of the seat. A nd it also required

certain proposed certain vertical stanchion from every other one of those oppos ite

-- you will see it in Metro, for example, that goes from that handrail in the back of the seat up to the ceiling. S o that you can walk from one basically reach out with one hand and then reach out with the other which always makes me nervous when I am sitting in the train I watch these people come by from the cafe car with their cups of coffee. A nd I am always sure that they are going to dump

-- dump it on me because they bounce back and forth from one side of the car to the other. H andrails are very important not just for disability but for everybody. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. I think for some of this, it will

-- may fall into the where provided. A nd then by mode there may be

-- maybe there is different levels of what we want to require or suggest is required based on

-- on the relevance to how that mode behaves obviously buses toss around quite a bit other transit vehicles may be very similar but once you when you hit certain points it may not be that relevant anymore. >> DENNIS CANNON: Also fixed seats versus reclining seats might be different requirements >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: If we have a bar all the way across I am going to tell my neighbor we are reclining now that will go over really well. (LAUGHTER)>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay.

>> BILLY ALTOM : I hate to cut off good conversation but we are coming upon the hour one of the things that I do have to do is ask if anyone on the phone has any public comment so we do not eliminate that possibility for them. D o we have anybody on the phone that has an y public comment they would like to make at this particular moment? H earing none. A nybody in the audience Bob? >> Bob: J ust a closing comment I guess in three weeks the international public transportation expo will be in Houston I am not sure how many p eople here will be there. I will, and everybody

-- it's only held every three years everybody who makes anything for the transit industry will be there. I t is absolutely huge to anybody that's ever been there. I f anybody has questions wants me to pick u p flyers brochures ask questions of the manufacturers hit me up I have a list of questions to ask various different people. Everybody we talked about all of the seat manufacturers all of the car manufacturers Bombardier, Alstom, Seiman's, they are all goi ng to be here if anybody has questions or whatever hit me up before I leave or I will try to catch up with them. >> BILLY ALTOM: Anybody else in the audience? Yes, sir. >> Don Mebius LTK. B lair, you made a comment earlier about how to work this in lookin g at the future. I might make a suggestion we follow when ADA was applied. T hat they gave kind of an interim period to incorporate these things or how to do itbridging the gap until whatever the final determination is you know,

for a date there, that way it's moving into it rather than being implemented all at one time. I know you had mentioned a concern for that several times. I might suggest that like I say with the way ADA was originally introduced into the industry we use that as a guideline. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I suspect that part of what

-- Melissa go ahead. >> That is something that the DOT will take care of how it's I am apply the over what timeframe. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I suspect some of that is going to be based on what the comment back is fro m
-- during the proposed rulemaking right? H ow that might be affected. B ut I know when the original ADA was crafted it was such a huge at the time a quantum leap it doesn't seem like that now but at the same time it was a huge thing so, I don't think we are making such the leap we are just learning and going forward. S o, >> BILLY ALTOM: Thank you. H ang on Chris anybody else from the audience? I want to make sure we get all of this in as we are required. A nd before my chair's leave I want to thank them all I know Marilyn has left I will get her later thank you Dennis thank you Blair and thank you Terry he has to leave too. P lease help me let's give our chairs a round of applause they have done a lot of work. (APPLAUSE)>> BILLY ALTOM: Thank you very much. B lair I will turn it back

over to you >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I was going to ask well Dennis is very
-- has volunteered to work on the surfaces which I appreciate greatly. Would anyone within this committee like to take up taking the information from the matrix and again drafting that into language or let me ask of the Access Board folks, what are you guys satisfied with or are you okay if we keep it as the matrix and the notes? A nd then you goo guys can take and plug it into the draft language? >> D ENNIS CANNON: Editorial committee is going to have to

-- put all of this together. >> MARSHA MAZZ: The question was to the board staff I will answer it. >> DENNIS CANNON: There is going to be an editorial committee that will put all of this together for th e final report. >> MARSHA MAZZ: Dennis that is right but there are going to be ground rules for the editorial committee it needs to be editorial only it cannot change the

-- the substance of what is recommended in terms of what the Access Board staff can accept we can certainly accept materials in table bulletted lists and everything else as long as it communicates your intent we are delighted to have it. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Here is my point. Very simply with the matrix it takes all of the language away from it except for the notes.And the notes were there to try to clarify and quantity things

moving forward. A nd I thought if you had the if the wrong numbers are there it's greater opportunity to have standardization between modes and things like that rat her than one of us writing it. But we

-- I think we would take on whatever you would ask for us to take on. >> James: I don't understand this hello there might be a little work needed on the column we have a bit of confusion about the PRIIA requirements, for example. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay.
>> James: I s it one or two. I think, for example, that column heading are we counting the number of wheelchair bays where a person sits or is it wheelchair plus transfer seating things like that. I know writing co ntinuous prose helps a little bit with clarification of some issues. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. Ithink what we

-- we came to understand and I will

-- I will update the matrix that's my first goal is that we have two seating spaces that are accessible to wh eelchairs and that there are two transfer

-- James: I n that case the PRIIA requirement it's only one in that column then >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I'm sorry. I was wrong no it's one, right? One transfer and two wheelchair right? O ne? N o it's one. (Di scussion off record.)>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That's right we are talking it would be nice

to do two for inner

- city but we are going to increase it to two >> DENNIS CANNON: The way in which they are stated in the act is that seats for wheelchair users and tra nsfer seat and place to store. I t says, you know, at least one but not more than two and then it says them both together so our assumption has always been that

-- >> In terms of what we are proposing now >> My assumption has been they are paired together. In other words, if you have two wheelchair space you have two transfer seats. B ecause of the way it's written and they are together that might be an FRA question.
>> Just to confirm then for inter

- city, in this table it should say PRIIA I and the RVAAC row is two. I n other words, we are proposing over and above what PRIIA currently has; is that correct? >> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> And also for the record Blair I need to report back with more clarity on the Vertical Access issue. You touched on it I would like

-- to understand what the current thinking is. S o I can report back to Cal Trans obviously it has such a big impact to their operation. I s it

-- am I right in re

- paraphrasing the current proposal is for a certain type of bi

- level car only which the tour ist or specialty scenic type rather than a general inter

- city orcommuter car.

>> The way I have written innercity long distance rails there are comments it should include multiple car types, coaches, sleepers, et cetera. M y thinking was that it should b e based on the nonrevenue scenic sightseer type car. T hat would then allow you some accessibility to the activities of adjacent cars. B ut I think that is a point for argument. I think that from what I have done in just very brief layouts there is massive impact to those other cars. W hen you
-- especially when you look at platform sizes and structure and everything else. S o what I would like to do is safe that discussion for future meetings when I can show layouts and we can talk about those impacts. I t may be that the subcommittee ultimately recommends other vehicles but and then it will have to be hashed out during public comment period with the OMB studies and things like that. B ut from my standpoint from inner

- city provider it would be for that particularly for a sightseer type lounge car because it is such a nice feature car. B ut I know where there is

-- there is a very real risk and I will say this in closing so we can get on with everything else. I think there is a very real risk that in revenu e cars, that you could create a condition where there is no need for or that there is no economic or other benefit to having bi

- level cars because you will

-- you will if you compare the single level car and bi

- level you would have no difference but just a very expensive car.
>> Exactly I think Cal Trans would second that I think theposition would be inter

- city on the Cal Trans operation at least to

get people from A to B it's not scenic operation. I f the determination was made there should be level acces s on those why not on a commuter car that gets people from A to B so

-- (LAUGHTER) (Discussion off record.)
>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: California is a long state it's not their fault. (LAUGHTER). (Discussion off record.)

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: With that o n behalf of the board I want to thank all of you for coming we are at the witching hour. S o, Billy any last comments? >> BILLY ALTOM: Other than everyone have a safe travels home. And we will not see each other until the holidays so enjoy your holidays a s well. >> FRANK MALDARI: We

-- >> I will this is Gary Talbot I will see everybody coming to if you are willing to make a trip.
>> PAUL BEATTY: Frank asked me about additional subcommittee calls the game plan is to continue sequence there is a one at leas t one possible modification we know that board andalighting Ed Steinfeld would like to participate in that subcommittee

which I believe is the fourth Thursday of the month. T hursday he has a class. S o, we are going to evaluate moving it to a Wednesday. So, it will the fourth Wednesday of the month. B ut we will be sending out E

- mail spelling that we would like to keep it at you know, typical sequence in terms of Thursdays. T here was one other thing. Yes, some Thursdays fall on holidays we expect the s ubcommittees the October calls to sort of look at schedule and see whether they need to adjusted anything if there is a holiday on a Thursday which they would normally meet on. S o, that's the current game plan. S o, communications will be October 2nd I th ink that's the only thing that is pretty much definite. >> BILLY ALTOM: I have nothing else may I adjourn us? T hank you all again, and we are adjourned. (End of meeting around 3 pm .)