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.

4

th Meeting - Rail Vehicles Access Advisory Committee (Day 2 of 2)

U.S. Access Board 

Friday, September 12, 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 box 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 want to participate in the conversation. As you 

noticed from yesterday we pretty much allow an open flow of 

information. Members of the public if you have comments you can 

go ahead and give them. Assuming that will be okay for Blair when 

that subcommittee starts their work. Just as a reminder our next 
formal 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, community 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 Council on Independent Living. Got 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 Reuter, 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 Goldstein, Linda Martin and Gary Talbot. And that's everybody.
>> BILLY ALTOM: All right. Thank 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 agenda 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. How 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. Something that should go without saying 

everyone put your cell phones on silent or vibrate. Please use the 

conference 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. Is there anything else that I wanted to 

mention? Not off the bat. So, 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 is yours, sir.

Onboard Circulation and Seating Portion of the Meeting
>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. Thanks 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 maybe not 

for the railroad. Okay. If 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. There is some key issues that we need to, I think 

resolve, and maybe close these things out. So, we can -- we can 

get to a position in the near future of having them as 

recommendations. Back to the committee as a whole. And then 

we have some new items to deal with as well. But if folks would 

look at the -- at the agenda if everyone is okay I would like to 

approve that. There 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? Hearing 

none, I will take it as approved.

What I would like to do is go through the matrix but perhaps it 
would 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. And 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 that 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. And 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. And 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 stand 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. And 

see what happens.
Because that -- and let the industry chew on it and see what 

comes back. But, again, we want to be as practical as we can 

without making things too easy. So, 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 radius 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. So, 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. But 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. There is a place for the service 

animal, and a two-person seat. Now, 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 regular 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. And 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. That can 
be very disturbing for the animal. But 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 handle some of the other 

amenities in the car differently perhaps, but as a layout I think it 

works. But what I want to clarify is when we talk about -- we have 

accessible seating spaces, that you can park a wheelchair in. But 

then we have at least two transfer spaces recommended. The 

folding wheelchair the great mysterious folding wheelchair, what 

happens with that? Or 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 wheelchair in the train or anywhere else for 

that matter. And what are we really intending? Would we really be 

looking at two more full-size spaces for an unoccupied or 

unoccupied wheelchairs? And that's where I am looking for clarity 

to make sure that -- that we are all on the same page with that. 

Any thoughts? Comments? Dennis? 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 wheelchair 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 require 
you to have an extra space for nonfolding wheelchair. I don't know 

what the answer to that is. What you would 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. If 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 that 

they can handle bicycles and things. So make it -- making it as a 

flip up chair in a folded wheelchair is not that big of a deal. One 

thing that you find is when you do fold a wheelchair depending on 

the guys some of them don't have removable footrests 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. So, but I can work 

with that. That's -- that's a manageable thing. So 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 important point. Pictorially 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 that 
happen how ever they make it happen? Because 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. Are there any thoughts 

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. In order to not have 

the poor animal's neck being pulled on with a tight leash. It really 

does need to be either beside 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 point?

>> 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 

people 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 SLAUGHTER: 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. And, yeah, and for that matter, on 

the lower arrangement where 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. But in this coach 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. What you will see in the Acela footprint because the 

Acela used fixed tables we have accessible fixed tables shown. So, 

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 mounted foot-long table. And 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 to 
provide 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 requirement 

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. That'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. And 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. And was 

pretty ample. If 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. Is that approach a reasonable thing? Because 

that's something that is quite doable. But I know when we look at 
issues of independence whether they are you know the spirit of the 

rule or the rule itself, I see Marilyn?

>> 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 and 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. Now, obviously 

FRA is going to have to pass a (inaudible) 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. I suppose 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. I road on the auto train probably 10, 

15 years ago. And it had a table like that, that was deployed for 

eating and then removed or it could be left there. It 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. But I remember it feeling adequate at least 

at the time. So, it might be something that could be looked 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. Mr. Talbot your line 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 

commented on the one at the top. And 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 stay in their 

chair have access to the hard surface and maybe it's like Linda 
suggested maybe there is a portable type thing that can snap in 

place or something to do that. And likewise with the transfer seat 

as well. The other issue I did want to raise though is on the 

stowage space for unoccupied chair. The train that works the best 

for me today, and probably ride the train more than most folks with 

a disability, it's the Acela. And 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. When 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. Now, it works good 

for me but it's really not the right thing to do. Because in that 

configuration I am consuming someone's occupied space with my 

unoccupied chair. So, 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 am 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. So, I think the proximity of where that unoccupied 

chair is. My chair does fold although I don't have to fold it on the 

Acela. That's why I don't choose to fold it there. The 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. If there is a 
way 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 

might 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. But 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. I do 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. Because 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. Then 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. So, 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 just 
encourage with proper signage the likelihood of the luggage space 

merging into the wheelchair space even with signage is a lot more 

likely and it should be separate. And it should be designated 

purposefully by the signage.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I mean, a lot of that becomes a policing 

issue. It's what I referred to as the soft side of the railroad. We

deal with the hardware that's the easy part. Quite often. It'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 there is a 

space no one is in it why sure put your bags there. Yes, sir.

>> DENNIS CANNON: Dennis Cannon. The -- that reminds me, 

operational issues are some of the worst. There is a little tiny, in 

the car, there is a little tiny trash receptacle that will hold maybe a 

cup or two. And 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. And it creates more problems than just 

accessibility problems.

 (LAUGHTER)

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. I won't even go there.

 (LAUGHTER)
>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: It is one of my pet projects my pet peeves 

with the railroad. And I --

>> I also 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. And 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. And have it accommodate 

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 the 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. The other issue I don't know what the specific cars are that I 
have ridden on, but typically you have the wheelchair space and 

then there is a double seat. Across from it. But 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. And 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. The 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. And 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. And so, we opted to go to the bigger double seat. Some of 

the thinking was that having just the single seat as the transfer seat 

sort of said here I am. And it was a different seat from what 

everyone else had in the train. So, I mine you could take that both 
way ins a single seat is more accommodating that may be the way 

to go. But, yeah, I remember those seats and they had the flip up 

armrests and turned at 90-degree increments and could face across 

the car if that helped with transfers. But that was the story of 

those they got eaten up by the progression of space. Chris?

>> 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. For some folks reward facing may actually be 

more comfortable. So, it's something to think about if the 

committee want today weigh in as to whether 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 the luggage and you have the wheelchair 

on the other side and that would give you one an option for travel 

either way, yeah. And 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. But 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. The 

other thing that in looking through PRIIA and this may be just my 
misunderstanding. The 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. And PRIIA takes that to every 

coach having two positions. Am 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? Bob?

>> LINDA MARTIN: This is Linda.

>> I wasn't waiting to comment 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. So, when you 

have a family, yes there should be two in each one. I am 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. But 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. What we have talked about in our matrix here, I think 

maybe I just put that in there, because of my misunderstanding, 

was two positions. Or 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. And 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. And 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. And operationally that's beautiful because he 

just go out in the yard and get the cars for the train. But 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. But 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 strewn all over 
the train that's not the norm. But 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. So, I would -- if it is 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. If we are still only dealing with an 

equal number to the coaches. Yes, Dennis?

>> DENNIS CANNON: This is -- this is Dennis. Just 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. And the default then is to go with the minimum. So, it's 

been basically one. And 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. The 

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. But it's actually more complicated than that. 

And those deadlines of -- have long past. The first one was you 

had to have the number of spaces equal to 50% of the cars. So if 

you had a 10-car train you needed to have 5. If 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. But you could put them in two per car to make that up. 
So that you only had to have 5 accessible cars. That 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. They could 

take existing cars, take out some seats, and not have to do 

everything. But that -- the dates for those requirements are 

passed. So, now it's back to the every car is accessible and how 

many spaces is at least 1 no more than 2. And I am pushing for 2.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: 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. So that there be extra spaces. It'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. That was an additional provision. We need two 

because the statute says no more than two. But then have that 

option that additional seats can be removable.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yeah. Ken, that's something that you 
know Amtrak has done through the years. But 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. And I think it's important to include that. Bob?

>> Bob Reuter: One 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. One fixed wheelchair seating 

one transfer seat and one that could be either or. Where 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. That would be something to throw 

out here as sort of a half-way point between the two.

>> Blair? This 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. Marilyn 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 around it. And anyway, it seems to me that there is some real 

potential for that. With 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. But 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. It 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 prototype evaluation. That 

might make folks more comfortable. But 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 to 
hold up over a million miles.

>> MARILYN GOLDEN: Yeah. I am 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. Another 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: Marilyn 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 more accessible restroom in there so in doing 

that or things so you have close but not close as well. Because 

that's -- that's a universal situation. No one wants to be sitting 

across from the restroom door. And in situations where we create 

that condition, 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 as 

the options need to be as equivalent as possible. And if there is 
lesser 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, 

wheelchair 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. So we know -- we know not to do that there 

time around. The 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 saying 

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. It 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 hard to do. So, 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 and 
talk to folks at Amtrak. But I know if you 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 equivalent, that I don't know. That 

may -- I would hope it is. That 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 time 

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. And 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 them 
back in. So there is just got to be a way. This is public 

transportation. There 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. That you know you just remove the seats. Chris 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 Chris they showed up with 

regular tickets everybody got on the train I don't know how I wasn't 

there. They didn't get the reduced fare tickets to my knowledge 

they just showed up. But they got up there and fought for what 

they are fighting for. That's my point 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. That's great as long as we -- they are like seeds 

we need more of them it would be nice if the rulemaking told folks 
that is what you have to do. With 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. The 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. The issue of having seats removable so 

you can accommodate more, I think that doesn't necessarily violate 

the law. Somebody would have to look to see if that does. I think 

that's okay. There 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. And collapses them against each 

other it's done by the driver. So, I mean it's not something that 

you have to do with a crew or whatever. The 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. Right 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. But so back to you 
know 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. So, they sort of painted us into a corner is 

that correct? That -- and here is where I am going. If 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) And 
sell out those seats. But this will become an issue more on the 

(inaudible) analysis. But 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. That's 

always the frustrating part. Particularly in our world. When we 

see MTA buying 600 cars we are jealous. Even though ones they 

are replacing are truly worn out. But we would love to buy 600 

cars. Billy, yes.

>> BILLY ALTOM: Quick one. Not 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 seats 

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 seats for the direction of travel there is a lot of 
discussion 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. So, you could have that 

same vehicle with -- today with all of the seats facing the opposite 

direction because we have the rotating seat situation. It 

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. And that is 

very much where things are trending is to go to that all over the 

place.

>> ANDRE GAGNE: I have a question Blair. This is Andre. 

About the space for service animals. Maybe it relates to Dennis 

because he has a dog that's under the table. And 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. So, 

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. And I didn't -- I 
didn't overlap the wheelchair 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. And 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. So 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. If 

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. I am 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 wheelchair. 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. For 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. Momentarily 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 for 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. Thank you. I am going to read a statement into 

the record, I will send a final copy. Thanks 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 rail 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 with 
pesticides perfumes and fragrance tobacco smoke adhesive 

cleaning and maintenance products and auto and diesel exhaust 

many among other exposure. 13 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. Those 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. These include: Using nontoxic fragrance-free products 

remove all scents and fragrance emitting gasses (inaudible). In 

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. Select 

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. And 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 limb 
mated or significantly 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 fellow 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 

maintenance 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 identifies 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 role 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. Also 

recommended justice department develops guidance on 
requirements for people with disabilities. I thank you so much. 

And I really appreciate taking this call especially with my cell phone 

which is not exactly the best way to listen. And if you have any 

questions please let me know.

>> BILLY ALTOM: Thank you Mary very much. And 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. Is there anyone else on the phone that 

would like to make a public comment at this particular moment? 

Hearing none. What we will do is we are going to break to the top 

of the hour? Will that work? Yes, that's our unusual 5, 15 

minutes.

>> Top of the hour is top of the hour. 

(Short recess taken.)

>> BILLY ALTOM: All right folks, if we could make our ways back 

to our seats. All right. Thank 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. If we could go to the 

next slide. I think we have worked the poor Amfleets. Who drives 

the slides? Oh, okay. Now, 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. This is the Acela business 

class coach car, which is the two and two seating versus the two 

and one for those that saw the car on the PRIIA call. The 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 turning circle. And 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. The intended space for folded 

wheelchairs was there is a small 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 expanding the spaces, and you can see to the 

point that Chris made earlier about the tables in this case it's the 
fixed table and you have got access to that as well. The 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. The 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. What 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 drawing. 

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. Someone pointed out in the Amfleet if you put the 

single seat to the aisle side that would create a nice little nest to the 

wall side for the service animal. But 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. So, that's sort of 

where we would -- what we would be thinking. 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. But that's the impact that we are looking at. And you 

know, again, I was looking for clarification. I think I got it from the 
Amtrak 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. I don'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 are 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. It 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. So, that's -- that's that. Any 

questions on the on the Acela layout, yes Frank?

>> FRANK MALDARI: I just had a quick comment about the 

impact that you show there. Increasing 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 you 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 have 
to have more slots if you don't somebody else has to pay the 

penalty. So 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. So, there are operational concerns 

associated with buying more equipment.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Thanks 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. Some things you can't tell we learned.

 (LAUGHTER)

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: But there is quantity and there is quality. 

And quantity of accessibility does not, to me does not mean quality 

of accessibility. And 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. It's not halfway that it's almost as good 

as it should be. And I mean, that's -- I don't know, you can look at 

it both ways. It 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. So that we serve as many folks as we can and as a 

percentage of the community versus just raw numbers.

>> Blair? Sorry, I had a comment, I think yesterday you made 

the comment about there was originally there was big pack back 
when 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. Or 

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. So, 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 sorry.

>> 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. But would it 

make sense to have a car that is all seats and then an adjoining car 

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? I am guessing if it's not a benefit 

because nobody's done it in Europe, and they are pretty smart over 

there. But 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. But it's worst 

looking at. I think -- I think the challenge is depending 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. And 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: This is Uwe. It seems to me what we are 

try to go do here is a retrofitting. And, I think these are very 

commendable ideas to what we can do with existing cars. The 

question is: Should we not look in our recommendations more to 

the future of, you know, we are talking about high speed, next 

generation cars. And 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 path 
to the lavatory, or wash room, and to the -- two or three or more or 

whatever position that we have. I think 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. The -- of 

course, I use the existing vehicles because there are things in 

people's minds and they are running. The 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 existing 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: Sorry for the delay, CART is back online.

>> Rose Marie: Attention.

>> BILLY ALTOM: All righty. I think 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. And once again, I like to turn it back 

over to Blair Slaughter.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. I will put my glasses back on so I 

can see what I have written. Okay. Okay. So we were discussing 

the Acela. And 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. What those impacts 

would be. And when you -- when you -- because we are talking 

about spaces. Once 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. The impacts are the impacts. Because we are talking about 

square feet and square inches. So 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 from something 
that 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 shelf but I was thinking 

more of the airlines.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: The Acela is a closed cabinet. That 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 partitions every 7 or 8 feet that's to keep luggage from 

coming off in a severe impact. That'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. There is also 

the 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. Since 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 we 
are not supposed to be that way. Yay. As 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. They 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. Is 

59-inch space is completely dependent on resolving the post issue.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: 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. So, -- if I could just get the 

FRA -- we have got to sit down and talk some more. If we 

could -- anyone have any other thoughts about or questions about 

what I have shown here?

>> Hello, yeah. Just 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. One of the things that 
sets 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: Sure 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 mitigation 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. There are things to consider. It creates 

challenges how to solve those dilemmas. Chris 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 the ergonomic table folks are 

good.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. So, --

>> I just had a comment based on during the break about maybe 
adding 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. If 

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. It 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 easier 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 is 
in Europe. But you know use it as inspiration for the future of 

American rail.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. It's important to point out we are 

not -- it's easy for us that are designers and engineers to start 

solving the problem. But 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. So, 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. Frank you had a 

comment?

>> FRANK MALDARI: Yeah just a quick comment. The 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. I think 

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. And if you wanted to move the 

parking area down the aisle you have to remove a seat every 
location 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. Okay. Anymore comments?

>> DENNIS CANNON: This is Dennis. Just the statutory 

requirement is that if you have a restroom for the public you have 

to have an accessible restroom. And so, the issue with the -- that 

we were discussing the other day is there is -- in that fixed-consist 

train proposed for Texas is there is no public restroom in every 

other car. There was only a public restroom in alternate cars. And 

the question then is: But each of the cars has to be accessible so, 

each has to have wheelchair space and transfer space. So, the 

question was: Do you have to put another rested room in that 

other car because the way the regulation is currently written, for 

Amtrak, says: The wheelchair spaces must be adjacent to the 

restroom. Whereas in commuter rail it says they have to be in 

close proximity to the restroom. And 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. And the whole point of the discussion the other day was 
is it permissible to have the restroom in the other car as long as 

there is a pathway to get to it. That only really worked -- that only 

works in a fix-consist train or nonfixed-consist train -- you don't 

want people in wheelchairs going between those cars to get to the 

restroom. So, 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 the definition then 

is the not talk about -- we can worry about that. Define 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 -- the nice thing about 

that is it gives you or could give you operationally the opportunity 

to have -- to do both. And maximize your seat capacity and have 

full accessibility with restrooms and all at the same time. It could 

be a good thing. And then you always know your trains are either 

equal number or odd because they have a food car. Okay.

>> FRANK MALDARI: Just a quick comment I think you mentioned 

it yesterday Blair. Because the cars are permanently coupled 

together doesn't mean there won't be movement laterally reducing 
door 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: But 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 able to do XY and Z. The 

fact where there is a married pair and what kind of train it is 

irrelevant really there articulated whatever. So that's an 

engineering solution. Let's do a performance requirement that 
says, you can have a car without -- you can have 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 completely 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. All 

right?

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: A little commercial for Andre there.

 (LAUGHTER)

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. Yes Bob?

>> Bob Reuter: Okay. 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. And they are really 

amazing when you get in there and 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. It'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. There have been cars in the U.S. that were full 

width they preceded the FRA rules that they have done. Southern 

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 MARTIN: 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 clarify that restrooms are 

required in passenger coaches used in inner-city. The rule 

regarding whether if they are provided for the public they should be 

accessible applies only to commuter rail. So that's been the 

challenge with accommodating car designs which have bathrooms 

in every other car. It'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. It'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. But 
that'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. But 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 take it 

apart I can't identify it I don't know what it is. Thank 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 minimum 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. It was driven by the fact 

railroads in an effort to drive passengers away so they could justify 

getting rid of money losing trains to the ICC they just kept lowering 

the standards and driving folks away. That's where you got the 

term "roach coach" from on some railroads. Other railroads never 

did that there were some that did.

>> (inaudible)

 (LAUGHTER)

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay.

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: Technically service does sometimes 
crawl.

>> 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. The 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 congress'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. If 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 passenger process or calmly usher it out of 
existence 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. This is a generic five-unit light rail vehicle. And if it looks 

familiar to some people it's -- there is a reason. But anyway, there 

was an effort and we are continuing that in my office to go through 

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 

talking about here in the committee. So, what I have done here is, 

I think that that was a flip up seat that single seat there. Because it 

did look like it was a 30 by 48-inch footprint as it existed without 

flipping that up. But I applied the new -- the 32 by 59 service 

animal space right over that existing condition. So, 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. Not 

necessarily in the direction of travel. So, if you put some person in 
side 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. But if you oriented it side ways you might useless, I don't 

know. But it seems that a lot of people actually are traveling side 

ways and feel safer this way.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I will make a quick comment brings up a 

very interesting question. The -- 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, and somewhere correct me if I am wrong, is that that's 

what you got. And that was it. And that could be from seat to 

seat or seat to wall. And that didn't mean that you could really get 

into that space.

So, my understanding on where we are trying to be now 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. So, 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. Bob?

>> Bob Reuter: If 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. In most cases, 

or lots of cases when you ride Metro, people simply pull in the 

doorway and stop. And that's perfectly 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 in 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 to 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 not 
usual for that mobility device. So 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. That would guarantee us yeah you 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. And there was 

nothing per se that FTA could hang their hat on. And so, you now 

have a light rail since the wind is blowing (inaudible) but really 

every car is set up for transverse seating. And it just makes for 

awkward issue, because you can't easily fit.

>> This is Robert Carlson. With 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 sit 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. So, 

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. But 
I always ride 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 like 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. Anymore 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. I realize folks are predominantly more 

familiar with 60 and 70% low floor vehicles, but 100% 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. Because the only reason that I am aware of that we 

don't have 100% low floor is for engineering reasons. For the size 
of 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 sizes near the ends of the 

vehicles as I understand it. I am 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. Is there a solution that provides 100% low floor 

perhaps? But it's really -- 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. So, 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. I go to the extreme of the car that's 

the reason I ride up there. If I happen to be riding a short distance 

one place to the other I ride in the middle of the of the vehicle 

because I am close to the door and I get in and out. Depends on 

the size of the car, it depends is it a percentage? Could we 

squeeze out a little bit more low floor space, perhaps. I think the 

question really comes down -- it's really an engineering question 

more than a preference by the railroad or anybody else.

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: If I might clarify. Depending on the 

light rail system, you are dealing with (inaudible) older cars. It 

becomes difficult to meet your crashworthiness clearance, I would 
say, 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. Where 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. That's my understanding, 

Jon and Andre could clarify that. But that's been my understanding 

why some systems just don't have the option. Certainly in Boston, 

we looked at for the next procurement we could not do it because 

of crash issues.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. Bob?

>> Bob Reuter: Okay I am killing those things. The 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. Bombardier and I hate to keep giving kudos 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. How 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 handrails 
and surfaces. So,

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: This is actually a good 

diagram -- handrails and stanchions and using the photos on the 

wall. So, 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. Or we could take a break now and come 

back. It depends a lot on I think how much ground we need to 

cover. Knowing 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. And 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 the 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. And those items are listed in red. So, 

my goal would be get folks free to go 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 get. 

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. This 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. I am 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. Okay. 

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. But 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 near Rolley still had no signal. There 

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 guess the big --

>> Hello?

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Where do we

>> Hello, yes. Hello?

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Hello.

>> Hello?

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: That's Melissa.

>> (inaudible).

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. So, again if there was some 

discussion around 34 by 62. As the -- the accessible space. And 

then I also had a note that someone had sent a note we had had 
discussions around 33 by 56 which accommodates I believe 

according to Ed Steinfeld's information 95% of mobility devices 

including scooters I would 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. That is note 3. And I 

think in that note, the way it was originally written was 32 by 59 is 

required when the 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. But is that 

the number. So we have -- the way I see it there are three 

numbers out there. 32 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. Obviously in some cases more is better. But 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: 59 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 maneuvering 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. Good. That'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. There 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 that lift 

on and to give turning space off of that lift. And 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. I
just 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 stations 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 the platform or 

into a post or whatever else might exist. A stairwell 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 vast 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. Most of the side platforms 

are -- I am not aware of a whole bunch of side platforms where we 

wouldn't be able to accommodate the additional 6 inch. There are 

locations where I guarantee you that probably would be the case it 

would be difficult to do. But 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 my 
experience, we have more issues with using a center platform that's 

only three foot wide to board and alight that where nothing can fit 

on it. Yet there is a crossing there for the lift we would use the 

crossing. And 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. Can I add in, the -- we are 

not going to fix the problem with existing stations. I know 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 

the -- you know, and make a turn to get through there. I know 

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. So, I don't think that we can do that. The 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. So I think that's a problem that's going to exist for a very 

long time until there is a lot of reconstruction much 
stations. -- reconstruction of stations. Same with buses too there 

are places where you can't deploy a lift or ramp that is just 

something that you have to live with. 

>> LINDA MARTIN: This is Linda again. What about the 

idea -- is the Ricon are the Ricon folks in the room? They 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 clear the lip and are able 

to make a turn.

>> This is Gary if I could chime in on that. I am 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. But 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. So 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 arm 
mechanism that 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. So, 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. And 

they didn't hit that they stopped just along the way on the platform 

and it's on a curve there. And 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. It's a real issue. I don't 
know 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 function to be one where if it happened it was 

occupied somebody could fall off you know what I mean? That 

would be -- but again, I think the mechanism is so close there 

when it's in use. When 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. When 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. I think 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, again, that was not a cassette lift and this is, I 

would say 15 years ago. Because 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 still.

>> Gary: I don't think so I don't think those were tied into the 
transmission of the vehicle we required that --

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: No, just to be clear, it was on personal 

vehicles. On the old Ford Econolines.

>> DENNIS CANNON: Could we not redesign lifts.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I was going to toss this over the wall to 

Dennis since it's boarding on alighting.

 (LAUGHTER)

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. But we have got it we captured it 

we know we have to talk about it more. Okay. So, 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. One 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. Don't -- no newspaper should start saying we 

access needs and conflict they love to say that. It's not true.

Anyway, but there has been controversy about it. But you know 

at the rail station the gentleman from WMATA told us at the 
subcommittee 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 Metros 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 disabled 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. And 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. Under 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 width 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. And 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. And 
5B says vehicles that do not -- this is around the whole concept of 

vestibules or the lack of vestibules we are designing space. Or 

otherwise physically defined separation between entrance and 

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 suggested 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. This was suggested to avoid 

a vast no man's land when cars have large side door openings.

>> MARILYN GOLDEN: Right. Are A and C about poles or not.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. A -- well, A is more about vehicles 

that have a defined vestibule.

>> MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay. That'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. Obviously in rapid rail you are filling up across the 

full width and length of the vehicle. There is no vestibule that is 
only used when you are boarding and alighting. So, 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. And 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 than the clear opening of the door -- I'm sorry less than 

the clear door opening apart which is -- whichever is greater. The 

reasoning there if you have a big, wide door you want a stanchion 

that you can grab coming in. And 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. I see.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: No case would it be less than 32 if it's a 

small door condition. And 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. That 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 wall. But 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. The dis-- I see 

what your saying about the 32 inches. It 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 maintains 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. Which 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. The 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. As you progressed 

across the car, that -- that condition couldn't occur again. You 
couldn'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 point 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. And 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 maybe 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. Because -- and I think if we recall the gentleman that came 

from WMATA that did all of the slides of the new cars that they are 

using, had the wind stream next to the doorway. So that it would 

protect both the -- whether it was a seat or wheelchair space. And 

if those wind screens have a vertical bar to hold on to, then that 

eliminates 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 if there is one at the 

door it does nothing cause back up. It'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 doorway 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. It 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. But --

>> ANDRE GAGNE: Could I make a comment on the last comment 

this is Andre Gagne the idea of having a stanchion on the wind -- is 

a good idea we have used this configuration before. But 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 screens 

you get a dead zone where nobody can hold itself on to you need 

stanchion to compensate for that. There is not a single 

configuration to take into account there are many different types of 

cars. >> 

CHRISTOPHER HART: And 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. And I wish that the horizontal poles higher up 

worked for everybody but there is a number of people who cannot 

reach them. So, we have to figure this out. But 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 that 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 enough 
handholds and things to get safely on to the vehicle. And 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-minute come back continue the 

discussion?

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Works for me. 30 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. But we are going to 

dismiss we will break 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. So, be ready to rock and roll. 

(RVAAC meeting will resume shortly.) 

>> BILLY ALTOM: Okay. Folks, let's resume our places. I hope 

everyone had the opportunity to go grab something and go outside. 

What a beautiful fall afternoon it is. My goodness. That should 

give us incentive to wrap this up it's beautiful out there.

College football is in the air that's great out there.

 (LAUGHTER)

>> But now that we are back I would like to turn the meeting 
back over to Blair. Before we do that Blair I have a quick 

announcement to remind our committee chairs that Terry Marilyn 

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 comes 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. But I 

guess if the -- if the idea is that we keep -- in referencing the 

44-inch vestibule 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 

technically 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. But that kind of thinking could address both concerns, 

Marilyn?
>> MARILYN GOLDEN: Yeah. Marilyn 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. So, we are still figuring out -- I don't 

know the right way to word these requirements. Um, I am a bit 

concerned about seeing the clear space from one 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 know 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 diagram 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 potential 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 someone 
who 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. And

>> 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. Just

>> TERRY PACHECO: For just that reason.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: What you say the middle of the space --

>> TERRY PACHECO: I'm sorry. I thought I had -- I thought in 

my mind I had said it. I am talking the stanchion in the middle 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. That'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. But 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 keep 
the 44-inch maneuvering pathway, so it may not be a straight shot 

across the vehicle but you still have a nice, wide pathway to rotate 

and come into the body of the car. But 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. If some of the Metro cars you will see wind 

screens are right inside the door that are solid below a certain 

number and then there is a tan shun on it. There 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. So, 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 no 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. So, there is lots of configurations I am not sure that we 

want to delve into trying to design the interior stanchion placement 
of 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. Not 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. Why 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. The 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 7000 

series pointed out that every doorway will have a wind screen. So, 

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. They went back to the wind screen. But I can remember 

during 6000 series development WMATA did a ton of studies and 
you 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. So 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. As you museum 

through. And 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 that need a 
stanchion or something to hand on to it gets worse when you get 

into crush loading at the beginning and end of the day. Okay. If 

we can -- I think we captured the need, I think we will have to work 

on the detail on that one. Marilyn you brought 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. On the last call that was a 

question that was -- that came up about it was around the PRT the 

personal 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. That is up for discussion, I don't know if it's 

something that we want to -- to hash through today. But 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 transit, cable tramways, 

cog railways, mag lev, PRTs -- I'm sorry PRTs are not in that 

list -- they are item 15 excuse me. So, 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 place 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. Some of the 
other things may be trickier. In 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. That that 

has to be presented to DOT in consultation with the board or 

approval. Basically the oddball things there have been including 

some cable-driven devices that have come up for discussion -- it's 

not quite the same thing as equivalent facilitation. But 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. That 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. So, 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 get 

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 maybe 
avoid 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. Something 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. The PRT said we don't 

have fixed route so we have demand responsive. I have tried to 

disabuse of them. Because 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 

wheelchairs in those but those things need to be fleshed out. 

Those are the ones that I am particularly aware of. And 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. One says we don't have to do nothing because we are no in 

there. They built brand new cars they are not accessible. The 

other one says we want to be accessible but I am not going near 

FRA. And they just sort of -- they wing it. And they are sort of 

accessible and they are sort of almost there. I think as many of 
them 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. So, I think we should at least name them as say, you 

are like light rail unless you ask us otherwise.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That would be -- that would be my 

thinking. Just from the design side, if you -- if you are designing 

you like to know what your parameters are. If you know that you 

have got to handle it in the form of equivalent facilitation right out 

of the chute I think you run the risk of really over burdening the 

process. But there will always be the others the things that fall 

between -- between the cracks of these things. And always the 

ability to come and ask for equivalent facilitation if someone gets 

creative and things of things we couldn't fathom today. So, I guess 

the big question is: Do we leaf those things? Do we keep them in 

as reference or do we leave them as other for time to go on?

>> DENNIS CANNON: My opinion is there are few of them we 

need to at least nail down some pieces to. It doesn't hurt to 

mention them. The problem is, what you usually say in a list is, 

shall include but not limited to.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay.

>> DENNIS CANNON: Lawyers will tell you that that doesn't work, 

somewhere someone will say you didn't mention my system 

therefore it's not covered. So, we have to be careful on relying on 

that to mean that everything is covered. So but the extent that we 
have some information about some of those, that we can tie down, I 

think we should do that.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. Bob?

>> Bob Reuter: The 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. When there is actually a real PRT 

system.

>> (inaudible)

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: Global warming, right? Has already 

been here a long time.

 (LAUGHTER)

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. So unless anyone has any differing 

thoughts I will leave that in there. So --

>> 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. That is what do we do about the aerial 

tramways IE in Portland, Oregon and some others that are being 

considered. I think in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. Because, yeah, 

it's not technically a railroad, it is technically on rails. Albeit cable 

driven, where does it fall? And I just -- I politely said call FTA.

 (LAUGHTER) c but it does raise an interesting question. As 

you guys think about either you may want to perhaps give us at the 
board some guidance as to where things like that belong. If they 

belong here, or elsewhere, or we don't really 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. It got left out.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yeah, I have noted that on my sheet. 

Thanks for reminding of that Bob. And, also, we have a note 10 

which is automated light rail automated sky trains, et cetera. Then 

we get into cable tramways as well. Hopefully 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. And 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 excepts recreational things. Meaning, you know, the 

things at amusement parks and whatever. They 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. It's not -- you are using 

this to transport general population people to different venues for 

the Olympics this is not a ski lift. This is not a recreational device 

to take people to the top of the mountain so they can ski down. 

And therefore it's covered. And 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: This brought up that recreational part the monorail 

came in there. The Las Vegas and Disneyland use exactly the same 

vehicle one is recreational the other is public transit.

>> Arguably.

>> Bob: Yes. Disney 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. And very nice. So, 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? Marilyn 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. So, even if it is 

recreational doesn't mean it's not covered.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. If we look down the matrix, just 

looking at what is red, if we move down -- move to the far right 

under accessible seating details. I added that column, and it refers 
to note 17 and 18. And 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? Seats 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. And typically a 

wheelchair seat is lots of them at least are 18 mine is a little higher 

than that -- generally we -- in the building facilities, the standard 

height is 17 to 19 I believe. I know 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 that 17-19 to be consistent? 

Okay.

>> FRANK MALDARI: Blair Frank MTA again. Is 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. So, 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 seat 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. Just because of the way that you 
sit. So, I don't know when we -- that's a call that I would throw out 

to the committee. But 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 inches 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. When 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. When 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. This is a much more complex issue 

than any of us appreciated. We are actually funding some research 
for 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. But this gets to be pretty dicey. 17 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. But the research that's underway is going to look at 

who the current standards serve and who they don't serve. So, 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. And let us figure it out as we get more 

research. Also, you might want to be clear as to how you might 

measure that because most seats have some contour. So you are 

going to put a straight edge across the stop of the seat and 

measure it at the high points or are you going to measure it at the 

low point. So, 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. Because you could have seats 

contoured all over the place with crazy wings to get it where you 

wanted and not serve the purpose. It would have to be more 

involved than that. We could leave it at a percentile 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 doing a 

transfer that have to get over. And 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. The transfer is different than a 

compressible seat surface. You can do it the way that 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. And I just offer that as just experience for 

what we did.

>> MARSHA MAZZ: Okay.

>> BLAIR 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 understand 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. Because 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. And I don't know 

what the percentile -- let's say 100%. Just for -- no, 95,90, what's 

that number? When 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. They are not all 90 percentile or 95, some of 

them go down to 50 percent time. And 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 transferring. The 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 transfer 
that you may do in society. So, I don't think we have a unique 

situation here. Whatever the percentile works out to be for the 

number of people that actually do transfer it should be that 

number. So, 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. This is not a unique situation.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. And 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. And 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 that as well. If 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. Linda?

>> 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 what you guys get paid for.

 (LAUGHTER)

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. All right. On that happy note. 

Let's see if we move down the line and look at there are notes 14 

and 16 -- wait a minute. 14 and 16 that were added to inner city 

rail. Okay. That was just lumping mag lav in there with them. 

Oh, 16. Current regulations required the number of coach seats to 

equal the number of coaches in the train. But that in fact is not the 

case anymore, right? So my mistake. I think we were -- we talked 

about that earlier. So 16 is really going to go away. But I will try 

to come up with something along the we were discussing the 
married pairs and things like that something to tie that down. So 

scratch 16. I will eliminate that in the conversation for now.

All right. Let's see what was 19 we took care of that. Oh, did I 

add in 19 I thought this was important. The very last sentence in 

note 19 says, no portion of the seat frame or shrouds may extend 

beyond the passenger seat bottom or back. The intention was 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. So, 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. Note 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 rapid rail. It 

comes all the way down. So, 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. That goes across everything the 

way I have the notes right now. Is that Frank?

>> FRANK MALDARI: Yeah I had a commented on that. I think 
the applicability being able to remove seats maybe is more 

appropriate for Amtrak service inner-city service where you have, 

you know, attendant who is starting at a location, you don't have 

the flow of passengers that's as quick in and out. The 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 

removable 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 where 

you are moving people quickly in and out those places are crowd 

typically. Trying to take a seat out of there in a 

crowded -- crowded car is really not an ideal situation. It'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 SLAUGHTER: I think the concept was it's something 

Amtrak has done if a group of folks going from Washington to 
Philadelphia 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. That 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. It 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 car is accessible and balls you only need 

open space, they just sort of move on to the car 5, 6 people in a 

car. If that's filled you go to the next car behind it. And 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 them away than miss them. Chris.

>> 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: Well that's easy it becomes Amtrak's 

problem right?

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: Well that's true. Because there is 

(inaudible) rail there will be California high-speed rail God willing. 

And hopefully some other high-speed rail.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right.

>> EDWARD 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? Huh?

 (LAUGHTER)

>> Blair James here I got a question how this works in practice. 

With 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. But 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. I mean 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. Whole cars, some 

people find that is fun to do if they are traveling together. And 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 this 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. It requires 

some effort but it's not like we are not going to the moon. That 

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. That 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 dimensions. But anyway, that's another 

story. Marilyn? 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. But we can still suggest issues to the -- to pass for the 

Access Board -- for the Access Board to pass to DOT. If we have 
input 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 because 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. Bob?

>> Bob: One of the things we discussed we hadn't come to 

conclusion 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. As a whole to 

discuss.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. Did everyone catch that? Note 8.

>> Actually going off that comment, I think something that we 

haven't discussed is the bi-level inter-city accessibility (Jonathan.) 

and Vertical Access. Did we?

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We have but not today. That's

>> Jonathan: That 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. As far as I am concerned the burden right 
now is in my house to do some application so we see what the 

affects are. I would say at a minimum, for specialty cars like the 

sightseer lounge they have the Vertical Access. And that would be 

as a minimum. It's a nonrevenue car and it's also a key feature car 

that makes that bi-level long distance trip really worthwhile. So, I 

think it's -- we know it's been done. So we can't say it can't be 

done. It's -- I think it has a lot of real value over time. 

Universally. So, we can argue about coaches and sleepers and 

things at a later date. But I think having if we have accessible 

lounge we can -- we can take care of better accessibility for dining 

as well. Which we did talk about some yesterday in spaces. So, 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 much longer.

So, back to that the streetcars number 8. Bob that 

was -- anyone have a thought about that? Do you want to mull it 

over to the next conversation?

>> Bob: That'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. Right now I just when I did the matrix 

for you, I just grabbed 30 foot out of the sky. I think that was a 

bus dimension. So --

>> DENNIS CANNON: The bus dimensions change at 22. And 
the 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. So, there needs to be incidentally 

that is something that we haven't talked about we may need to add 

some definitions. But 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 anti climbers the hard structural points of the 

vehicle?

>> DENNIS CANNON: Something like that. Heavy

>> EDWARD HOFF: I have a question bus is also is based on 

seating capacity or passenger capacity. Maybe rail cars should be 

based solely on capacity and not the length of the vehicle itself.

>> Bob: That'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. Capacity not size. Anybody have 

thoughts what that should be or you want to think about it and 

bring it up at the next meeting

>> Think about it.
>> Janice: When you say that what do you mean by capacity? 

The number of people? So, 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 knowing 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. That 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. Without any dimension 

given. So, 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. And I did say 

that because the cars specked both ways. So --
>> 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. And 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%. So it was 50% -- assuming you had 

50% of seated capacity is standees that was considered to be the 

capacity of the vehicle. So, 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 streetcars if we 

look it -- took it inner-city it's strictly seats we try to avoid 

standees. Though certain horrible times of the year we have that 

condition. Okay. If we could, what I would like to do is touch 

surfaces and that's appropriate right surfaces and 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 couple of quick comments I missed 
the 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. Is that 

right or wrong

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: 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. The 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. And 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. So, 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 service 

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 person has Andraea 

mall tell them to get off?

 (LAUGHTER)

>> FRANK MALDARI: No there is space on the train I mean when 
you allocate the space for wheelchair to the concern I have is what I 

stated you wind up taking more passenger seats away. If 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 SLAUGHTER: 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. That's the 

other thing. The service animals need to be in a particular position 

relative to their person. And 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? It -- 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. But there needs to be some thinking that 

way, I guess. Any thoughts about that? If you want we can park it 

and pick it up again but I think it's worth discussing. Especially 
from 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: Many 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. What that person is more likely to need, 

and be more safe for the dog is an appropriate type of seating area 

where, for instance, the dog can get under the seat. That 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. And the dog cannot actually get under 

there. That'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 that we have space it doesn't necessarily 

have to be in that same space as the wheelchair accessible dog 

assistive dog location. But we do need to be able to have that dog 

get under the seat in which the person is sitting. If that helps.

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: 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. So that we do not cook 
rosy.

>> TERRY PACHECO: Very good point.

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: Depending on what 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. So, 

let me chew on that I will probably reach out and ask questions 

about that as I try to write it. Okay. So, surfaces, handrails, as 

soon as I find my note that Melissa gave me which I had. And then 

hid from myself. Okay. Thinking 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 doesn't work. And some of what does. But 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 it so much better than everything else we 
had. But now we have seen that, that's the benchmark that's where 

we go from. What do we do to define those internal ramps. For 

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. So, that's 

been a handy stick to wave at people. But they also realize, of 

course, 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. Do 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 slopes 

and typically are 2% or less. And 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. I recommend that bee 

start from the building facilities standards that are -- what were 

just mentioned the half, quarter inch half inch bevelled 1 to 12 if 
it's bigger than that and 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. And 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. I need 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. Dennis 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 vehicles 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. And 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 to 
decide how to do that. There are things like that where you have 

to have special rules that don't work in buildings, that I peculiar to 

these kind of things. The issue of cross slope on the surface I 

don't think we can define that, because the cars roll. They have at 

least two degrees of freedom and maybe a lot more. And so, you 

can't--you can't necessarily determine fix that number. It's 

difficult in vessels too. Because they have 6 degrees of freedom.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think we can -- we have to assume work 

everything off of a static condition. And 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. Some of it is 

acrobatics. And trying to get water to do things that water doesn't 

like to do. So, just I would keep that in mind. Ask 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. It's always 

good to challenge the industry but we have 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. Hopefully the floors are heated and we won't have to 

worry about them freezing. Okay. So, the other issue was around 
hand 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. Inch and a quarter to inch and a half. The 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. Did you 

get potentially oval as opposed to just round it allows more 

variability in the design of -- but there are things about the force 

that they have to sustain and surfaces being not slippery. And 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. And that's 

what we are talking about earlier. Where do you put these. And 

there are some requirements in the existing rule for inner-city rail 

and commuter, I think as well. There is an exception because 

there are some handrails that are defined at FRA

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right.

>> DENNIS CANNON: That have a specific mandatory 

cross-section. They are actually quite thin. They don't meet the 

standards for accessibility.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: They are functional devices primarily 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 are 
required 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. And because FRA is very strict about 

not the capacity of the attachments but exactly how things are 

attached. Bolted and nutted and not welded and on and on and 

on. Regardless of what their capacity is. And 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. But 

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 to 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. So, do 

we want to wrap ourselves around the axle on that and give it some 

definition? It'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. Any thoughts on that

>> Jonathan Michael, RailPlan. I had I think we should define it 

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.

>> DENNIS 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. Than to 

have them try to figure out, you know, go look up human scale 123 

to find out what the numbers are. So 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 another shape 

that meets that criteria I think it should be left over. -- left open. 

It shouldn't be a diameter. It should be the minimum diameter of 

one and a quarter as lodge as your hand can reach around it. But it 

shouldn't be limited to a circle. Or that shape.

>> Melissa: There are other perimeter one and a quarter two 
inches are there are perimeter limits that allow different shapes.

>> Okay. I should -- we should copy word for word.

>> EDWARD HOFF: Ed Hoff, New Jersey Transit. As the picture 

by Bob 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. If 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. So, 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 mounted 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. But 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 they 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. They are of similar design but 

they are on top of the seat actually. But they are a small diameter. 

I mean it seems to be a little bit of a free for all. I think that's what 

you are looking for 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. Which 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 different 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. Some of that was collected 

from the notice of proposed rulemaking on the buses, there were 

quite a few comments from seat manufacturers the bus proposal 
required a bar across the back of the seat. And it also required 

certain proposed certain vertical stanchion from every other one of 

those opposite -- you will see it in Metro, for example, that goes 

from that handrail in the back of the seat up to the ceiling. So 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. And 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. Handrails 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. And 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. Do we have anybody on the 

phone that has any public comment they would like to make at this 

particular moment? Hearing none. Anybody in the audience Bob?

>> Bob: Just a closing comment I guess in three weeks the 

international public transportation expo will be in Houston I am not 

sure how many people 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. It is absolutely huge 

to anybody that's ever been there. If anybody has questions wants 

me to pick up 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 going 

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. Blair, you made a comment earlier about 

how to work this in looking at the future. I might make a 

suggestion we follow when ADA was applied. That they gave kind 

of an interim period to incorporate these things or how to do it 
bridging 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 from -- during the proposed 

rulemaking right? How that might be affected. But 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. So,

>> BILLY ALTOM: Thank you. Hang on Chris anybody else from 

the audience? I want to make sure we get all of this in as we are 

required. And 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. Please 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. Blair 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? And then you goo guys can take and plug it into the draft 

language?

>> DENNIS 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 the 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. And 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 rather 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: Is 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 continuous prose helps a little bit with clarification of 

some issues.

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. I think 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 

wheelchairs and that there are two transfer -- James: In 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? One? No it's one.

(Discussion 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 transfer seat and place to 

store. It 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. Because 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. In 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. So I can report 

back to Cal Trans obviously it has such a big impact to their 

operation. Is it -- am I right in re-paraphrasing the current 

proposal is for a certain type of bi-level car only which the tourist 

or specialty scenic type rather than a general inter-city or 
commuter car. 

>> The way I have written innercity long distance rails there are 

comments it should include multiple car types, coaches, sleepers, et 

cetera. My thinking was that it should be based on the nonrevenue 

scenic sightseer type car. That would then allow you some 

accessibility to the activities of adjacent cars. But 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. When 

you -- especially when you look at platform sizes and structure and 

everything else. So 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. It 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. But 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. But 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 revenue 

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 the 
position would be inter-city on the Cal Trans operation at least to 

get people from A to B it's not scenic operation. If the 

determination was made there should be level access 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 on behalf of the board I want 

to thank all of you for coming we are at the witching hour. So, 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 as 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 least one possible modification we know that board and 
alighting Ed Steinfeld would like to participate in that subcommittee 

which I believe is the fourth Thursday of the month. Thursday he 

has a class. So, we are going to evaluate moving it to a 

Wednesday. So, it will the fourth Wednesday of the month. But 

we will be sending out E-mail spelling that we would like to keep it 

at you know, typical sequence in terms of Thursdays. There was 

one other thing. Yes, some Thursdays fall on holidays we expect 

the subcommittees 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. So, that's the 

current game plan. So, communications will be October 2nd I think 

that's the only thing that is pretty much definite.

>> BILLY ALTOM: I have nothing else may I adjourn us? Thank 

you all again, and we are adjourned.

(End of meeting around 3 pm.)