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

**Realtime Translation (CA RT) system used in the Boarding and**  **Al ighting Subcommittee Meeting #6**  **and is generally unedited.**  **T he**  **CA RT sy** **stem 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.** 
**CA RT Operato**  **r: Beverly Early** 

**U.S. A ccess Board**  **Rail Vehicles A ccess A** **dv isory** **Committee Boarding and A** **lighting Subcommittee Meeting #6 Thursday** **, October 23 , 2014**  **M eeting will commence at 1 p.m. eastern.** 

>> PAUL BEATTY: Good afternoon this is Paul Beatty welcome to the 6th meet of the boarding alighting subcommittee. As you know since anyone may participate in subcommittee discussions no time public comment has been scheduled during the two
- hour call. S ince the CART system's chat box is not available, for subcommittee participants who are only using CART to participate and desire to raise a question or make a statement, please use E
- mail address RVAAC @
access - board.gov. W hen speaking remember to give your name, one of the agenda items will be to discuss when your next committeemeeting will occur. N ow, let's list those in attendance in the office.

Wehave Melissa Anderson , Jim Pecht, Rose Bunales and myself. Rose would you indicate who is on the line? >> Rose Marie Bunales: Yes. O kay. G ood afternoon my name is Rose Marie U.S. Access Board today's court reporter is Beverly Early. W hen I say your name please repeat your name and state the organization that you are representing. A nd Beverly if if the line is good say so. I f it needs to be boosted just go ahead and indicate. First one I have Rochelle Despedes >> MTA New York. >> Joshua Coran.
>> Joshua Coran, Talgo. >> Marilyn Golden. >> Marilyn Golden, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.
>> Line is good. M elissa Shurland. >> Melissa Shurland FRA of fice of R and D.
>> The line is good.
>> Kenneth Shiotani >> Kenneth Shiotani National Disability Rights Network.
>> Can you boost his line please? A nd Sid Goldstein. >> Sid Goldstein, editor of Transit Access Report. >> Line is good. D on Mebius. >> LTK Engineering services. >> Operator boost Don Mebius' line please. F rank Maldari>> Frank Maldari, MTA New York. >> The line is good. C rystal Lyons.
>> Crystal Lyons, South W est Transit Association.
>> Uwe Rutenberg.
>> Uwe Rutenberg representing Mo ntreal
>> The line is good.
>> Judy Buckley. >> Judy MTA New York. >> Please boost Judith's line please. D ennis Cannon. >> Dennis Cannon National Disability Rights Network >> Christopher Hart.
>> Chris Hart the line is good >> Ed Hoff >> Ed Hoff New Jersey Transit.
>> the line is good. >> One more more check Kenneth Shiotani >> Kennth Shiotani National Disability Rights Network. >> Judy Buckley >> Judith Buckley MTA New York.
>> the line is good who is in charge. >> PAUL BEATTY: Thank you Rose. P aul Beatty we will turn the call over to the chair of the subcommittee Marilyn Golden. G o ahead Marilyn. >> Ah, unmuting would help. T hank you Paul. F irst, let's
-- Ithink our introductions are done of the welcome everybody. N ext we

have approval of the agend a. T he list in section 4 was a brainstorm from Melissa, thank you Melissa. A bout remaining business for our subcommittee. A nybody have any issues with the agenda? G iving you a minute to
-- moment to unmute. O kay. S ounds like we are fine on that. The
-- moving on to our meeting schedule, given our subcommittee boarding alighting has been scheduled at the end of the month, there is the November/December calendar put us square reon holidays the staff went to work and suggested potential refiguring of dates. A nd they looked at the different subcommittees and which might need to meet more versus less. T he proposal is, I guess I want to see if this is okay with everybody or with most of us hopefully because sometimes we can't get dates for every single one of us, but we would not have a meeting in November. S o, our next meeting would be in December. T he third week not the fourth. I think that would be the third. S o, it would be the 17th of December or the 18th the Thursday of December. I am shooting fo r the 18th myself. And then in January, back to the last week the 28th or 29th We dnesday or Thursday. A nd then we have of course the in
- person meeting February 6 and 7. P aul, would you
-- were you going to
-- say something or someone? >> PAUL BEATTY: T his is Paul speaking no, I have nothing more to add. I guess it's more finding out Dennis subcommittee roomsand spaces would be the one that is sort of losing a slot for the month

of December. A nd boarding alighting would be taking their slot. S o, all of the subcommittee chairs responded saying it's okay except I haven't heard from Dennis I guess I am making sure it's okay with his subcommittee they only have one meeting between now and end of the year which would be November 20th. >> Dennis: T hat's okay. >> Marilyn: A ny comments questions concerns with that somewhat revised meeting schedule? And, Paul presumably you will send it out for everybody now that you have Dennis
-- >> PAUL BEATTY: This is Paul speaking. O ne other thing when I sent out the potential schedule to you Marilyn I indicate December 17th or 18th same thing in terms of January 28th or 29th We dnesday or Thursday. You had indicated that December
-wise the 18t h was best for you. O ne of the reasons why we had selected a We dnesday was we were thinking that Ed Steinfeld wanted to participate. W e think that might be more of an issue for the on board circulation and seating subcommittee. As compared to boarding a nd alighting. W e don't know what his availability is regarding December. Or January. S o, we -- so, -- >> Marilyn: I t's probably the 17th would probably be okay for me. Weshould
-- yes anyway. >> PAUL BEATTY: Okay. You are saying we should check
-- we should check with Ed and decide either the staff shoulddecide whether it's the 17th or 18th realizing you prefer the 18th? >> Marilyn: E d Steinfeld had teaching on Wednesday >> PAUL BEATTY: Thursday. You might be on break school could be over by the n. S o is your direction to us that go ahead make the change in terms of whether it's the 17th or 18th or 28th or 29th to check with Ed first and then finalize it? >> Marilyn: I f anyone have preferences for the December or January dates now is the time to say. F or me, the January dates are both fine. F or the December I slightly
-- you know, I slightly prefer the Thursday. A nybody else have any druthers on this? L ooks like whatever you think is needed Paul. >> PAUL BEATTY: Okay. W e will check with Ed and send out to everybody the revised schedule for conference calls. >> Marilyn: M ov ing on to our discussion items. W e have had some maybe new people coming on or off do we need to do anything like that finding out who they are or saying introductions or anything? >> Rose Marie Bunales: This is Rose Marie I do see who they are just real quick I have Calvin glib son Glenn Millis Michael Chisena and David Martinez did I
-- do I have your names correct. >> Yes, for David Martinez. >> Rose Marie Bunales: Yes >> Yes Calvin Gibson >> Yes, Glenn Millis. >> Rose Marie Bunales: And the lines do sound good thank yougo ahead Marilyn.
>> Marilyn: T hanks. W e have now on the proposal sent out from Melissa and Melissa thanks forgetting all of this ready hopefully
eve ryone got the latest. W e have now seen this proposal a number of times. W e had it at the in
- person meeting. W e had a very small change at the top of the second page the section called operations, operation, deployment this is looking at the middle of th e paragraph deployment shall result in a gab between
-- gap between the that meets the requirements stated above or shall eliminate the gab entirely that last phrase was added arguably redundant but it mattered a lot to the committee member who wanted that language and it seemed completely harmless and all good, so we put it in. Otherwise, we have
-- we have had this for a while. A nd it was my impression at the in
- person meeting after our discussion that people have consensus on this proposal. D oesn't me an it's not going to change further. B ut as of now the changes that we have so far from the current requirements seems like people are okay with. W hat we want to make
-- just wanted to check if we have consensus, consensus doesn't mean 100% agreement. B ut it may mean
-- it may mean that if, you know, most of us are with it, we will go forward with it and anyone who doesn't agree with parts of it can you know certainly all of these issues will come up again before the full group. S o, ratification out of the subcommittee certainly is not final vetting for these proposals. B ut they are
-- it is the first hurdle one could say. S o, with that, anything anyone wants to sayabout having problems with where we are with this proposal? W e

have had some discussio n. O h, about discussion, I want to just put out
-- let's hear what people have to say and go back and forth and try not to be too repetitive if
-- you know, after a little discussion let's kind of see where we are. B ut I don't want to cut anybody off. S o, I will try to
-- I will try to thread that needle and be both democratic but not sort of taking up lots and lots of time discussing the same thing. So, okay I think that's everything. A ny comments? C oncerns? >> This is Frank Maldari from the MTA I stil l have the concern about requiring and automatically deploying bridgeplate. I said it a few times, I don't think it's necessary for us to dictate that it has to be attached to the car and be automatically deployed. T he key is making sure that it's availa ble and requiring it to be attached to the cars is an extra level of complexity that depending on the operation is not in the best interest for safety. I f you have to buy only cars that have automatically deploying bridgeplates it kind of limits what you can get. And the
-- in some cases when you have you know, small, short
-- small amount of equipment, and you feel that it's better to use a manual deploying bridgeplate, I believe that works just as good it provides the access that you need, without the a ssociated complexity and reliability issues associated with an automatically deploying bridgeplate.
>> Marlin: T hanks Frank I remember MTA had that concern. Others? Other discussion from other parties about this? J ust be aware of where the rest of the group is>> This is Josh. >> Talgo. >> I don't
-- I am not sure if people are picturing this ramp as they should be. T he knew Acela replacement program Amtrak is the side of the car should have 51 inch high floors we asked them to reduce 48 they did not. So there is a nominal difference of 3 inches between this bridgeplate going to have to be at least two feet long. Talking about major components here and as it unfolds how it prevents
-- prevented from hitting people I am not sure I can picture how it wo rks. I am with Frank this could create a very serious situation. >> Marilyn: W ho can respond to those questions? >> This is Ed Hoff. I think that we envisioned that regardless of how long the bridgeplate was, that it would
-- it would be designed with
a maximum allowable slope did we specific identify one? Yes for 3 inch you are talking about 2 feet long. W here the gaps horizontally are probably somewhere between 4 inches and probably 12 inches. S o, the bridgeplate will in all likelihood need to overl ap the platform by at least a foot. A nd bring you on to the detectable warning surface where we all know customers, although asked not to stand that close to the edge of the platform, in all likelihood are standing. S o there is
some -- some concern that as the bridgeplate deploys, there will be people on the platform that need to be mindful of that. I n most cases, again, this is I am not exactly sure how it's handled it's still a concern. But in most cases railroads make an announcement to please allowpeople to exit the vehicle before boarding. We all know how that goes

usually. T here is some crowding near where the doors open. However, it's inevitable depending on what system that you are on there will be people getting off that you need to make roo m for. You should not stand right in front of the door. As the door opens. S o, I am really just presenting the
-- the scenarios without really saying how strong of a concern there is. I do see there is a concern and a possibility. T hey are not going to -- I don't expect that they are going to be moving at such a rate and perhaps we discuss what rate they do deploy giving people time to react so they don't come shooting out and could injure somebody and the timing with the door opening. W e discussed th at, that's in the proposal that they should deploy prior to the door opening. S o, that was just presenting the scenario, I really don't
-- I really don't know to what extent the concern is. >> Marilyn: Others? T hank you Ed. >> This is Frank again, I just wanted to comment on some of the issues that Ed brought up. O ne thing that you have to realize is that this is going to be applied to new equipment only. N ot it's not retrofitting to old equipment. S o, when properties are buying new equipment they are going to have this new piece of equipment where you could possibly be having it fold out bridgeplate. A nd, yes, the authorities we do make announcement saying stand clear of the doors allowing people to exit. T hat certainly doesn't stop them from standi ng in front of the door. W hen #
- 9% of your equipment you can stand infront of the door without a bridgeplate coming out at you. I t's going to

be hard for them to get used to this automatically deploying bridgeplate when you have a 10
- car train 20 doors opening it's really difficult to make sure that nobody is getting hurt when these things are deployed. The amount of safeties that you have to put on them is still not going to prevent somebody from accidentally getting hit somebody from getting tripped
-- you know, you are creating a safety hazard that doesn't currently exist so you can have an automatically deploying bridgeplate. I don't think it's a good idea. M aybe in some circumstances, depending on how the car and the platform align where you don' t have a vertical gap it might be a good idea but what you are doing is creating
a one -stop requirement that requires everybody to somehow address it recognizing that there are difficulties associated with this application in certain circumstances. A nd yo u don't want the thing to deploy quickly. And you still got to keep in mind we run 3 to 5 minute headway at some of these stations these trains are moving quickly. You have something that takes 5 minutes to deploy. You have to change your schedule to al low for that that's every station. S o, you know, I am saying that
-- I am saying it's not bad if you can use it and you have an operation and circumstances that allow for it. B ut to require it universally is wrong and it's going to create problems. >> Th is is Melissa Anderson, and just one comment on what you just said Frank. I f you are worried about headway capacity if you have to wait for someone to manually deploy a ramp or bridge late it's goingto take a whole lot longer. I am wondering if this is should that should

be addressed by mode where inner
- city is separate from rapid rail and
-- >> This is Chris. I was at the (inaudible). I want to understand
some -- I understand others questions particularly for
-- how do we actually get independent boarding. I n the older systems, clearly 25 years later we are still having trouble. S o (inaudible) broken down by obviously the issues
-- all of the high
-speed rail if they are not necessarily apply to light rail or to heavy rail. I just note it (inaudible)

. Wesaw several automatically deploying bridgeplates and door systems, and deploying on steps where it wasn't quite (inaudible). S o, manufacturers have figured out the solution. I t's now a question of how you implement it. A nd what mode. >> Marilyn: Yeah I would like to hear
-- I would like to hear from the people that proposed this from the subcommittee or the small group that wrote the proposal. T he idea was what forward thinking proposal
-- I mean here at the subcommittee level, the idea was to
-- what forward thinking proposals might we have because there will be plenty of time in the regulatory process, you know, with the full group and then the board proposed rule and more steps that the board chooses to put in. So, there is a lot of time to take out things. B ut usually not time to vet, you know, new forward thinking ideas. S o, I thought it was interesting those of you that thought this was a good idea andworkable. S o, let's hear from
-- I hope you will speak up and you

know
-- but let's hear from different people than we have heard from already. I f there are any who want to say anything. >> This is Uwe Rutenberg. I saw some of this technology applied in some European trains. A nd I think the people who menti oned mode before you are right, you cannot make it a mandatory requirement. I n some cases it might work. I have seen it on commuter trains, and there is definitely an extra delay in deploying and retracting these
car- borne gap fillers or bridgeplates wha tever you call them. O n the other hand, the Metro in Vienna and Austria is using these on all of their
cars. I t would be interesting to find out what kind of safety problems they have. I don't have any information on that. >> Marilyn: T his is Marilyn with the question Uwe they can't be mandatory on every mode or
-- >> on every mode yes, I would say it depends on the mode and the amount of traffic that you have on platforms. B ut on the other hand, as we have seen Vienna on the Metro, I mean there is a h igh capacity of people on the platforms and it still seems to work. S o I don't know if this is part of their education program or people are used to this, I have no idea. I t would be interesting to find you know what kind of problems or not problems that they would have. >> Dennis: T his is Dennis we put it in there in part because I have seen some of the, you know, like on the German high strain and so forth the automatic draw bridge kind of thing it works very well. T heissue here was that when the doo rs are open automatically as opposed

to Amtrak and others where the door is essentially opened by a person on the train, and that person can decide whether to push a button or to
-- or whether it opens automatically and deploys. I am somewhat skeptical of some of these safety issues not because I don't think they may exist. B ut I can recall back in the 70's when we started talking about lifts on buses, we had the same kind of horror stories and horror accept sevens proposed about people were going to fall off
-- rush out the door when the lift was down and fall off. P eople were going to get cut by the lift coming out and the ramps all of that none of that has materialized. I t just doesn't happen. A nd I am not convinced that it's that big a deal for the rapid rail system. And, obviously, it's true that there will be mixed fleets for a while. T hat's true of every system and every change. W e have a lot of different cars and configurations in the Metro system here and they are going to introduce new ones. Everybody has to sort of get used to which cars are going to be accessible and good and which considers are going to require some
more -- I am concerned about the people talking about headways that the lift or ramp unless you are going to say, well, on t he platform we are going to have a portable one of the reasons we are having a car
- borne device it is with the car as opposed to on the platform. I n a compartment or something. I f it's not automatic but it's manual. I f it's on the platform you have got to figure out which door somebody when the wheelchair is going to be added in and get the bridgeplate to thatdoor. O ne of the issues was the reason for car
- borne was to make

sure that it was with the vehicle and not something that you had to retrieve. Automatic seems to be I have seen videos and so forth with a variety of automatic newly deployed devices I am not convinced that the problem is quite as
-- quite as large as is being envisioned here. And, again, all of the horror stories about people getti ng hit by lifts and ramps I find I am very skeptical about the reality of those kinds of things. >> This is Frank again just to comment on some of Dennis' comments. >> Dennis: I am having a real hard time hearing Frank is this
-- are other people having t his problem >> Marilyn: N o, I heard Frank I don't know if anybody else is having problems. I was just going to see, I was going to Frank do you mind if I just ask to see if anyone else has comments >> Frank: G o ahead when you want to hear my comment and you are done with them >> Marilyn: W e are happy to hear your comments. I wanted to kind of see who else has comments.
>> Frank: S ure. >> Marilyn: A nybody. >> Hello Marilyn this is Blair. >> Hi Blair.
>> My apologies for coming in late I won't stay for the full term I have another commitment to go to. B ut from the inner
- city viewpoint,you know, anything that's mechanical, anything that deploys

automatically has got its challenges, we went through all kinds of gyrations with the Acelas just getting the side doors to work. A nd they settled down sometimes they don't open as quickly as we would like. But looking at the conditions there may be
-- I suppose the worry from an operator standpoint is what happens when our
-- when we are in extreme conditions where we are fighting big weather issues of ice and things like that. T here may
-- my point is there may be
-- from my point of view if I am able to make the call, if we end up with self deploying devices, and I expect at some level that we will, I would still probably keep ramps at the stations because in extreme weather conditions like we saw last winter where doors are iced over and frozen and you just can't
-- can't seem to pump enough heat into anything to get it to work, there may be occasions where the system is so buggered up with ice and things that you have to resort back to manually go fetch a ramp kind of thing. B ut that would be the exception not the rule. B ut I know from the railroad point of view, you know, any
-- any additional device that you add is seen as terrifies mechanical folks because oh, my God are we going to be able to make
-- buying is one thing keeping it working is another. S o it's just one of those inherent fears that we worry about. I think from our point of view. O nce -- once people are aware of what is happening when a particular train arrives, we had the Amfleet cars are going around now almost 40 years and their doors simply slid open the Acela shows up its door pops open. I don't thinkthat we see the problem that Frank sees with New York City where

someone once said the goal if you are going to get on a subway car in New York is to press so tightly to the car when it stops that if the car were filled with water, when the door is open, not one drop of water would be l ost.

(LAUGHTER) >> Blair: S o I see where Frank is coming from. I don't think that we will
-- would have the same degree of issue in inner
- city. T here are always the mechanical issues you know a car will been route and have a failure. S o, we have to be mindful of that. >> Marilyn: T hanks Blair. S o, all of your comments Blair
-- you were talking about where doors are automatic only right? >> Blair: D oors and a deployable ramp. I mean there are conditions that I am reading here of one and two at th e gap where it's talking about if these conditions occur, then you will have
-- if it's more than the plus or minus 5/8 or more than 2 inches it will be a you know a
car- borne or some other device to address that. H ow did it say. >> Marilyn: C ar- borne ra mp or bridgeplate or car
- borne lift.
>> Blair: S hall be deployed. A nd I understand where every one is coming from on the car
- borne, because you know, you show up at a station and where is the
-- where's the bridgeplate we have run into that with situatio ns. A nd everyone is scrambling around. A nd it's kind of it's annoying at best but end up delaying the train and the reason it isn't is because someone was there using a wheelchair it's because wedidn't know what we did with the darn bridgeplate. A nd no one

seemed to know. S o, I mean from the inner
- city standpoint, my fear level isn't as extreme or worry level isn't as extreme as Frank's there will be points wheren route you have failures because of weather and I think the railroads need to be
-- it mig ht be worth putting in there there needs to be a fall back if
-- if there is dependability issue that can't be engineered out, because of weather changes that the where the
-- that the railroad or the authority has to make some provisions to deal with it. >> Marilyn: Others? Others? Anybody? F rank you had some responses? F rank: Yeah I just wanted to make a couple of more commentsal lodge the lines of what I was
--al lodge the line lines of what I was saying before. W hat bothers me and what I think maybe is not clear is when you require it everybody has to do the same thing. It's
-- I think in my mind it's okay to have manual bridgeplates and in some circumstances, when the operation is suited for such a thing, maybe you will get some automatically de ploying bridgeplates. B ut to require it all the time I don't think is a good idea. A nd I know that
-- you know, when you are making
-- putting something on a train, a moving train it's typically much more complicated and difficult than making something work on a wayside which doesn't move. A nd you know, there the movable platform that's being made for Amtrak, I mean that's pretty complicated, pretty expensive. A nd they had to overcome a lot of obstacles what to do in weather conditions to heat it to get that thing to work. I know they have been working hard on it. A nd it's just notan easy thing to do. S o, that's got to give you some idea of the

complexity and you are not talking about doing it on one lotion
-- one location on a car you are typically talking about four locations on every
car. M ost cars have four doors that's a lot of brink plates. S omebody mentioned Gee you have to
-- if you have a manually deploying bridgeplate somebody has to get out and deploy it, well, typically yes that's true for the very first station that somebody gets on there may be a delay but when that person gets off the crew is going to be ready and he is going to pop in and out of the door that's one or two stationsal lodge the way not every door on every car at every station that this is going to be deployed at. T hat's a lot more duty that's a lot for potential for delay. A nd you know, the 3 to 5 minutes headway is a real condition. T he other thing that I wanted to make sheer is, you know, people say they see these t hings in Europe. I think you know from what I have heard they are not really the best place to judge what you can do for maintaining minimizing gaps. I mean, you know, it's one thing to say that the bridgeplate is coming out it's another thing to say that the bridgeplate results in a gap which is less than two cinches horizontal 5/8 of an inch at every station you stop. I f you are trying to make a gap smaller that's much different than making it as small as possible. T hat's another thing to keep in mind

. >> Marilyn: Q uestion for the small group. D oes this require a self deploying device at every door or per car? >> Dennis: T his was intended to be door. Assuming that insomething like rapid rail essentially every door is available as opposed

to an Amt rak car where there is only one door that has to lead to the parking space or the seating space, sorry. >> Uwe: T his is Uwe. I think it's not only for you know persons in the wheelchair to bridge the gap. W e have seen cases where you have four to six in ch gaps horizontal gaps it's for the safety of all passengers. S o the reason to put it on each door is to minimize the accident probability for every passenger that gets on or off the train. >> Uwe. T hat's a good point that you brought up. At the Long I sland we have gone through an exhaustive research of our platforms and our cars and we basically got our gaps up down to 3 to 5 inches specifically for that reason. I t's a safety concern for everybody getting on and off the train. I submit to you that a train that shows up without any device popping off of it is 100% safer than having things pop on and off of it for every door opening. W e are down to 3 to 5 inches which is pretty darn good. A nd that doesn't meet the standard, and I submit to you that if we have to put these manual
-- automatically deploying bridgeplates on every single door on every single car we are going to have more safety issues than we currently have for the average passenger. >> This is Ed Hoff. I hear the argument, I guess, unles s somebody correctly
-- somebody correct me. I s really from a safety standpoint. T here doesn't seem to be arguments about finances necessarily. W hatever the issue is whether mixed fleet or otherwise itseals to be mostly a safety issue with the exceptio n of Blair's comment

about having a back up or contingency system in place which I think for most systems may be natural. T hey may have as we do bridgeplates on the platforms right now. As new vehicles are introduced we continue to have the manually depl oyed bridgeplates from the platform base well into that. S o, I think those systems may be in place for a lot of places. B ut the safety aspect of it we are certainly guessing at it. Wehave some concern, we all agree there is a concern there we don't know to what degree it is. S ome of us differ on opinion what degree the safety concern is. I don't think that we are going to be able to resolve it in this forum. N one of us can resolve it. I think it has to be. It needs to be proposed forward. A nd it h as to be some
-- testing sore some kind of data driven that shows that the concern is so extreme that the proposal wouldn't be able to move forward. I think it's a very good idea to have bridgeplates on cars for the reasons stated before. I think the automation of the bridgeplates is a natural progression of technology and certainly something that we all want to see happen but we all want to see happen in a safe way. I f it could happen in a safe
wa y I don't think there is going to be anymore argument. I think we that we move the proposal forward. A nd if there is hard fact about safety issues, then that may either reduce it down by mode perhaps it's mode driven or eliminate it all together. >> Blair: T his is Blair. O ne other thing to consider, and it m ay be worth putting in as
-- to request industry comment or something toput it in as an advisory, but right now I am dealing with a situation, a

gap situation we are going to step in the
-- where someone stepped into the gap which happens more often then I like to think about. P eople don't pay attention plain and simple. I think that one of the realities of people in the disabled community or have any sort of issues is that you pay attention probably better than the average American who just doesn't look at anything.

(LAUGHTER)
>> And to the abyss. (LAUGHTER) >> It boggles my mind. W e do run the risk when you
-- if I looked at our trains at Am trak, and I have got four doors on the car two on each side, and I have got an accessible end of the car versus every door leading to an accessible space, I could say, well, we are only going to put on one automated ramp but people are used to that thing b eing there they look each less and step into the gaps so I will have to put them everywhere or nowhere. B ecause of that. And then, you are back into the situation, well, okay if something happens because machines break it's natural. A nd the door opens i t opened automatically. A nd the device didn't deploy but people have got it in their heads it's there. T hey are just
-- they are going to step into the gap. N ow, if you are a wheelchair and you roll up you are expecting it to be there and it's not. W el l, because you are paying attention to what is going on in your world. B ut the you know the typical am Beulah torerepassenger is on their phone doing other things whatever they are

going to step into the hole. So, it may be worth considering some kind of
-- and I hate
-- it will drive folks bonkers on the railroad some kind of interlock some other extra warning if the automated device doesn't deploy so that there is an extra attention getter so if the door opens and the gap filler whatever it may be doesn 't deploy there is something that lets people hey pay at tense. S omething is not completely right you are going to have to default to being careful. A nd step across the gap.
>> Marilyn: S o, Blair you were suggested an automatic announcement if the device doesn't deploy for some reason.
>> Blair: I mean you could do multiple things. You could have
a -- you could have a
-- an interlock
-- well you have to think about what the sequence of events are. I f the bridgeplate is deploying and then the door is o pening, or vice
-versa or it all happens at once. I f something inhibits the deployment of the bridgeplate do you want that door to open without overriding it someone actively over riding it for emergency issues. O r do you want to take a more passive route and say, okay, if the door opens and the bridging device doesn't deploy, because it's packed up with size or
-- with ice or something, there is a flashing light and a tone or something that gets people
-- that gets people's attention that there is, there is something missing that they need to pay extra attention before they bring themselves to a danger point. T he problem
-- the problem with having an interlock so the doorceases to function could create a whole other, you know, mess of

trouble for the aut hority. E specially if you are in terribly inclement weather and everything is delayed anyway. B ut perhaps a tone or it could be part of the whole door tone flashing light signal system that alerts passengers that the door is closing or some issue. B ut i t's something worth thinking about. B ecause we will
-- you always run the risk when you get people accustom to something occurring if it doesn't occur that's when the problems crop up. >> Marilyn: T hat's a good point. O kay. J ust in the interest of movi ng forward, what I have heard is a fair amount of support for the proposal, some concerns, especially from MTA and I think one other
-- from Talgo if I remember correctly. S ome skepticism about the concerns from the disability community, which sort of I h ave to agree with because we have always heard safety concerns for anything new it doesn't mean the concerns are wrong this time, but it would be typical if it was more just what Dennis described. B ut we can't know from sure I heard from Blair a number of discussions additional interlocks. W ays to get people's attention possible announcements. And what
-- my understanding from the staff is that given that
-- the concerns seem to be in the
-- the wishes to change seem to be in the minority. T he important thing
-- most important thing is that we need to make sure that both viewpoints are represented in the report that we give to the full committee. A nd of course anyone who wishes will have a chance to make comments on the report and to talk at the full co mmittee. Andthat it may even need to be resolved during the rulemaking. S o,

it's
-- it sounds like we have
-- we have not complete
-- we have relative consensus but not complete unanimity are people okay with taking the steps that I described that I und erstand from staff, again representing disagreements in the report we are going to write, and for everyone to know at every level this comes up you know you can verbally also state your concerns. A nd I also thought that Ed's point was good, I think it
was you, Ed, summarizing that the concerns were mostly safety other than Blair's which pointed out a number of, you know, more of the technical
-- the thing is frozen. T hat seems to be to be
-- that seems to me to be the best way to move forward. Q uestions about that clarifying questions. S taff, if I misrepresented it please say. >> W ell, let me make a suggestion. I mean there is two different viewpoints on this topic. S ome people who want it some people that don't. I f you can write a report you can put them both in there. You can see these are the reasons why we think it's a good idea. A nd these are the reasons why we think it's a bad idea. S o, you don't have to start from ground zero every time we talk about it. I t will be clearly laid out. A nd you know it will be easier for people in the full committee to get an understanding of what the issue is. I t's a lot of things that we have done here that you have consensus on. T here are a lot of good things moving forward that are going to make it easier for anybody with a disability to get on and off the train. And that's a plus for the entire group. T his is one issue that I think there is significant difference ofpoint on, and if you are going to go forward with this I think that you

have to identify the dissending opinion as well as the one for it. S o -- >> Marilyn: I think you are saying what I am saying both will be represented in the report and verbally nobody is stopping anyone in discussion on the full committee. B ut I am not sure that I would agree, necessarily, that we know yet
-- I think I have a sense, I could be wrong -- of sort of the group as a whole. S o, I would just like to hear from other people about wanting this to go forward or not. I t seemed like we had two comments against and that's all. Of course a number of people didn't comment at all. I know that MTA has concerns Talgo has concerns. I don't want to really count numbers if we have a lot of people from MTA that's MTA just to get other organizations that haven't commented. Anybody on who hasn't commented and would like to? >> This is Ken Shiotani I don't know if I count Dennis is our representative not only the
-- I am only the alternate. I t does seem like we are looking forward towards, and you know some of these things d o exist in other systems. S o, you know, in a rulemaking the effective date could be you know, two years out or something which has happened in some rulemaking or three years out or five years out. B ut it just
-- it seems like it's within the realm of
-- it's being done in some places, and you know, if a rule requires improved access for everybody, that is where you know, we should be going as we are looking to future rail cars. >> Ken, this is Frank. I think you make a good point. I t's done insome places. I n some places for some operations it's a good idea.

You are making a rule that affects every single operation. A nd I think that's where the problem is. W e can argue about this all day but I think the idea is museum forward as Marilyn said is put b oth opinions down in the report, and
-- because you know, you are not going to get
-- when I am talking to the MTA I am talking for Metro north and I am talking for the TA and I am talking for the Long Island Railroad. T hat's a lot of cars and a lot of op erations. I t's not just me that has this feeling. A nd I have spoken to a couple of other operators and there is a consensus on our part which is a large amount of the people in the operating community that feel this is a problem. A nd not everybody is
re presented here. A nd I am only representing the MTA it's a pretty significant group of operations that I am representing, and it's a big issue for us. S o, you know if you still want to move forward with recommending it, I think you have to have the dissen ting opinion. And then we can move on to something else.
>> Marilyn: W ell, no one is saying
-- this is Marilyn. N o one is saying the dissenting opinion will be in the report as a dissenting opinion I think I said that clearly a couple of times. I f you have concerns it will be discussed in the report. B ut I am not sure it's really a 50/50 kind of thing. As we already said earlier if we have to we will vote. J ust as an indicator of where we are. T here is a number of people who haven't addressed their view. I f you have that's good I appreciate that.>> This is Melissa Anderson.
>> Any other thoughts for those who haven't been speaking? >> This is Melissa Anderson, I think that we probably need to move on and just know that we need both opinions in the report and maybe this will be resolved during the rulemaking, and maybe the report could contain some questions for us to propose to industry to help sort this out. >> Dennis: T his is Dennis, I want to remind everybody that
-- we did this with the 255 rep ort where we combined
-- instead of having a dissenting opinion or you know a dissenting minority report we included the
-- the pros and cons in the bulk
-- in the report itself. S aying, some people felt this some people felt that. A nd I would ask for on e thing, that the problem
-- or the issues that have been raised here by the industry that the industry Frank et al., needs to sort of make a bullet list of those for us. D on't try to make us remember them because I don't remember them all. S o if you wou ld send something in writing that we could include in the report to say, here are the issues pros and cons. And there will be a comment period when the regulation is issued plus the board has to do a regulatory assessment which is basically a cost benefit analysis at which time it's going to have to look at a whole variety of issues like when the
-- whether something is feasible when it's going to cost, and those kind of things. All of those issues will be addressed at some point in the rulemaking. S o, I don't want people to think that what we say or recommend is necessarily going to show upas we recommended. >> Marilyn: T hat works for me. W e are going to be talking about the report, so at that time it makes sense for those who want to send in pros and cons and the people that you know the small group et cetera the group that wanted automatic deployment also need to send in the pros that you see. T he benefits
-- the arguments for having it. O ne thing I am glad to observe is that other than automatic d eployment, it seems to be that we have consensus full consensus in fact unanimity on everything else in the proposal so that's a good thing. >> Could I just speak to that one point? U nder
-- >> W ho is this? >> I'm sorry Ed Hoff, New Jersey.
>> Hi go ahead Ed.
>> Ed: O n the issue of scoping, I don't know if it's necessarily an issue or not. I read it I don't know many, many times under scoping but I am still not sure. I f you have at the time let's say 10, 15 years from now these vehicles hit the rails, a nd you have a mix of high level platforms and still maybe a few low level platforms. T he requirement is written, correct me if I am wrong, requires that the new vehicles be able to provide boarding no matter what level the platform is at. S o if you have high level platforms you may have bridgeplates that simply are used to bridge the 3
- inch horizontal and some
-- I'm sorry 3
- inch vertical and horizontal gap if you travel to the next station there is no accessibility because the station has not been altere d yet you simplyhave a low
- level platform. A re we then required to provide lifts as well

on board to serve that station? >> Dennis: T his is Dennis. T hat was in fact the issue that you basically have a choice, you can get
-- and you have more or less have a choice of where you deploy these new vehicles at least from the beginning on various routes and so forth. I n Amtrak we have double deckers that can't run down the Florida because of tunnels and so forth they only run in certain parts of the country a nd there are other trains that are designed because they only work in the west coast or they only work on the east coast. A nd so, there is a whole variety of things like that. T he issue was that if you have got a set of stations where you have platforms that are all relatively at the same height, and you have cars with floors that are all say new ones all have the same height you are going to order them to run on that corridor and you probably use bridgeplates. I f you are running trains in a variety
-- i n a mixed station environment where you have got some that like in Orlando for example where you have no platform that is asphalt runs up to the rail. A nd you have other kinds of stations where there may be an 8
- inch above top of platform. A nd a few 21
- i nch or something like that it makes
-- the only solution that you are going to have in that issue is you are going to have to run train with lifts on them. T hat's the only thing that will work for all of those various platforms heights or you can start so me modifications built mini highs build full height platforms and do some alterations like that. T here is going to be quite sometime before itactually occurs. T hese cars probably won't be in service for another

10 years I hate to think of that but that' s the reality. S o, there is a lot of opportunity to decide how you are going to deal with that issue. B ut, yes, the issue here was you either have cars that are going to operate in platforms that are reasonably the same and you can use bridgeplates or yo u are going to have a have to have a lift on board. >> Just using New Jersey Transit as an example I don't know if it's a good example of commuter railroads obviously we are one of the larger ones. B ut certainly not in the middle of things. S o, I don't know what good example it is. B ut we have high level platforms approximately I am going to say 65 of the 150 commuter rail stations in the state that we have. S o we still have quite a number of low level platforms that will in all likelihood still be a go od number of those around. A nd I will push it out even 15 years I don't think the cars will be on the rails in 10 years I think it will be more than 15 years. I am pretty certain that we are going to have quite a few low level platforms still out there at the same time that have yet to be all interested when they do get altered they will be full level high platforms. T here is no chance to make them mini high level platforms at this point. A nd even if we were to start construction tomorrow, it's unlikely that we would be able to provide level boarding at all stations in 15 maybe not even in 20 years. T he thing that I am worried about though is that the vehicle
-- that we will have to decide as the vehicles
-- perhaps we don't buy vehicles for a while. P erhaps we hold off on buying them becauseour system has a mix until the system is all high level. O r until it's

nearly high level and we close a station or something like that. I think that's
-- my concern is though that the vehicle is driving the stati on issue. W hen the station issue has been well addressed in the regulations stating that you know whether the station gets altered like everywhere else in society as something gets altered you have to make it accessible. T his vehicle may, depending on ti ming, push that issue ahead and say, okay, you are not there yet well the vehicle has to be there and be able to serve that station. And I think that perhaps that if there is a
-- if you have a majority let's say I don't even know what the number is, if you are going to equip it with bridgeplates you are doing it because you have a certain number of stations that have level boarding. A nd you are not going to do, obviously, bridgeplates and lifts on board. B ut you may
-- what you are saying is you may have to do a combination of things. E ither rush to get something in place or perhaps do wayside lifts or the low level platforms. I just
-- I haven't fully thought it out but I am making note that the regulation does
--the proposal pushes the issue about sta tion accessibility. >> This is Dennis. O ne of the things that we are try to go get away from is the portable lifts which have problems for a whole variety of reasons. And wayside lifts have been tried, I think in San Jose light rail, I think and I don't know what the success of that is. B ut I am not
-- I am not sure that it's ever been tried anywhere else. A nd the issue is to
-- we don't
-- the portable lifts are very difficult to deal with.Not only are they not very accessible, although they can be u sed. B ut

the big problem is they are never available. I have been on trains as long as an hour waiting for somebody to get the stupid lift at Union Station which is you know a big station not some Podunk station out in the boonies. S o, that's the big is sue. A nd the point is that if you are going to serve a variety of platforms, different heights, there isn't any other solution that I know of unless you have got a car that, you know, like a low riders where you can raise and letters cars. Other than that I have no idea what you would do other than a lift.
>> the issue though is where we have a majority of level boarding platforms full high level platforms I can't imagine putting lifts on the vehicles to bridge a 3 inch vertical gap that the bridgeplates make the most sense. S o, do we do with those stations that we are not going to put lifts on board for those stations that we have and there might be quite a few or handful left by the time the vehicles we finally purchase those vehicles. B ut you know, th ose stations are there is no obligation to make those stations level boarding until we alter them. A nd so, you know, could we
-- the only thing left for us to do is to use a wayside lift to provide level boarding. M ini high level platform in a lot of instances is an alternation of the platform and puts us into the scenario where we would then have to make it a full high level platform without freight nearby or something. S o, you know beings it's just that the vehicle environment is pushing the station accessibility issue and I don't know industry wide if that's the right thing to do.>> Ken: T his is Ken, it's a small system but it's a new system

and I just
-- I want to raise this just because I don't know if people are aware of this. T he Minnesota north star system which runs out of Minneapolis and goes north on the same route as the empire builder, maybe 40 miles out from Milwaukee it goes to the middle of nowhere they ran out of money and couldn't build it further. T hey use all low level platforms becau se it's also a major freight line. T hey do have mini highs that were built as new mini highs which you know I think because it's freight owned that's what they had to do. B ut they also use the Bombardier cars the
-- bombardier octagonal shape cars that h ave 25 inch above rail floor car. B ut all of the cars also have lifts. And you know I talked to the conductor and they said when they do the trains to the ball games, you know, they often have a large hand
-- a large handful of people in the chairs in th e trains they are like four
-five
- car trains. S o the first car the southbound the first end car in the south goes to the mini high. I f they have other wheelchair users in the other cars, they use the mini
-- they use the car born lifts to get people on an d off the other cars. I am just throwing that out as a piece of information. T hey bought you know a set of cars that have
car- borne lifts, and they used mini highs on the south end of each of their station ins a new system. >> This is Ed from am fracture
-- Blair from Amtrak I am going to have to jump off because of another obligation I wanted to throw something out. T his is one of the situations where when I look at thefleets of Jersey Transit and Metro north or the entire MTA some of the

other operati ons in the country Metra what not Amtrak in a lot of situations ends up being the minority operator from a vehicle standpoint because we don't have as many cars as MTA to begin with. A nd we are looking at you know a total of about 500 stations. W hen we l ook at a station out in the
-- out in the woods as I like to say, that you know, uses a wheelchair lift today, there is an operational reality that a lot of people even here at Amtrak forget. A nd that is would we stop at one of those stations we can only open the number of doors that we have crew to occupy the steps because it's our rule. You can't have a set of steps without approved person to help folks in and out of the train. That's a long time
- consuming process. W hen you throw the presence or absen ce of someone in a wheelchair that needs the lift is almost a nonissue just because it takes so long to board people up and down the steps. And in some of the stations that have gotten busy yes, sir where you have 100 folks cued up at two or three doors i t can be quite an arduous process. W hen we look at you know new cars coming on saying okay they have to have lifts those stations are still going to have
car- borne lifts until the last, I mean wayside lifts until the last vehicle, you know, rolls to the g rave yard. A nd that's why I think I have come to believe that the movable platform for a lot of the remote stations will the matly be a huge improvement for our operation generally. A nd reduce a lot of the safety risk that we face every day with just amb ulatory folks moving up and down the steps on trains out in thewoods. S o, you know, it does leave us at Amtrak in sort of a different

position from a lot of the commuters, but I just wanted to throw it out. I think that as some of these designs mature, and get the bugs worked out, that more folks on my side of the world the inner
- city side will see the benefits in our operations out there. A nyway, with that said I am going to have to jump off. E veryone take care. >> Marilyn: T hanks Blair. O kay. I ju st want to take a note here. P ardon me for the delay. W ell it's
-- this has been a very good discussion I want to try to move on and get other things done today. But definitely all points of view will be in the report. You know, not everybody agrees on automatic deployment and those who don't need to send in text for their point of view for the report. M elissa, Paul any staff, is the subcommittee writes a report to the full committee or the whole committee writes a report to the board or both.
>> Both. It should be both Marilyn. I mean, we should be able to
-- the report that is written by each subcommittee should
-- we should be able to put those together for the most part and have
-- >> Melissa hard to hear I am having trouble hearing you. >> Yeah, I can't hear you at all.
>> Is that better? >> Group to staff. O kay. W ell >> There you are.
>> My mic was on alive but I think it was
-- >> Thank you.>> Melissa: W e really need both. T he subcommittee should all

be making reports to the full committee

. >> Marilyn: O kay.
>> Melissa: A nd those reports really should form the basis of the full committee report to the board with whatever amendments come you know from the full committee. >> Marilyn: O kay. T hank you. O kay. S o, I think we are going to move forward and just make sure that our subcommittee report to the full committee reflects the fact that there was some concern by some members about automatic deployment. I think that's the best we can do here. N obody's view will be lost. T he next item was to review the issues list. T his was the list that we put together at the very beginning of forming you know of the RVAAC coming together. A nd the document sent out subsetted you know took a subset of that full issues list that applies to this committee. I should say this subcommittee. A lot of this we have dealt with, we have proposals on some we don't some may be inappropriate for proposals we just want to be sure that there is nothing missing. S o, I just want to go through and maybe quickly get v iews that whether we have dealt with this fully or not. O ne was on vehicles versus platform based that seems to be very dealt with. Please say if you disagree. I don't know if there is any of these details, I think one is fine with our proposal. R ight? Anybody? D ifferent feels differently? >> Dennis: Yeah this is Dennis. W e have to remember too thatsome of these things are sort of operational and some of them will be

dealt with by DOT in it's part 37 which it am mends when it adopts the new rules a nyway. T here are issues that have been somebody mentioned earlier that have been done before in terms of setting requirements for example, in the bus rule we had a rule about the size of the platform. A nd General Motors complained that it couldn't make
-- its current lift didn't meet the requirement. I t would have to retool and redesign and whatever and DOT asked them how long it would take. T hey said three years and DOT said we will give you a year. S o, they didn't buy the three years. B ut the issue is so there was a specific requirement in the DOT rule that postponed the implementation of a particular provision based on what industry said it could or could not do. S o, some of these issues about things like what you do in the interim, what you do wit h temporary conditions, those are more likely to be part of the DOT rule than they will the Access Board's guidelines. >> Marilyn: T hat is helpful because I am trying to keep a list of DOT issues that we hopefully will transmit to them. Temporary versus permanent installation. W hat does that mean even? >> Dennis: T his is Dennis I think it means basically what
-- the
wa y I read that is what you do in the interim between the time when you have fully I am
-- fully implemented all of the provisions and so forth. But I also think there is an issue about you are in the midst of saying do alteration to the station and raising the platform that obviously doesn'thappen overnight. S o there is obviously a period of time when you

have something going on that you need to take care of the situation and while there is construction and while the cars are being outfitted or something. A nd all of those things really kind of operational issues more than they are design issues in my opinion. >> Marilyn: O perational issu es are DOT issues where design issues are Access Board issues. O kay. T hanks, good comment helpful comment. Anything else on one before we go to 2 on the issues list? J ust to make sure that we have dealt with them or decided that they shouldn't be dealt with. >> This is Frank again I know there is a lot of people that like the devices on the vehicle, and I think I mentioned it once maybe before that I don't think that a one size fits all approach is always the best one. I think I said that a few times. But let me give you a circumstance. I f you have 100 stations and only one of them doesn't meet the requirements for gap and that happens to be on a curve, do you really need every single car to have a bridgeplate for one of 100 stations that requires it? You know, most
-- you know, most platforms being built today because of recognition of the gap are all going to be on straight track. N obody wants to put a station on a curve. B ut inevitably there are some stations on a curve. A nd if the authority doe s everything that they can by getting paying attention to tolerances because as I said before, minimal gaps are good for everybody. I n the just the disability community, but everybody. A nd it's
-- it's the everybody who is likely tofall into a small gap anyhow because they are not paying attention.

So, I just don't think that you need to require it beyond the trains all the time. I think that you need to require it be available and maybe we can put some words in about not having to wait for you know, a ramp and if you are going to have you know 10 doors at a platform then you have to have 10 bridgeplates at that platform if you plan on leaving it on the platform. You could put words in to that effect. You shouldn't require it be exclusively on the car

. >> Marilyn: T his is a decision I thought we had already made to require car born devices. I t's now all of a sudden we are undoing everything here. I
-- we -- we have had meeting after meeting where nobody has disagreed with that. >> Frank: I think I made that comment before. I can't say I have been on every single meeting. I do know I made that comment before. I mean, I think you can understand what I am saying. I don't know why it would be an argument for somebody to require you know a fleet of a thousand cars to have you know, 4,000 self retracting retracting extension plates for one station. T he cost of that is ridiculous in comparison to the benefit that you are going to get of having them where you need them. S o, you know, I know you would l ike to have it so it's always the easiest way. B ut it's not always the best forever
-- for everybody when you only consider one way. L ike I said, I don't believe
-- I mean, at Long Island Metro north we have them on the cars but I don't believe just beca use we do that everybody should be forcedto.
>> Marilyn: O kay. N oted. Others. T his is not to open

everything up. T his was, I mean there is always it's always fine to have fews
-- views expressed we are trying to move forward and make sure the issue was addressed. I think we addressed this issue. Any disagreement people can send in their view. A nything else before we go on? >> Dennis: W ell this is Dennis this is not something else we addressed in part of the issue of when you get gaps, I think it's in the proposal already it was intended to be that
-- it talks about stations built after the 1992. W e know that there are plenty of old stations out there that don't work. I t's not
-- it's not
-- if you comply with ADAAG it's been in effect since 91 or 92 I guess. You can't build a curved platform and people
-- some people haven't realized that I think most people do. That's not to say that there aren't some out there. T hat's why the issue of things like one door versus all doors et cetera was keyed to stations that were built after the ADA guidelines were issued. >> Marilyn: O kay. H elpful that's helpful. Anything else? Anything else? O kay. M elissa are these really our committee? We
-- I think we looked at most of these the ones that are. Alot of these are more operational. Actually. >> Melissa: T he
-- >> Dennis: T his is Dennis it looks like the first one really is talking
-- because boarding devices on shared platform that's the issueof having the device on the platform and how it works wi th bus and light

rail vehicles when they share the platform. I am not sure there are any of those. B ut yeah there probably are. B ut it doesn't seem to be the issue of what is on the vehicle. W hich is what we are addressing. S o I am not sure this is even our -- >> Marilyn: T hat's what I meant a lot of these are not car based. About the cars. W e definitely addressed the size of gaps. W e evaluate different car types
-- I think a lot of this is platform. I think Dennis your point about serving differe nt size platforms addresses some of this. Any other concerns about too that haven't been addressed? I don't think there are any. U nless they are not about the car. W e are just making sure that we followed our chart to deal with the issues with the full group gave us. N ot hearing any comments wheelchair lifts we dealt with capacity. Wedealt with self operations for an hour today. Dand C anything that we need to look at?
-- B and C anything that we need to look at? O kay. L ooking at ramps. I think th at we have done most of that. Any comments? I am on 4. L ooking at 5 bridgeplates.
>> Yes this is Dennis I am not quite sure what A is about. O h, I think it has to do with the issue of a crowded platform and the ramp or bridgeplate coming out and having a side barrier that people might trip
over. I think that's what that is about. W e talked about not having the barrier go all the way to the end and so forth.>> Oh, right, correct.
>> Dennis: I think that's what it is. >> Marilyn: O kay. A nything else about 5? W e talked about some of this today already actually. O kay. I am not hearing anything people are concerned about we are missing. O h, who was that >> I don't remember talking about detachable warnings on the platform. >> Detectable. >> Marilyn: Detectable.
>> Dennis: R ight.
>> the truncated domes are detectable warnings. >> This is Dennis there is an issue that was raised I think from Portland that had to do with the ramp
-- the bridgeplate or ramp it's automatic I believe in the light rail ve hicles in Portland that comes down and lands on the detectable warning because the detectable warning takes up the first two feet of the platform. T he issue there was that the
-- they wanted to allow a space on the detectable warning where the
-- where th ere were no dome society ramp could land on that space. T he issue had to do with the lip that you get when the ramp edge lands on the detectable warning, and I am
-- there was some issue about whether taking out some of the domes in the middle was a good idea which I personally don't think is. T he domes them selves are 2/10 of an issue much above the height for vertical barrier is a quarter of an inch that is less than that. You put
-- the ramp down ontop you get less than a quarter of an inch vertical and that's accessible.

Also in Boston, when we rode on the light rail vehicles up there for board meeting some years ago, the ramps that came out of the light rail vehicles there had a hard rubber outer edge when it landed on the domes it kind of conforme d slightly and when you rolled up there was no problem. S o I don't think that's a real issue. T here is a solution to it. >> Okay.
>> Short of taking out the detectable warning.
>> This is Crystal. T his is Crystal. T hat is what the streetcar subcommitte e adopted that brought that issue up just is to help refresh folks. T hey have talked to Dennis and Dennis told them some of the solutions that's one of the issues for the streetcar.
>> So, it's
-- so Dennis your opinion is it's not an issue because it's o nly a quarter inch step anyhow.
>> Correct.
>> Okay. I think that's good to know. T hank you. >> Okay. S o, I think our
-- is everyone satisfied that we have addressed the issues that we need to address in size? O kay. M ov ing on to 6. I know that we have, you know, our scoping so to speak. I shouldn't say so to speak our scoping in the beginning which is not written like a rule but written in a descriptive way. D oes address mode by mode. W e have all doors anything any concern about 6? I am not
sure where the issue came from.>> This is Dennis. I think it came from the streetcar committee

from APTA and the issue is when we say 60 to 70% low floor versus 100% low floor this doesn't mean the fleet. I t means the vehicle itself. In which there are light rail vehicles which have a center portion which is low and then there may be portions on both ends over the trucks which are higher. A nd in some cases, with a
-- with 100% low floor vehicle which everything is essentially low floor at the same level and you have all of the doors available that you can roll in and so forth. That's fine. T here are some cars in which the center port there might be two doors for example in the center portion which is low doors and then maybe two doors on the ends which are higher. A nd the question raised by the light rail committee was how do you deal with that. I t's been dealt with in part with a ruling from FTA about a platform design, which essentially has a higher
-- higher center part than it does for the lower part you have boarding in the lower door but not not the two end doors. M TA ruled in a
-- FTA ruled in a
-- I don't remember the
case -- that's a mini high platform situation and it's fine. S o the issue they were trying to resolve is what do you do with the two end doors and do you say that they don't have to be accessible or do you have to have a lift at those doors. I am not sure what the answer is. I think we have taken care of it okay. A nd I think FTA's ruling solves that issue. B ut maybe it's something that the
-- that we can think about it. Maybe the light rail committee or the streetcar committee can give us a little better idea of what the issue is.>> Marilyn: T hat was dramatic. >> This is Frank I wanted to ask Dennis a question if I could on that it sounds like Dennis you understand the issue that is the problem with the light rail vehicles that you can't have all of the doors have the level boarding. S o, I think that's what the issue is when you mentioned it it sounded correct to me. B ut right now the way this is written it requires all doors on light rail vehicles to have to meet the gap requirements. F or those vehicles that are not 100% low floor that is going to be a problem. S o, I am just not
-- it's not clear to me how you think we should address that issue. >> Dennis: T he one issue that the APTA rail folks thought
-- their concern was about streetcars not light rail vehicles per say.
-- per se. They wanted a special section on streetcars that addressed this issue. And that may be the a nswer that we need to do is to define something peculiar to streetcars as opposed to generic light rail vehicles. A nd I am not quite sure how to address it at this point. >> Frank: W ell if we could distinguish the cars that would be a
wa y of addressing i t right? >> Dennis: R ight.
>> Frank: I will take an action to get in touch with APTA and try to understand if there is a specific car this applies to and I will get back to the group does that sound okay? >> Dennis: S ure.
>> Marilyn: S ure. W e may need to think mode by mode.Okay. G aps. D oes -- go ahead. >> Chris: T his is Chris Hart. P art of the issue here is two fold issue. O ne is the 100% low floor (inaudible) does not work on the shared freight light rail because of FRA classifying it. S o if you consider there you can't require 100% low floor on light rail for freight. (inaudible) all of the systems like Boston, where you cannot necessarily have a
-- necessarily any kind of vehicle passing into a (inaudible) low floor vehicle. S o, there is so me crashworthiness issues as well. P lus, that was discussed at APTA among several of us was whether there is reason to think about 100% low floor being only two
- car environments as acceptable versus trying to mend across all of light rail. S o I put that out for you guys. >> Dennis: T his is Dennis. Again, the issue had to do with streetcars we don't have any streetcar and freight trains running on the same track. I am not even sure I have any light rail vehicles in freight now I don't think it's an issu e the streetcar was the one basically running in the roadway and are usually loading unloading at a sidewalk curb or maybe a curb extension. A nd the issue there was building platforms where you
-- where you might not have enough room to build in the bus rapid transit system that some of us saw in Las Vegas it raise the sidewalk up to the bus level where the buses board and then it's ramped up on both ends so if the sidewalk goes up the platform
-- platform went down. T here were some issues raised about th e streetcar issue where you don't have enough room to be able to dothat because of various other constraints with buildings and so

forth:and so,
-- so forth, and so there are issues about how you build platforms and what you do with streetcars running on the street with lots of impediments for buildings that are already there. Very much like we have problems with right
-of
-way requirements because there are lots of things that stop you from making the kinds of requirements that you would like to have if yo u were building a new town in the corn field in Iowa. >> Marilyn: O kay. T hanks. Anything else we need to consider about that? All right. T hanks for all of the comments. All right. 7 , gaps. W e also talked a lot about this. A ny -- anyone who thinks we have not addressed 7? I think we have addressed it a lot. I am not sure that we examined every European possibility but we talked about a lot of them. I wish sometimes we could see some of what they have done. T here are many of you who know more abo ut those systems than I do. A nything about 7? O kay. L et's look at 8. I think it's
-- I am feeling reassured as we go through this that we have
-- we have really looked at the overwhelming preponderance of these issues anything on 8. >> Most of 8 is already covered by the on
- board circulation issues.
>> Marilyn: T hat's true. T hat's not us maybe. >> Yeah I think more off our agenda because it's handled by the other group.>> Marilyn: 9 , other. O h, this was philosophical statement

which I think we have
-- I think our proposal reflects it. I think 9 we have done. S o, anything on the issues list at all or otherwise? W e will
-- we have done our job. O kay. I am not hearing anything. I am glad that we got through that I wanted to make sure that we did it at this meeting. O ur next agenda item was to review what is being done by other subcommittees and fills the question whether there are questions of overlap. M elissa suggested that they might include doors lighting and communicating boarding alighting messages et cetera. M ake sure there is agreement and things aren't missing. D o we have any overlap areas that we need to think about anybody? >> This is Dennis I don't know what
-- I haven't been participating in the communications issue. I am assuming but I don't know that there
-- that they are dealing with things like they are in the current rule that says that automatic doors have to have both a visual and an audible indication of both opening and closing so I am assuming that is taken care of under the other subcommittee but I am not sure.
-- but I am not sure.
>> Yes, it is Dennis I am on the other subcommittee and we did address it very well actually.
>> and what about the issue of between car barriers where does that reside? >> Frank: I don't rem ember talking about that anyone where. >> Yeah.>> Marilyn: M elissa you were addressing it as a DOT issue the

other day with me >> It falls under the subcommittees it goes with boarding and alighting it's where you want to prevent people from trying to bo ard.
>> Marilyn: R ight.
>> There is a DOT regulation out there I can't remember if I sent it to you or not so it would just be a matter of looking at that and seeing if it's still adequate or if you want to make changes to it. >> Marilyn: T hat's a good p oint. D ennis were you going to say something.
>> Dennis: Yeah I think we should say that the current rule requires between car barriers when you have high platforms and so forth. I t doesn't require them on things that have like the typical Amtrak connection because you don't get the false impression that it's a doorway because there isn't in light coming into it which is a real problem. W e don't say that they have to be where you have a low platform. B ecause you know, that's not considered to be a part icular issue. T hat may be
-- there may be a need to do that but I want to make sure that it's contained somewhere that we want to say we are not going to lose that provision and because it's related to boarding, and alighting that probably this committee should at least say it somewhere between car barriers have to be provided. >> Marilyn: S hould we add
-- it's easy to add a point between car barriers should be provided per the existing rule. W here would it go?Wh ere would that go? >> Do we really need to affirm every existing rule or are we just looking to update the rules? I would think if we don't address it then it shouldn't change. W hat is the FRA's opinion on that? I mean you don't plan on retracting something that we haven't addressed do you?
> > Marilyn: I think it's for the board
-- >> Dennis: T he question is
-- I don't know what the board's decision is the way in which the bus rule is written it was written in such a way that there was a section, instead of having mode by mode rules it was g oing to be one rule for vehicles and so there is a section I think it's chapter 7 or chapter 8 or something that's reserved in the proposed bus rule that was originally going to have the provisions for rail vehicles inserted into it. I don't know that the board is planning to do that or not. Or whether it's going to issue a separate rule. B ut the issue is because it was going to be a new written provision, you want to make sure that you take stuff that's already in the rule that you want to keep and make sure it doesn't get lost. S o, it isn't necessarily a question of duplicating
-- in other words, depending on how the rulemaking goes forward, some of those things in the existing rule may get lost. S o, this is just we want to make sure that it doesn't. I mean
-- >> One way is making a list of bullet points that may or may not be in different sections of where it goes. I don't think we have to decide how the rule looks in terms of what section it references or something just to make sure there is a bull et point that says betweencar barriers, I think if we just do that say between car barriers should be

provided according to the existing rule. W e are done. U nless people want to look at that provision and see whether we think it needs to be fixed. >> Th is is Chris. I am requesting to you whether the existing between car barrier language is
-- is adequate for manufacturers standpoint, and from a user's standpoint. >> Marilyn: D oes anyone think the in between car barrier language is not adequate? >> Denn is: U nfortunately we don't have people with visual impairment on this committee that's who it is really geared to so we need input from somebody else.
>> Marilyn: H as there been discussion it's not examination communicationings. W hy don't
-- I think if we add a section I dashed it off on my copy of the proposal that I
-- that I will now put in red. I just added a section between car barriers with one point existing requirements between car barriers should stay enforce. I think anyone who is concerned a bout whether or not they are adequate should look at them and bring specific concerns back to the next meeting. I t may be that some of the people on our committee think they should be beefed up in some way which is fine. W e haven't talked about that befo re. U ntil then, I don't think it hurts anything to say they should stay enforce. P eople should say if it does. I think Frank's point is are we going to reiterate everything but I think it's valid if somebody has aspecific concern about something it doe sn't hurt to say it the most, you

know at least the board will know it could be a reminder to them. Anything else about the train car barriers with the understanding that if you review them between now and the next meeting and you think there are
-- there is a short fall with the current rule that you would like to improve upon, send it in or just talk to us about it and we will discuss it. A nything else about that issue? >> PAUL BEATTY: Marlin this is Paul Beatty I have one question. S o, I can convert the document for our electronic docket does your red markings indicate that's new text? >> Marilyn: Red is
-- are things that material it's no the notes at the top of the patrol Sal indicates new material that differs from current Access Board guidelines. >> PAUL BEATTY: Okay. B ut we need a way of marking it we can just do that but I guess when you update it if there is going to be some sort of marking for purposes of screen readers so forth that they would know for somebody who is blind they can't see t he red and how we distinguish that we need some sort of methodology. >> Marilyn: S ure. W hatever staff suggests we can do. >> PAUL BEATTY: I would say at this point underline it since you are not using underline strike out for purposes of the document if it's strictly something different than Access Board current material and just underline it and state that in the you know opening statement. You can still have it in red.>> Marilyn: U nderstood. All right. I can certainly do that before

the next meeti ng. O kay. A nything else other the whole overlap of issues overlap of subcommittees. S eems like between car barriers was thought to be the main issue we need to discuss. S ounds like there isn't anything else out.
-- else now. D o we have
-- can we do
an ything
-- can we do 4.4 in the minutes remaining is international Melissa this was yours I think international standard for the
-- is there international standards for the lift is meant or is there another safety related standard do you want to say what yo u want discussed on that? >> Melissa: I am wondering if the manufacturers and operators when you order a new vehicle there is more to the specifications of a lift than just the accessibility requirements and I know when we put out the proposed rule for bu ses we asked questions about using an international standard. T hat was available for lifts on buses. A nd the federal motor vehicle safety standards do have one for bus mounted lifts. I s there something similar that we could used as a reference for train s lifts or ramps or you know if there are
-- if there are professional industrial standards out there, you know, whether they are ISO or ANSI or whatever we
-- we would like to know that so that we can
-- we can make sure that we coordinate with them or reference them. Anyone who orders buses or manufactures buses are you aware of a standard for a lift even if it's safety based? >> Marilyn: H earing none.
>> Melissa: H earing none we will make something up.(LAUGHTER) >> W ell, I don't think that mean s it doesn't exist. As standards. It's just nobody on the call knows of one. >> Marilyn: W e should ask the full
-- go ahead finish.
>> There might be an international standard I don't think Andre Gagne is on the line I can send him an E
- mail and ask him if he is aware of anything like that other car builders might be aware of that. I am personally not aware of it. >> Josh Coran are you still on the phone? >> I am not aware either but I can find out.
>> Melissa: T hat would be greatly appreciated thank you. >> Marilyn: O kay. W e are doing great on our agenda 4.5. Okay this is an item that staff has requested of us. About developing reasons and information about benefits and costs for the guidelines that are changing. A nd reaching out particularly to m anufacturers. O n
our -- in our group. M elissa do you want to say more about what you want us
-- you feel like we need to do on this? >> Melissa: O ne of the important things that the Access Board has to do when we present a rulemaking to the Office of Ma nagement and budget, is do a regulatory assessment to help determine the impact on industry and society and we have to list the benefit and the cost. So, anywhere that we have made changes if we have you know more robust lift or ramp that has to have 800 designed pound instead of 600 we somehow have to find out what the impact of that change is on thecost of providing that device. S o, right now we got a really great group,

you know, as part of our full committee and subcommittee you guys have access to that information. I t would be nice to get it now rather than have to dig around and
-- and try to work around it for the next five years trying to figure it out as we go forward with the rule. I mean in the next two years.

(LAUGHTER) >> Melissa: S o, anybody
-- anybody who has that type of information whether it's
-- whether it's Amtrak or Bombardier or Talgo could be our best friends in determining what that information is. >> It's on Talgo's list.
>> Melissa: T hank you.
>> Anybody else? >> W e have one minute.
>> Sorry? >> W e have one minute.
>> Wejust have a minute. W e probably
-- we probably can't smush anything into that. Talgo is going to help you. B ombardier isn't on the call. B ut I bet they will we have to repeat it. Let's
-- why don't we start there again and maybe we hope to have Andre on 4.5 on the next meeting. >> Melissa: W e can go ahead and firm updates I get E
- mail from Ed Steinfeld he doesn't have preferences because school is out ofsession during the next couple of months. S o sticking to Thursdays

are fine. >> Marilyn: All right. A ny problem with that group? T his is Marilyn. All right productive meeting thank you very much. T hank you everybody. W e will next meet December is it 18th? >> Melissa: Yep December 18th. >> Pre
- holiday meeting any final words? O kay, thanks to everybody who called in. T hanks to staff. Very productive meeting. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you operator for your help today please disconnect the phones.
>> Thank you.
>> At the everyone for your pat ience all participants may disconnect at this time. ( End of meeting)