Wednesday, July 10, 2013 PVAG NPRM Hearing (Not a Verbatim Transcript)

>> KAREN BRAITMAYER: My name is Karen Braitmayer and I am the Chair of the U.S. Access Board. On behalf of the Board, I’d really like to welcomeyou to our public hearing today on the proposed rule on accessible passenger vessels. As many of you know, the Access Board is an independent federal agency responsible for developing and maintaining guidelines and standards for accessible buildings and facilities, transportation vehicles, information and communications technologies, and medical diagnostic equipment. In addition, the Board enforces the Architectural Barriers Act, the ABA, and provides technical assistance and training on our guidelines and standards. The Board developed the proposed rule we will discuss today under our authority in the Americans with Disabilities Act. The proposed rule addresses newly constructed and altered passenger vessels. When finalized,these guidelineswill formthe basis for enforceable standards promulgated by the Departments of Justice and Transportation. The proposed guidelines were issued for public comment on June 25, 2013. The purpose of this hearing is to allow members of the public to address comments on the proposed rule directly to members of the Board. This is our opportunity to listen to you. These proposed guidelines are available on a thumb drive in the back of the room and on the Board’s website atwww.access-board.gov. The comment period closeson September 23, 2013. The Board has been working for some time to develop this rule with activeparticipation from the public. In 1998, we established the Passenger

Vessels Access Advisory Committee. In 2004, we published draft guidelines for public comment. In 2006, we published revised draft guidelines for public comment
. In 2008, we made available further revised draft guidelines to collect cost and other impact information. Between 2009 and 2012, we conducted the regulatory assessment and Regulatory Flexibility Act analysis. And as you know, just a few weeks ago, we published the proposed guidelines for public comment. So our plan today is to allow individualswho signed up to speak for about five minutes. But we recognize as well we have a small number of people who have signed up, so we would like to extend that to 10 minutes each. We invite everybody who is going to speak to come to the microphone and at that time we will also indicate who's going to follow that speaker. After all the registered speakers have presented, if time is available, anybody else can testify. Is there anybody else here who hasn't signed up and who would like to speak? Well, if you change your mind, you can certainly notify the staff at the registration desk back in the back of the room. Let them know that you would like to testify, and, oh, I forgot to say this at the very beginning...please remember to turn off or silence your cell phones. A transcript of this hearing will be kept and it will be entered into the docket. Written remarks or PowerPoint shows should be given to the staff at the back desk. Please refrain from reacting publicly towitness presentations or to board member statements. And remember, if you wish to provide written comment on the proposed guideline, you may do so through September 23, 2013 when the comment period closes.There are directions for how to submit those comments on the proposed

rule. Before we get started, I would like to have each of our board members introduce themselveswith their names and their city and state where they live. Michael, can we start with you. >> MICHAEL GRAVES: Michael Graves, public member from Princeton, New Jersey. >> REGINA BLYE: Regina Blye, public member from Austin, Texas. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Chris Hart,

--- from Boston. >> NANCY STARNES: Nancy Starnes, Arlington, Virginia. >> MARC GUTHRIE: Marc Guthrie, Newark, Ohio. >> SACHIN PAVITHRAN: Sachin Pavithran, public member, --- . >> HOWARD ROSENBLUM: My name is Howard Rosenblum from Silver Spring, Maryland, public member. >> HANS VAN WINKLE: Hans van Winkle, public member from Chicago, Illinois. >> DEBBIE RYAN: Debbie Ryan, public member from Boston, Mass.
>> JOHN BOX: John Box, public member from

--- California.

>> KAREN BRAITMAYER: We'd also like to acknowledge today members of the Access Board's Passenger Vessel Access Advisory Committee who are in attendance today. The committees were provided an excellent foundation for the proposed rule,which is the subject of today's hearing andwe are indebted to the committee for its hardwork, so please indicate if you are a member of the committee today by raising your hand. [Applause].>> KAREN BRAITMAYER: Thank you. >> ROSE BUNALES: Madam chair, we also have members of the committee on the teleconference listening.
>> KAREN BRAITMAYER: So our thanks go to all the committee who are in earshot or reading or in attendance today. Really we know it's a lot ofwork andwe very much appreciate it. So to run today's hearing Iwould like to turn the microphone over to my fellow board member, Nancy Starnes, who's chair of the Board's passenger vessel ad hoc committee. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you, ma da chair. I'd like to begin with a couple of points about the Board's role in developing the guidelines under the Americans with Disabilities Act. As you heard from our chair, theADA authorizes theAccess Board to develop and maintain accessibility guidelines for new and altered passenger vessels. Enforcement of these guidelines will begin once the standards are adopted by the Department of Justice or the Department of Transportation. We want to clarify that the guidelines themselves do not require owners and operators of existing passenger vessels to undertake alterations for accessibility. However, the Department of Justice ADA regulations currently do require public accommodations to remove barriers in existing facilities where doing so is readily achievable. Likewise the DOJ regulations also require state and local governments to ensure that their programs, services, and activities are accessible to individuals with disabilities. We understand that some of our commenters may have concerns about how theDepartmentof Justice isgoingtoenforce its requirementsfor readily achievable barrier removal and program accessibility. But once DOJestablishes our accessibility standards based on our guidelines, the

issue is completely removed from the Board's purview. Therefore, we're asking that your comments focus on the guidelines themselves and that you go to the appropriate agency with issues regarding enforcement of the ADA. Now, that's going to include comments about how the operator of a vessel might modify policies or practices to better serve individuals with disabilities. Our proposed guidelines for passenger vessels have a high degree of similarity to theADA andABAAccessibilityGuidelines and the Department of Justice’s 2010 ADA Standards for building and facilities. Now, the Board obviously recognizes that passenger vessels are not buildings. We have developed the proposed guidelines to specifically address the unique elements found on passenger vessels. These proposed guidelines address three types of passenger vessels, the large ones that carry more than 150 passengers. Those are large passenger vessels or more than 49 overnight passengers. Ferries that carry 100 or more passengers. And tenders that carry 60 or more passengers. Now, if you listen to the PowerPoint presentation as part of your comments, would you please describe the pictures in your slides for the participantswho can't see them. And for those of youwho didn't provide advance copies of your PowerPoint, please see staff at the registration desk so they have a copy of your presentation and it's included in the docket. All the comments submitted and the transcript of this hearing is going to be available at WWW.regulations.gov.Now, we're ready to start, and our first presenter is going to be

Mr. Edmund Welch, if you'd make your way to the commenter table. And following him will be Mr. Ted Thompson. As each of you provides comments, would you please remain at the table in case the board have any questions for you. And with that, Mr. Welch, the floor is yours.

>> EDMUND WELCH: Well, thank you, madam chair and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Let's try it again. Good. Well, good morning, madam chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Edmund Welch, Legislative Director for the Passenger Vessel Association. PVA is a national trade association representing owners and operators of U.S. flag passenger vessels of all types and we appreciate this opportunity to provide initial comments on the proposed guidelines. PVA has been working with the Access Board to develop and complete these accessibility guidelines for over 15 years. The Americans with Disabilities Act very clearly applies to our members’ vessels and their operations and we take seriously our legal obligation to provide nondiscriminatory treatment to our passengers that have disabilities. We want to thank the Access Board members and staff for visiting two PVA ferry vessels in San Francisco during their recent visit, meeting there out in May. We hope this visit plus some similar ones that were taken byyour predecessor boardmemberswill help underscorethefactthatthese guidelines and this rulemaking don't just affect what many people consider to be cruise ships. In fact, vessels such as ferries, dinner boats, sightseeing boats, whale watching vessels, gaming vessels and small shipovernight cruisevesselsactuallyoutnumber largeocean cruiseships.

And we also take note and we say thanks to the Board for the fact that the proposed guidelines in many of their aspects reflect industry input that has been provided over the past 15 years, so there are a number of things in the proposed guidelines that we see that we are glad that are in there. We have several

-- we have some issues today and I'll highlight those. But first I will ask that you consider extending the comment period for the rulemaking. We endorse the written request that's been submitted by the Cruise Lines International Association to extend the comment period significantly beyondthe September 23rddate, giventhe protracted time that the Access Board has taken in drafting the guidelines, we don't think that additional time for comment will appreciably slow the process to getting to a completed rulemaking. Furthermore, have posed over 40 questions to us. Many of them require some significant research on our part in order to develop a meaningful response, and finallythe public comments,thoseguidelines became public duringourmember's high season,the summer season is reallytheir busiest and that's going the make it difficult for these entities, most of them that are small businesses, to provide detailed input either to you or to us as their trade association so that we can share it with you. So we do ask that you would consider an extension beyond September the 23rd. We will also send more detailed comments to you in a written submission. We need additional time beyond today to analyze the rulemaking and proposed guidelines more fully. So today we're going to highlight only a few issuesof concern andwe'll address someof the others inourwrittencomment.

Our first issue, suggestion that we would like you to consider is to restore the passenger threshold for ferries back to 150. Like it is for other types of passenger vessels. When it provided its recommendations to you, the Passenger Vessel Access Advisory Committee, which is as chairman Braitmayer said, your own committee and it consisted of members of the disability community, and members of the passenger vessel industry. That committee recommended that this rulemaking apply to vessels that don't have overnight accommodations with a capacity of 150 passengers or more. And that embraced ferries as well as other types of vessels and we ask that you consider restoring that for ferries. For two principal reasons: Number one, the advisory committee recognize that as the size of the vessel diminishes, the challenge of designing in accessibility features increases, becomes significantly greater. This is just as true for a ferry vessel as it is for a dinner boat or a whale watching vessel. A vessel is a vessel. So the challenge is the same. The design challenge is the same. Secondly, there is a compelling need for the federal government to have consistency in the way it regulates U.S. flag passenger vessels. And the U.S. Coast Guard is the primary federal agency regulating U.S. vessels. And it uses the 150

-passenger threshold as its primary break point for all of its safety and its security regulations. Passenger vessel operators, designers, and ship builders are very familiar with this 150

-passenger break point, introducing a different break point for ferries deviates from that for other vessels is going to introduce inconsistency and introduce potential confusion.Not only did the advisory committee recommend the 150 passenger threshold

for ferries, you, the Access Board, incorporated that recommendation in yourdraft 2004draftguidelines, subsequent drafts droppedthethreshold and now as its proposed it applies to ferries that carry 99 passengers

-- more than 99 passengers, so we urge you to consider the 150 threshold for ferries as well. Secondly, there could be some significantly and perhaps unnecessary cost impacts imposed by some aspects of the requirement for assisted listening systems. PVA vessels already by regulation issued by the Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation must ensure that they have effective communication with persons who are deaf or hard of hearing. This mandate is in effect now and is embraced in ADA service rules that Justice and Transportation have written and that apply to us. And these rules list a variety of methods that may be used depending on the circumstances to ensure effective communications. Your proposed guidelines call for the installation of an assisted listening system in transportation seating areas is the term that the guidelines use with audio amplification systems or where emergency information is communicated. Now, this system must have a minimum number of required receivers and that minimum number is determined by the vessel's passenger capacity. For example, as I read it, it appears that a vessel with a passenger capacity of 500, seating capacity, must have 20 receivers. We're investigating this a little bit further. But it appears to us that the proposed number of required receivers will far exceed any reasonably expected demand for them.And we believe that you ought to look at that and we should certainly

require receivers to the extent that they are needed but we shouldn't require a larger number than can reasonably be expected to use. Another issue...the impact of the proposed guidelines on small ship, U.S. flag overnight cruise vessels could be very severe. The typical ocean going cruise ship that many of us are familiar with commonly carries thousands of passengers. And all but one of these large, giant vessels that call at American ports are flagged in nations other than the United States. But there is a niche market of what we call small ship, overnight cruise vessels that carry between 50 and 400 passengers and that operate on coastal routes and go into ports that the large cruise vessels can't get into. Because these vessels sail in what is known as the U.S. coast-wide trade, they must by law be U.S. flagged. These companies are U.S. owned. The companies pay U.S. income taxes. All of their vessel workers are U.S. citizens and their vessels, unlike foreign

-registered vessels, must be built in U.S. shipyards. And there are perhaps maybe two dozen such U.S. vessels that are in service now. There were a number of years in which no new small ship cruise vessels were built. And certainly when the rulemaking started there were none being built. But in the last few years, several new small ship cruise vessels had been built in U.S. shipyards. The Access Board did try to undertake a case study of what the draft guidelines might mean for a small ship overnight cruise vessel. But that was a foreign vessel and it was one that was built 20 years or so ago. We fear that the proposed guidelines in some aspects may kill off thepossibility that there will be further new construction, of U.S. flag,

small ship overnight cruise vessels in U.S. shipyards. And that's because the draft guidelines call for a specified number of state rooms that must be accessible to persons with mobility disabilities. And that number is based on the vessel's passenger capacity. And your guidelines, in effect, will require a higher percentage of mobility accessibility state rooms on a smaller overnight vessel than a larger overnight vessel. And because U.S. flag vessels, overnight vessels are almost exclusively small ship vessels, your proposed requirement is going to be tougher on U.S. flag operators than it is foreign flag operators. >> NANCY STARNES: Mr. Welch, forgive me for interrupting you, I just want to let you know that we are watching time and you are about at your 10 minutes. Do you think in two minutes you can finish

-- >> EDMUND WELCH: I certainly can. >> NANCY STARNES: I appreciate that. Thank you. >> EDMUND WELCH: We're concerned about the impact on the U.S. operators and this is because the physical footprint of a mobility accessible room is larger than for a standard state room. And finally, we're concerned that the number of suggested state rooms, accessible state rooms for a smaller vessel appears to exceed the number that would be reasonably needed to accommodate what we think will be the demand. And we should certainly not require more than what the actual demand is. So before proceeding further,wewould ask that theAccess Board consider trying to do a case study on a recently constructed U.S. flag small shipovernight cruise vessel to determine the various impacts, estimated

impacts, including financial ones that might be imposed onAmerican small ship overnight cruise vessels. You should make every effort not to disadvantage American made, American crewed vessels operated by companies that pay U.S. income tax. So in conclusion, other portions of the draft guidelines could have some significant impacts on PVA members. For example, we want to look for carefully about when elevators may or may not be required. We want to look at the slope requirements for boarding ramps to see if they take into account the fact that some of our operators must contend with seasonal water fluctuations or tidal fluctuations. We want to look at the definition of alteration to see if it's reasonable. These and other issues we'll address in our written comments. So thank you very much to you and the staff for your many opportunities for us to interact with you during the development of these draft guidelines, and we, again, ask that you encourage this public participation by extending the deadline by which comments must be submitted. And I'd be glad to respond to questions at the appropriate time. Thank you very much. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. Mr. Welch, this is Nancy Starnes. I do have one question for you and thenwe'll see if there are other members of the board that have questions as well. You had referenced in your comments that you needed the additional time to provide, to do some research and do it outside of your heavy travel season.And you also referenced that you're very well aware that this effort has

been going on since 1998. My question is whywasn't the

-- or is there some reason that the research and all of this information as the process has proceeded wasn't already done? I'm just curious. >> EDMUND WELCH: Well, first a lot of research and information has been provided to you. But there are some questions that you had posed that are I think introducing some new elements, and frankly, and we certainly don't want to sound like we're, you know, crying poor us, but our trade association consist of a staff of six people. We don't have any economic specialists on it. We depend on volunteers from our membership. Just about every member of the PVA is a small business under U.S. SBA Administration activities. We have just finished dealing with a Coast Guard proposed rulemaking that will have even more impacts on us than this one will. That just finished a month ago. You could only ask us to do so much at one time. And that would be our response. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. I appreciate that. Any other questions from the board? Yes, sir, Hans Winkle.
>> HANS VAN WINKLE: Thank you for coming here and your comments are very helpful to us. Two questions really and probably a bit technical or data driven and you may not be able to answer, but I'm interested to your thoughts. Your first suggestion is that we conform to the Coast Guard standards of moving from 99 back to 150. I wonder if you can tell us just roughly what percentage of vessels that would change

-- in other words, were we to go up to the 150, would that be a large percentage of the fleet? Would that be a fairly small number?And also any sort of thoughts about certainly I think our concerns

compared to the Coast Guard are a little different. Obviously the Coast Guard is concerned with safety and we're concerned with accessibility. But if it has a substantial impact and I think we would have to consider that. And conformity is nice, but on the other hand we're concernedwith accessibility but if you have any thoughts about sort of what impact that might have in terms of would that exclude a large number of vessels and would that not then provide accessibility that's required? >> EDMUND WELCH: Of course. Let me make two or three comments about that. There are some estimated numbers in the federal register that the Access Board staff has produced and of course they were looking at the existing fleet of ferries. This rulemaking is primarily going to apply to new construction. Let's start with new construction. I think a majority and I'll try to get more information to you in the written comments. Most ferries being constructed these days probably exceed 150, most. Not all. There would be only that would not be covered, new construction. And of course one of the things that we are trying to say and we will elaborate more on is that it just becomes

-- as you shrink the size of the vessel, you shrink its length, you shrink its width and that's what happens when passenger capacity goes down, it becomes somewhat harder to design in to some of the accessibility features that we all want to see. And that's why when you chose to break the rulemaking into two parts, the larger passenger vessel and then some time in the future smaller passenger vessels. Because you realize some things you can do in larger vessels you won't be able to do on physically smaller vessels. So what we're talking about now is the threshold between the two rulemakings.

For existing vessels, the assumption is that this rulemaking will apply when and if they are altered, and there are going to be a substantial number of existing vessels that are in that 99 to 150 range. There's no question about that. There's probably going to be a couple hundred of them. But the question is how many of them are going to be altered? That's awfully hard to predict. There are not a lot of alterations of ferry vessels going on these days. I suspect there will be fewer if you have a 99 threshold. So I'll try to get you more information. It will

-- but we're looking at this primarily in the eyes of new construction and I don't think it will materially exclude a lot of the new construction.
>> HANS VAN WINKLE: Okay. Thank you. And a second question I had concern of your comments on small overnight vessels.
>> EDMUND WELCH: Yes. >> HANS VAN WINKLE: And the question there I think is really, do you have again any rough ideas for the demand for accessible state rooms on those vessels currently and what impact would that have as well? >> EDMUND WELCH: That's one of the things that we want to try to get from our -- there are only a handful

-- excuse me. There are only a handful of companies that operate these U.S. flag small ship vessels. And maybe six companies. >> HANS VAN WINKLE: Okay. >> EDMUND WELCH: So I will try to get information from them on their experience about demand. We will have to recognize that most of those vessels are older and they aren't particularly accessible, so that may just by itself depress the demand. So we all need to recognize that.But I do want to -- so I'll try to get that information for you and having

a little bit more time to try to get that will enable me to get defensible statistics or information. But if I might, I might refer you to your chart on page 38136 of your Federal Register notice. And the way I read it on some U.S. flag vessels

-- say for example if you have between 76 and 100 state rooms, so if you had a 200

-passenger vessel, that might fall within that group, you're asking for at least four accessible state rooms out of that number. That's over 5% of the state rooms. That's going to reduce

-- because the state rooms are a little bit some-- somewhat larger,that'sgoingto reducethe income capacityofthevessel. Now, you got 70 state rooms and you lose let's say two that are income capacity, that's going to affect your business plan. Now, do we need four accessible

-- mobility accessible state rooms to meet the demand? That's the question. And if we don't, maybe we should consider a lower number or a lower percentage. But, you know, as -- so that's one of the things that we want to elaborate on as we try to develop our written comments. >> NANCY STARNES: I know that there may be other questions from the board. I'm getting some indication that there are. Mr. Welch, would you be able to remain during the process? >> EDMUND WELCH: I'd be delighted to. >> NANCY STARNES: That would be great. We would like to call you back a little bit later so that other commenters can provide their information to us
.All right. Mr. Ted Thompson. And following Mr. Thompson will be Jan

Tuck, if she's in the room. I don't see her at the moment. She is on the phone. I understand. Thank you. We may be down to 7 minutes for your testimony, Mr. Thompson. Thank you. >> TED THOMPSON: I hope not. Good morning, madam chairman, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Captain Ted Thompson, U.S. Coast Guard, retired. Thank you for this opportunity to address this hearing and congratulations on publication of the Passenger Vessel Accessibility Guidelines. As an NPRM, it has indeed been a long process. I represent the members of the Cruise Line International Association. CLIA is the world's largest cruise industry trade association with representation in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Austra-Asia and CLIA represents about 98% of the global capacity of cruise ships. CLIA members carry more than 20 million passengers every year. We as the cruise industry have been involved in this process and working togetherwith members of theAccess Board and staff for the past 15 years. Our mutual goal is and always has been development of standards that will be effective for both passengers with disabilities as well as ship operators. Recognizing that ships are not buildings and standards need to be reasonable and achievable in the maritime environment

-- wrong emphasis there, but you get the idea

-- to achieve that goal, we have provided educational sessions, tours of cruise ships and detailed comments to past documents. During the last 15 years, CLIA discussed with the Board and reached compromise on numerous aspects of the proposal. In reviewing the elements of the NPRM, we are disappointed to find that after all thistime,discussion andour provisionoftechnical information there appears

to be little change to fundamental elements which have been of great concern and deliberation. For example, there has been little understanding and acceptance of information that CLIA has provided concerning existing international requirements for ship construction as well as the engineering ability to accomplish in a maritime environment that which is envisioned by the Access Board's staff. We continue to have significant concerns with numerous proposed requirements such as theater seating and dispersion, watertight and weathertight doors, balcony design and construction, lifts for pools and spas, communication elements, and on and off access. CLIA members remain committed to providing access onboard cruise ships. That is a fact. In fact, the cruise industry continues to proactively improve access to meet the needs of our guests and does so in the absence of regulations. CLIA is disappointed in the NPRM in several other aspects. We're disappointed with the way the Access Board has framed the NPRM with statements such as and I quote, industry claims that accessible state rooms are half again as large as normal state rooms. Calling into question the integrity of our comments when the board and staff have been given

-- have been aboard and seen this and had the opportunity to measure and verify for themselves this fact on numerous occasions. We are disappointed with the statement of the NPRM regarding economic impact of only $66 to $74 million. In this regard, we will be making separate comments with regard to our economic impact statement and the Volpememorandum respondingtothat. Wearedisappointed inthe commentsfrom the staff that our study have been dismissed out of hand, citing

unavailability of the database and other information. In fact, we offer to provide the database and answer questions. In addition, in our view, there can be absolutely no justification for a dismissal of economic impact and of lost revenue to the industry as based on our study. The NPRM continues to assert 3% scoping is necessary, even in the face of continued industry evidence that this is overreaching. The Access Board staff has presented no actual data, study or justification for this 3% number. We are disappointedwith the assumptions and calculationswhich have been included in the NPRM. And in a preliminary analysis,we have significant questionswith the data provided and the mathematics indicated. We need to study these numbers and their origin more closely since they differ significantly from our own analysis. CLIA reiterates that our members are committed to building the number of accessible rooms that are actually necessary to meet the needs of the traveling public. But building more than necessary presents an unjustified, economic burden on the industry. In this regard,we recognize question 29 as requesting comment on a second type of accessible cabin for passengers with mobility disabilities who use wheelchairs. Who use a wheelchair or scooter for distance travel only and not in guest rooms. We are disappointed with the deletion of the use of portable kits for hearing assistance in the way in which it was presented in the NPRM. In fact, the advisory committee recommended that portable devices be permitted in guest rooms and that the Cruise Lines InternationalAssociation develop guidelines to ensure that portable devices would be

effective and reliable in alerting and awakening passengers who are deaf or have a hearing loss when the general emergency alarm sounds or the guest room's smoke alarm detector sounds. The NPRM states, "Cruise Lines InternationalAssociation convenedagroup to develop guidelines for portable devices, but after the group met, it, quote, concluded that it did not have the expertise for the task." This is absolutely a misrepresentation of what we stated. We stated, "as research was conducted into existing standards, further questions were identified. In fact, we are unable to find consensus on exact criteria to effectivelyawake and alert passengers. Atthis point, CLIA is not in a position to conduct additional research necessary regarding all the technical and performance elements needed to work effectively to meet the goal established by the advisory committee." Furtherwe stated, "CLIA recognizes that having avisible in

-room element of the vessel's general alarm remains an important issue for the deaf and hard

-of

-hearing community. However, research into all of the outstanding questions is well beyond the expertise and ability of the passenger vessel industry." Quoting only part of our letter is misleading. We support this requirement and ask that research be conducted in order to develop the standards. We're disappointed in receiving only 90 days to evaluate and provide comment on the NPRM. We have submitted a request to the docket for a substantial increase in the time period to comment to the docket based on the 7
-year length of time since the previous document was published for comment.The NPRM incorporates extensive changes, lengthy discussion in the

preamble and 45 questions, many of which are in multiple parts seeking additional information from the regulated industry and public. CLIA contends that it will be extremely challenging, if not impossible, to fully and adequately review and comment on the plethora of information and provide the requested responses to the questions within the 90

-daytime frame. This is an extremely complex rule. It has been under discussion for 15 years. Even now it appears that some of thevocabulary is still not clear as coamings are traditionally and in literature referred to from water type -- excuse me. Referred to for

-- >> NANCY STARNES: Mr. Thompson, will you be able to complete your

-- >> TED THOMPSON: I'm on the last paragraph. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you, sir. >>TEDTHOMPSON: In the NPRM, coamings are referred to forwatertight and weathertight doors. Coamings are traditionally and in literature referred to protect against down

-flooding in openings and decks while sills are referred to by openings in bulkheads or doors. Other vocabulary terms are also of great concern and need significant discussion. We are disappointed after all this time so much remains and the recognition that ships are not buildings and the standards needs to be reasonable and achievable in the maritime environment. Thank you for this opportunity to provide this comment. We look forward to further participating in this process. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Are there questionsfrom the board members? Mr. Guthrie? >> MARC GUTHRIE: Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Thank you, madam chair. I was going to ask this to the previous witness, but I think you can probably speak for the entire industry on it and that is that-- you know, I know a lot of folks with disabilities who really like to travel and love to have the opportunity to cruise and to fly and do all the things that the rest of us can do, but in lots of ways feel deterred from doing that because of access issues. So it seems to me that the more welcoming that your vessels are, the more people with disabilities are going to want to access your vessels. Is that something that has been considered as you have looked at the economic impact of these rules? I mean, it just seems to me that the more welcoming you are, the more peoplewith disabilities are going towant to take cruises. I mean, like today, we're seeing people with disabilities become more and more concerned about, for instance, trying to fly. And so I hope that is a factor that you're considering and you're not just looking at the down side of the expense I have compliance.
>> TED THOMPSON: No. Thank you for that question, sir. This is a very important aspect of cruising. Our members and the cruise industry in general recognize the very important segment of the American population that has some sort of a disability and that wants to travel and wants to see exotic locations and experience new and different things. And I think you will find that in looking at the newer cruise ships that they have become considerably more accessible. It's important to us to be able to draw persons with disabilities withthe idea that they can come to a location and unpack once and visit many

different venues and experience many different cultures and varieties of life. It's a very important issue and I think our commitment to improving the access onboard our ships can be readily seen in the difference between the accessibility on the newer ships than on the older ships. And in our efforts to refit the older ships as they are indeed modified. It's a very important aspect of our industry. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you, sir. I hope you will be able to remain just in case there are additional questions that come up. We appreciate your comments. >> TED THOMPSON: You mean remain all day or

-- >> NANCY STARNES: As long as we can keep you. Thank you very much. Is Ms. Tuck on the phone? >> JAN TUCK: I am. >> NANCY STARNES: Thankyou. And following her also from the phone will also be Ms. Janice Schacter Lintz. >> JANTUCK:This is JanTuck. I am the Manager ofAccess Compliance for Princess Cruises

-- I was supposed to be there. But I'm unable to travel. So Iwas just going to passmy timeon toMr. Thompson as amember of the CLIA group. So I will pass my time then to Janice Schacter. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you very much. Is Ms. Schacter on the phone? >> JANICE SCHACTER LINTZ: I am. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you very much. Following Ms. Schacter,we would like to hear from Ms. Jennifer Dexter. Please proceed.
>> JANICE SCHACTER LINTZ: Hi. Thank you. The Hearing AccessProgram commends theAccess Board for developing these guidelines. They

do not however go far enough for people with hearing loss. My testimony is based and my work with over 70 organizations including the National Park Service, our familieswith disasterist experiences, on cruises such as Canard, Holland American and Royal Caribbean cruises. In addition I was a member of the PVAC committee, the only member on a committee who represented people with hearing loss who had actually taken a cruise. My daughter who is hard of hearing is now 19 years old. Our experiences on cruises has sadly not improved over the years despite my sitting on the PVAC committee and having access to access coordinators for all the ships. I have come to the conclusion without clear black and white regulations for peoplewith hearing loss similar to those for peoplewith mobility issues that access for peoplewith hearing losswill not change. Access coordinators for the ships do not fully understand or do not choose not to fully understand what effective access is. The coordinators are also placed in a position sometimes of not being able to implement access that they know would work because of directives from their supervisors. The coordinators sometimes rely on cheapest and easiest to install and sometimes that is at the direction of the cruise ships themselves. Other issues are just ignored. What peoplewith hearing losswant or if access is used appears to be irrelevant. The ships justwant to be in compliance andwill do the barest minimum to accomplish that goal. Contrary towhat I have just heard, we have yet to sail on a single cruise that has had effective access for people with hearing loss on all aspects of the ship. I am tired of being the person that works on my -- I apologize. There is police. I am tired of every single cruise having to work to fix the access ormeeting with cruise personnel while I'm paying for a cruise.

Therewere numerous instanceswhereevenduringa PVACmeeting Idiscussed our daughter's need for an upcoming cruise only to arrive at the ship and find the assistive listening system broken, not working in certain sections of the skating rink, the access not available and no one knowing how to resolve the issue. On that cruise, I worked my entire cruise, someone had to be flown in because the system in the main auditory was broken. Imagine if Iwas notonthe PVAC committeeanddid not have access to people in charge, the entire situationwould be unmanageable. People with hearing loss should not need a deep rolodex or a mother who is fearless to receive the access they're legally entitled to under theADA. Hearing access is a human right and a civil right. I'm going to be filing detailed comments but just as an overview on some of the specifics, the issues I have are, one, the hearing

-- the International Symbol of Accessibility is inappropriate, antiquated and needs to be updated. The symbol does not represent people who are deaf, hard of hearing, visually impaired, or those who have mental disabilities. It does represent people who use wheelchair. The International Symbol of Accessibility is thus attitudinally discriminatory and flies in the face of common sense frankly. Assistive Listening Symbol, V703.7.2.2, the ear symbol with a slash, is also inappropriate and while this umbrella symbol might work for people who use wheelchairs, it does not work for people who are hard of hearing or deaf because it doesn't delineate the type of access that's available the proposed guidelines are intended to reflect a wide range of access available that is inconsistent with the one size fits all symbol. For example, a person with no residual hearing who cannot use an assistlistening device will think there is appropriate access for them on the

shipwhen they see the earwith the slash. That personwill be frustrated when they discover that the movie onboard only offer ALDs and not captioning. There is no abilityto anticipatethe accessavailable since the umbrella symbol does provide clarity the passenger needs. A universal symbol forces consumers to rely on employees to learn what is available and that is imperfect and impossible to ensure that the entire staff is fully informed and the appropriate knowledge ofwhat is actually available. It also assumes the passenger is informed of various types of access so that the passenger can even ask the appropriate question. We have yet to sail on a ship where the staff is fully informed on access available. Assistive Listening Systems, V706. The benefits of induction loops while highlighted and are not fully highlighting including the most crucial part which is the elimination of the stigma that there's less breakage of the equipment and the batteries don't need to be charged. Passengerswho have telecoils for an induction loop since it is invisible and discreet. No one is aware that they are using an assistive listening system and the passenger vessel also doesn't need to buy, distribute, or replace as many pieces of equipment. While we are cognizant that the committee cannot recommend one type of equipment over another type of equipment, we feel there needs to be an emphasis on the least evasive equipment used, similar to the least restrictive classrooms being used in education settings. V904, self

- and service counters. An induction loop needs to be required. This is standard protocol in the United Kingdom and of course a person will not ask a question if you cannot hear the answer. It isimpossible to get information if you cannot hear, and service desks tend

to be in noisy areas. Tenders, an ALS needs to be mandated for all tenders
. In an emergency situation, audible communication is paramount. In addition on cruise ships, tenders are used to transport passengers to docks when large ship access is not possible. And instructions on departure, embarkation, and general information are routinely provided during this transition. Information needs to be provided in an audible manner via ALS, such as an induction loop. Additional areas that need addressing
. Guidelines have failed to provide information on the following subject areas and is not clear that the guidelines do not apply to these areas in effective communication standards still apply since some of the areas are not built in. Tours, movies, audio guides which some ships like the Queen Mary offer, back portable assistive listening systems in case the system breaks

-- >> NANCY STARNES: Excuse me, I know, I just ask that you please to slow down a little bit. We're having trouble keeping up with your

-- >> JANICE SCHACTER LINTZ: Sorry. I'm trying to stay to my time limit. I apologize. Websites, advertisements, daily programs, brochures, including the information so you can plan ahead, having captioning and assistive listening systems on in-room televisions and for shipboard announcements. In summary, we can commend the US Access Board for incorporating many of the suggestions we previously proposed andwefeelthe newguidelineswhilean improvement still need improvement for people with hearing loss. The current guidelines do not achieve appropriate access or effective access for peoplewho are hard of hearing or deaf. We respectfully request that the above recommendations andformal submitted comments are incorporated into the proposed passenger

vessel access guidelines. Being aboard a ship can be a terrific experience but I can personally tell you from the personal experience and someone who is fully informed on what is available can be available and what their child needs. It is extremely frustrating when there is inappropriate access, the access is broken, the people are not trained, and you try to prepare in advance and it's still not there. Unlike other situations such as a hotel, a passenger can be trapped on a vessel for an extended period of time. In addition, safety is paramount. Many times the passenger is not traveling with someone and even if they are, they're not glued and attached to the hip. The current proposed guidelines do not afford passengers with hearing loss the same appropriate access or effective access as passengers with other disabilities. We assume this was an oversight but the situation must be corrected. Thank you. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. Are there questions from members of the board? Seeing none in the room, we want to thank you, Ms. Schacter Lintz, for your continued interest in this topic and expect to hear from you at a later date. >> JANICE SCHACTER LINTZ: Great. Thank you.
>> NANCY STARNES: Is Ms. Dexter available? She's available. Thank you very much. Ms. Jennifer Dexter? And then I hope we can take maybe a 10

-minute break. >> Jennifer Dexter: Good morning, everybody. Thanks for this opportunity to come before you today. I'm JenniferDexter,AssistantVice President forGovernment Relationsat Easter Seals

and also a co-chair for

-- I want to come today to make a few points in person today. 23 years after the passage of the Americans with DisabilitiesAct it is still critical thatwe provide the kind of specific guidance on what constitutes access and the long process that it's led to these proposed guidelines is a critical part of this. I think the most important thing I can say today is that it is absolutely critical that the guidance be finalized so we can begin the important work of making access to this mode of transportation consistent and reliable for all people with disabilities. Easter Seals fully appreciate the many unique features that passenger vessels have and the challenges that this presents to creating standards that will work on a variety of vessels. The Board has done a solid job of building strengths and making sure that access while not going beyond feasibility. In addition, the readily achievable standard provides an added layer of protection as it has for so many other industries and transportation modes through the life of the ADA. There should be no expectation that these guidelines should be implemented any differently. It is important to understand the technological realities of the vessels and to identify economic impacts. But also to keep in mind that the ADA is first and foremost a civil rights law. And that has to be kept front and center. The scaling that's built into the guidelines is appropriate andwill help build some flexibility into those guidance. I made some notes on the side of my piece about the threshold for the passenger numbers on ferries. And was thinking about the fact that ferries are a different mode often used for people to access work, theirhome, their communities. And it is appropriate I think to stretch the

guidelines particularly for that aspect of this ruling because they are such a different mode. The one area where there could also be no short cuts is in emergency preparedness. Once we implement the guidelines and get people with disabilities on to vessels and be able to maneuver around, we need to be able to get them off. The emergency alarms advisory committee lays out an appropriate frame work for ensuring alarms are appropriate for people with different sensorydisabilities. We encouragethe Boardto applythe alarm standard to be applied to as many vessels as possible including this foreign flag vessels operating in U.S. ports. Alternate escape paths need to be available and clearly identified in multipleways, and finallythat informationabout alternative paths needs to be included in all communications and emergency drills that are regularly provided to passengers. I recognize that that's probably a part that takes part after the guidelines take place but I wanted to put that in my comments. The last point I would like to make that is unlike buildings, sidewalks, etcetera, the maritimeworld include unique language and facilities that most passengers are not familiar with. While the language in the guidance is relatively clear, I encourage the Board to take extra care in translating into standard language. Coamings is a great example. I had to look it up. In the overview there was a great explanation, but a layperson looking at the guidelines may not understand what they are, what to expect, where they are, what their purpose is.A glossary, a simple glossary attached to this may be very helpful.

There's also a tremendous need, I think, as there was with building standards and all other standards for technical assistance once these guidelines are put into place. Aswe didwith buildings groups like Easter Seals and both PVAs, paralyzed veterans and passenger vessels, the Access Board, the Department of Justice needs to work together to make sure we get clear and concise information about this out to the public and out to the industry and I wanted to offer Easter Seals as a resource to help in that process once we get up and running. So thank you very much. As I said there will be further comments coming but I did want to come today and do a little bit of cheer leading to get to the finish line. Thank you. >> NANCY STARNES: Your cheer leading was well received
. Are there questions from board members? Not seeing

-- Mr. Hart?

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: Are there any additional definitions or other things that need to be addressed because I notice that didn't comply with the coamings and quite a sensor... >> Jennifer Dexter: Do you mean another definitional issues

-- the language issues or

-- >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Yeah. >> Jennifer Dexter: There are. I mean, something as simple as tenders, people don't knowwhat they are, how they're used. People don't understand the differences about what flag a ship flies under. So thatvery basic information is going to be a pretty vital part of this and

I'd be happy to in the written comments go through and find a few more examples or opportunities where I think we need some clarification. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: And, are you able to perhaps provide additional data on ferry commuter ----. >> Jennifer Dexter: Absolutely. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: That would be good. >> Jennifer Dexter: The usage and why they're different? Absolutely. >> NANCY STARNES: All right. It's interesting that you mentioned tenders for people who don't travel to a good bit of a public, that means chicken. ( LAUGHTER ) >> Jennifer Dexter: Exactly. Exactly. >> NANCY STARNES: All right. Thank you very much for your testimony. We are going to take a 10

-minute break and then resume our testimony hopefully with Ms. McCloskey and later after her will be Ted Bell. Thank you.
(Break)

>> ROSE BUNALES: Can we have just one more minute for the CART to continue streaming. >> NANCY STARNES: We certainly can. >> ROSE BUNALES: Just so there is no awkward dead space. Just for the record, we have 18 lines. I have Disney Cruise Line, UDC, Workboat,California State, KitsapTransit, US Coast Guard, members from CLIA, City

of Boston, Princess Cruises, Moffatt & Nichol , LA Developmental Disabilities Council , Marine Systems Corporation
. They have been with us since the beginning. All your lines are muted by the way. >> NANCY STARNES: I apologize for the delay. We are still waiting for CART services to be restored
.

>> NANCY STARNES: We have CART services now. Ms. McCloskey, when you're ready, provide us with your comments. >> MAUREEN MCCLOSKEY: Good morning. Thank you to the Access Board
. I'm Maureen McCloskey, I am Advocacy Director for the Paralyzed Veterans of America or the serious PVA
. As I understand the Passenger Vessels Association is also part of this hearing. I'm always interested in reading the standards and information that is provided bytheAccess Boardand commentingonthem becausethey certainly affect our members. We have over 20,000 members throughout the country, all of whom have spinal cord injuries and virtually all of whom use wheelchairs for mobility purposes. One thing I learned while reading this is I should be starting a lot earlier because there is a lot of information in here and that is going to be one thing that I am going to stress hugely for the Access Board is that this is a rulemaking that is going to need a tremendous amount of technical assistance for people with disabilities. During the standard development process for the built environment, we had access to architects on and off staff and every day exposure to know exactly what it is that we needed and the passenger vessel environment it is a very different story. I believe and I'm not sure what they'recalled marine architects or engineers or whatever, this is a pretty

specialized area. When you get into the built rooms and it's one thing. But when you're talking about coamings and sheer and things that are not part our everyday life, it is something we have to be educated about and strongly advocating a marine access design for dummies when you come around to doing a technical assistance portion of this. Lots of this needs explanation. That having been said and being based on a fairly quick and not very thorough and definitely not all of the supporting documents, things, I would like to state that PVA does have and we will be looking into this. All of these are very preliminary responses, has some concern about scoping. It seems that the size of the vessels that are not going to be covered could be some concern and I am sure that this was raised at or was dealt with at a level that's way above my technical experience, but to cover only ferries that carry 100 passengers or more seems to me that there may be many ferries that do not ply coastal waters but maybe intra-coastal that may not be covered and I am not certain on that not having read all of the supporting documents and I know you all have done a great deal of research on this. Secondly with tender that is are transporting people on and off of cruise lines, they have to have 60 or more people before they're covered and that's my quick understanding of this also seems to be allowing an awful lot that may not be covered and particularly when you have got cruise lines that actually own islands and things like that and that's the way they have to get to and from is that everybody onboard is going on. It seems that that may give some lines of means of getting out of compliance with providing accessible tenders by just hitting that 59 and above or 60 and above.I believe that we need to also get some definitions of stuff. There is

a reference in there to high

-speed passenger vessels and requiring an onboard access route. Not clear exactly what a high

-speed passenger vessel is. It may be somewhere in the supporting materials but that is a, maybe, I don't know, but it may be a loophole in there. I would also like to address the idea of the escape, evacuation, whatever you call it. We have always called it evacuations in buildings and in airplanes. Obviously there is a concern on a ship and especially with the way things have happened in the last number of years that there have been a number of required evacuations on ships and as we see in buildings people with, who use wheelchairs are left behind because there's no accessible way out. And I understand that there are limited space requirements on vessels, but in the case that you are having what is called a protective waiting area, I believe that in the ADAAG in general that there are standards for, for instance,thefiredoorsthatare requiredandthat sortofthing. Saying just a substantial

-- you have to have a substantial equivalent services and protections available in a protected waiting area
. I believe is

-- you need more structure in there. We need to have some specific requirements as to what is going to be required in there. I also there need to be scope to saying at least one. And I have to get used to the language, the wheelchair deck space. It's not a wheelchair deck someplace. It's a clear deck space. There's got to be more than one as people here know here may be couples both of whom use wheelchairs. Sharing a cabin and who are suddenly being forced to evacuate and having to wait in an areawhere there's only one space for somebody

-- one person with a wheelchair and again with the protected waiting areas it'sspecifically the signage, the training, and again the training

-- the

evacuation

-- it's been a long time since I've been on a cruise line but if I remember everybody has to go through an evacuation drill, an escape drill. It's all held by the lifeboats and if somebody in a wheelchair is not going to be able to get the lifeboat with everybody else in there has to know where they will be able to evacuate the boat. There are many things in there that I'm sure that PVA will comment on and I'm actually glad for the advance opportunity to take a look at it because now I'm going to have to start reading to actually get our comments together and to submit them in September. And there may be many answers in there that I have not been able to find on a fairly quick basis but I thank the Access Board for all its work for all its consideration for people with disabilities and in particular for people who use wheelchairs and a lot of people love cruising because it's all right there. It's all right there and it's awonderful place if it's accessible. It's a wonderful place for a vacation and I know many of our members enjoy that and would like to continue enjoying that to an even greater extent. So I thank you for the opportunity.
>> NANCY STARNES: Are there questions from the board for Ms. McCloskey? Mr. Hart? >> CHRISTOPHER HART: I would like to understand to what degree do you think that the demand for accessibility is...have you begun to see reports of wounded warriors having issues with

-- >> MAUREEN MCCLOSKEY: Answering the second first, no, we haven't had reports from Wounded Warriors. What we're just assuming going by Wounded Warriors for injuries of a way of

-- our population generallyis older, but that having been said, there's alsowithin PVA's population

probably a little bit more established and some access to money and time and willingness to get out and do this. Our member's average age is a high 50s, 58 or so. So I think cruising is obviously having a huge boom. Everybody wants to cruising and you can take families and all sorts of things on it so I'm not sure what the demand has been stated to be. I imagine that it is growing and will continue to grow and particularly as I said if it's accessible, everything is in one place and your hotel is moving around and it's a good thing and it can make it very, very easy for people who use wheelchairs. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. Other questions? Mr. Van Winkle? >> HANS VAN WINKLE: I wanted to follow up a little bit on Chris's

-- Mr. Hart's question and that is if you can provide data, we had some discussion about the cost and also about the benefits of putting up people with accessibility needs on these ships. So if your organization, particularly as you said I think veterans of that age and ability level enjoy cruising, if you would give us more information about the demand side and in particular if there's data on the lack of accessibility causes demand to be restricted and we get some more information I think that will help us a lot in terms of making these very difficult decisions.
>> MAUREEN MCCLOSKEY: Right. I will see what we can do. We can put out a survey to our membership but as you know how surveys go what you can anticipate. But we can see what we can do and I will at least get some anecdotal experience from our members who have traveled. >> HANS VAN WINKLE: Thank you. >> MAUREEN MCCLOSKEY: Thank you.>>NANCY STARNES: Otherquestions? Seeing noneatthistime,thank

you very much for your comments. We appreciate you being here.
>> MAUREEN MCCLOSKEY: Thank you, Ms. Starnes.

>> NANCY STARNES: At this point, is Mr. Bell available to come forward? Thank you, Mr. Bell. I understand that you also have some colleagues on the phone? >> TED BELL: Yes, I do have some colleagues. I'm representing the Golden Gate Ferry system today. I understand they may be on the line with some of the engineering staff in the San Francisco Bay area.
>> ROSE BUNALES: And that is confirmed.
>> TED BELL: Give you some quick background on myself
. I've been working in the specialized area of passenger accessibility for ferries for over 20 years. I began that process when I was the Director of Terminal Engineering forWashington State Ferrieswhere Iwas responsible for their 20 ferry terminals in regards to their capital maintenance programs. I chaired their ADA implementation committee in the early 1990s. Since then, I've worked with many of the ferry operators as a marine engineer designing passenger boarding systems for ferries, many of the operators in North America. Today I'm going to get into some details of the guidance that you issued. As we have been working with that guidance very diligently for 10 or 15 years I think it was since it was originally issued. This is in relationship to a project that the Golden Gate Bridge which operates bus transit and ferry system on the San Francisco Bay and some of the detailed projects they have and some of the details we would like clarified in the final rules that are issued.Like I said I'll be representing theGoldenGate Ferry System, John Eberle

who is the Deputy District Engineer is on the line too. The District operates one of the largest ferry systems in the U.S., carrying about 2.2 million passengers last year and about 7,000 passengers on aweekday. They have three terminals that they're in the process of reconstructing and attempting to follow the guidance that you have issued in draft form along with the state and local laws. It's a very expensive project. It's tens of millions of dollars addressing accessibility at the terminals has required essentially reconstruction of those terminals. They were originally designed and built in the 1970s and although accessibility laws had already begun at the state level at that time, no one envisioned the application to passenger ferries then.
>> NANCY STARNES: Mr. Bell, pardon me just a second. As you show these illustrative slides that have photos on them, will you please explain what's on the slide? >> TED BELL: Sure. These are photos of some of the terminals that were in use since the 1970s by the Golden Gate Ferry system and

-- is it best to point back here? >> NANCY STARNES: As long as you can still be heard on the mic. >>TED BELL: These are the boarding ramps and as you can see they're quite steep. They have issues with guardrails and handrails. Many of the things thatwere better defined in the rules that you have identified. But one of the things that's different is this is a

-- what we call a passenger gang plank. I think in your rules you call them gangways and they telescope in and out to meet the boat. Telescoping gangways are addressed in some areas of your rules or guidelines but notcomprehensively and that's why I'm here today because there are certain

details that we would like to point out to you that we believe would require additional clarification. And with the very large investment that the ferry operators are making, they would like to have that assurance in the guidelines in advance if at all possible. One of the things I'll point out to you to in these photos that these boarding systems are fairly wide. They are designed to load a large number of passengers very quickly. The vessels hold in this case about 450 passengers and up to 700 passengers on the largest vessels and we have a very short amount of time to load the passengers. So it's important not only to have flatter slopes than people used in the old days, but also have very large structures. Too large a structure to be moved by hand. They have to be mechanized systems. This is a photo

-- I'm working for the Steamship Authority in Woods Hole Massachusetts and Iwas actually up there yesterday and this is an example

-- I didn't design this particular ramp, gangway that's shown on the left. But this is an example of a gangway that went through the design process looking at your draft regulations and the consultation that they hadwith the state board in Massachusetts. This is a fixed gangway. It is close to meeting the 1 in 12 slope requirements. It is close to meeting the handrail requirements. I think it's their best interpretation of what the rules were asking for. It does exceed under certain conditions the 1 in 12, depending on the tide and they have a variance from the state board for that issue. In your rules, that kind of a variance is not specifically addressed. I mean, there's no body that I'm aware of that could issue a variance.So that's one difference.

To give you an illustration of what your rules have led to over the last 10or 15years, inthe lower right isa photoofatypical passengergangway that would have been designed before the rules were replaced. And it has less attention to the guardrails, less attention to the handrails and is probably on the order of a 1 and 6 or 1 to 8 slope instead of a 1 to 12 slope. Back in the early days I thinkwhen you first issued your draft guidelines in, Iwant to say the first things I saw in the mid

-90s, Iwas busyworking for Washington State I was designing telescoping gangways which is the subject I am here today. These are some examples of projects that were built in the mid to late '90s in Washington State with telescoping gangways. We had trouble

-- when the ramp telescopes in and out to go out to the boat, what do we do with that handrail? And that's why I'm here today and I'm going to get into some details on the Golden Gate Ferry project. In these cases the handrail is only a partial handrail. On the outer telescoping section, you can see there is a handrail here, but where the circle is, the handrail ends. It doesn't have proper returns on it. Here is another view of a slightly different ramp. Looking from the shore side as you move to the boat and you can see two overlapping guardrails in the circle that is a handrail. And again, it ends because the engineers did not know how to safely extend that handrail across the joint where it telescopes. In the early years before my time Washington State Ferries did attempt to do some telescope handrails and ran into some problems with those and I'm going to talk about that herein a minute.

I know your time is limited and I'm not sure how much time you're going to have for me. I do have just a quick summary of what we're attempting to get across to the Board today. The Golden Gate Ferry system is undertaking major rehabilitation, going through extensive environmental and permit process and have designed details that know they have some technical concerns about the guidelines that you're proposing to issue. They have decided that it's necessary for their operation to use telescoping gangways that the propose accessibility guidelines did not specifically address telescoping handrails and we're asking that some additional clarity be provided in the guidelines to give them better direction and assurance on the investment that they're staged to make. Now, I have a series of more detailed figures that I can present I guess at the

-- depending on availability of time. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you very much. We can give you

-- I don't know how much time you're going to require to present those. We can give you another three minutes if you can do it in three minutes. Otherwise we can always re-call you at the end of this to provide the additional information.
>> TED BELL: Okay. Why don't I go ahead and fast forward to a couple of slides, which is the proposal that we have concerning about and just illustrate the telescoping gangway to a little bit greater detail. This is a planned view looking down the end of one of the ramps. In this case it shows the gangway retracted and the handrail is shortened. On the right side it shows it extended and this blue line right thereis the handrail and it telescopes in and out. You can imagine a tripod

for a camera and how the sections telescope in and out. Andthat's howthis handrail is proposed. Inordertomeetthe continuity requirements that you have for handrails. There is a telescoping section which is detailed here where one pipe goes inside of another. The main concerns that we have if we were to -- this we believe meets your continuity requirements for handrails. The size, diameter, location, position of the handrail. Butwe have two concerns. One is the structural problems that happen in a marine environment where this sliding joint can lock and if it locks, the full weight of the boat will go against it and something's going to break which we don't want to do especially the passengers walking right next to it. The other is people are walking by with their hands on it. There's sweaters, hair, all kinds of things can get caught in this joint
. It indelibly is going to wear. So we do, all of the systems for addressing this problem have some issues and we can get into detail of that if you have time at the end your meeting today. But we do have some concerns about this one. It has some good things about it. It has some negative things about it. And we think it's very important if we were to go in this direction to comply with your rules that there was a little more clarity if your rules. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you very much. At this time, are there questions for Mr. Bell? Thank you. Mr. Graves? >>MICHAELGRAVES: Mr. Bell,justonthe lastissue, I hadthe problem of that joint designing a folding chair, we switched to a rubber intersection and it solved the problem. So you mightwant to think about changing materials at that point so that things don't in fact pinch yourhands and all the kinds of things I'm sure you're worried about. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you, Mr. Graves. Mr. Hart. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: I just wondered if...vertical change you have for a telescope ramp. >> TED BELL: Yes, there are, and in my business I'm on airplanes lot, so I spend a lot of time looking at how that's been solved in airports and one of the basic fundamental differences between salt water and airports is that with a telescoping gangway on a ferry, the telescoping action is always occurring. It's always moving. Where on an airport, they can lock it into position. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. Mr. Van Winkle? >> HANS VAN WINKLE: Mr. Bell, thank you. I'm an engine as well , and I always look to the more technical folks then myself, particularly structural engineers to come up with what I consider the eloquent solutions so I challenge you and your community to do such that. We typically like to, where we can provide performance objectives. So I think yourwork here is ifwe can get more of these details. Alternatives are always good and allow flexibility to our community. So if you can help us out and provide some more of these alternatives. So the benefits and some of the problems with each design is also helpful and I think at that point then designers, ifwe can provide that in terms of technical assistance to the community, then the people that design these and have to maintain them in particular because a lot of these issues that you're talking about are going to be maintenance issues. Once it's designed and then used, and every design will have a different maintenance requirement and I think that when people can make better choices as to how they want to proceed. So thank you for your input. And again, Ilook to the community to provide these eloquent solutions that I like.

>> NANCY STARNES: Any other questions? Seeing none at this time we appreciate the fact that you made the trip to come and speak to us on this issue today. Thank you so much for being here, and if you don't mind staying, we'd be glad to re

-call you so you can do more some discussion at the end of our hearing time should we have some time available. We want to give your colleagues on the phone an opportunity to comment also while you're at the table.

>> ROSE BUNALES: Operator, can you unmute John Eberle. >> JOHN EBERLE: Hello. Am I on? >> ROSE BUNALES: Whenever you're ready. >> JOHN EBERLE:Yes. Goodmorning. Hello. This is John Eberleand I'm with the Golden Great Bridge Highway Transportation District, I’m the Deputy District Engineer here at the Bridge and want to thank all of you for giving us this opportunity today to present the comments, questions, and concerns we had on this telescoping handrail. As Ted mentioned, we are undertaking a very large capital improvement project on our three facilities, and we're happy that the guidelines have clarified a number of questions that we had, but we do have a few other questions and giving us the opportunity to talk today to highlight those and also the opportunity for Ted to talk to you after is much appreciated so I wanted to thank you all for giving us the opportunity.

>> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. Just in case that generated anyadditional questions from the board... I don't see any -- Mr. Hart, did

you have something to say? >> CHRISTOPHER HART: My question to you if ferries are also
.. emergency evacuation for the bay area; is that correct? >> TED BELL: Yes and also generally the question is yes, especially the Golden Gate Ferries in the 1998 earthquake functioned as an emergency evacuation transit system for the Bay Area. Since then and you may be thinking of theWater EmergencyTransportationAuthority,which operates other ferries in San Francisco Bay too and it has that specifically in their charter. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: You are actually trying to meet 504 and ADA...so I'm probably one trying ferret out maybe some discussion earlier from folks that there is a scoping matter and I just wonder if during Golden Gate's

..., is it directly related to its overarching understanding of civil rights and does that mean that you're more apt to go above and beyond? >> TED BELL: Well, some of that I would have to defer to John Eberle, but from a very technical engineer design standpoint, the projects that we're doing for the Golden Gate Ferry System are making every attempt to be fully usable and accessible, even during an emergency event for the vessels that they operate. If another operator would desire to use their facility because of an emergency, for instance, their companion in the bay area, the Water Emergency Transportation Authority which operates different vessels, there may be some discontinuities because of their system, but the Golden Gate Ferry System is intending to be fully accessible, 100% accessible and usable to the maximum degree during an emergency.>> CHRISTOPHER HART: Thank you. >> NANCY STARNES: All right. At this point, beforeyou leave, sir, let me just check and see if there's anyone else in the audience that wishes to provide some comments. I'm not seeing anyone there. I know we also had Mr. Jensen on the phone. Did he wish to speak? Thank you. Mr. Jensen, please proceed.

>> BO Jensen: Thank you. And, again, I want to reiterate John Eberle's comments about appreciating your input. I am wondering

-- it sounds as if this conversation may continue on into the details a bit after the meeting and I'm wondering if there is a method to hold us on the phone so that we could participate during the detailed discussion. Hello? >> NANCY STARNES: Just a moment. We're going to get an answer for you. >> BO JENSEN: Thank you. >> NANCY STARNES: All right. We do have a specified time limit for our hearing today, butwe certainly are glad to be in touchwith you after that and provide opportunity for you to give us additional input, discuss your comments and any of the information that you want to provide. We are interested in getting as much of your knowledge on this subject as we can. So I hope that satisfies your need.
>> BO JENSEN: Okay. Thank you very much. >> NANCY STARNES: I appreciate that. Mr. Bell, do you want to finish up with your slides? Have you given us enough information that you feel we understand what your issues are today?>> TED BELL: Well, I do have a couple of other alternative systems

that we have looked at that don't meet

-- they don't necessarily meet 100% of the continuity requirements for handrails depending on how your guidelines are interpreted. So I can present those. There is a few more slides. >> NANCY STARNES: I think we would be interested in seeing the alternative ideas that you engineering folks have come up with.
>> TED BELL: Okay. I'm going to go back to the beginning of this section right here and, again, I have worked with all these different kinds of systems for 20 years, and we have not found anything that's perfect. As a matter of fact, I've been in design litigation several times over these kinds of issues. So I would love to be able to come with a perfect alternative. I know it would be much easier today if I could say if the Board would just adopt a certain process, it would work. Here are the ones that we have been looking at and the alternatives A and B are fixed, folding handrail, what we call a fixed folding handrail. It doesn't telescope, so it's attached solidly to the intersection of the ramp and the outer section goes in and out but the handrail doesn't move. And again what we call a shorter fixed holding rail which addresses some safety problems that are createdon the boat if the ramp is the full length and what we call a discontinuing overlapping handrail. And then finally the continuous telescoping. Here is an example in the photo of the folding handrail, and this would meet full requirements in terms of continuity of the handrail position and placement. The only questions we might have in some of the details of whether that's required to have that over the transition plate andthe transition plate at the end of the ramp is talked about in your

guidelines. So in this photo right here, again, it's a planned view, the blue line, those are the handrail sections that are folded back when the ramp is not deployed on to the vessel. See, these ramps telescope so that they can be lifted and raised and pulled back so that the ferry can come in and out of the dock without hitting the structure. The diagram on the left has the crew has now deployed the handrail. It's hinged and it folds into place and now I have a graphic here which is preliminary. It's partofour preliminarydesign processtodevelop this 3D model of how this gangway works and in this model the little man on the left has just walked through the threshold on to the boat and he's just walked across the telescoping gangway and the folding sections are right here (INDICATING) and what you see is a little folding section of structure with a handrail that would be supported beneath, according to your rules

-- >> NANCY STARNES: When you say the handrail is right here, I mean, we can see it right here. But for the folks who are on the phone, can you explain where the here is? >> TED BELL: It extend on to the ferry through the telescoping gangway. So as you walk down the gangway and step on to the boat, the handrail continues on to the boat and it's made long enough such that it can -- it will be addressing the different conditions which I'll show in a moment, of when the ramp telescopes in and out. When it's in normal operating conditions, the boat is pressed up against the dock and that handrail extends pretty far on to the boat and that's what's shown in this diagram here. So that's a section of structurewithhandrail on it and it is fixed more or less, but the boat is moving and

we have people walking next to it and we have crews standing next to it and that section of structure can move back and forth up to three feet, dependingon howthe boat heaves inthewater. So under normal conditions the boat would be hard pressed against the dock and wouldn't move very much; maybe a couple of inches but it is possible for it to move more and that creates a safety concern for us. This diagram shows the different levels of movement of the ramp relative to the boat. So in the lower left diagram we have the normal condition. I'm trying to point at the edge of the ferry pressed against the fender, rubber fenders on the dock and the ramp is laid on to the boat, and this is a more simple diagram, but the handrail, which would be designed to meet all your requirements extends on to the boat. And in the lower right diagram, the ferry has been pushed away from the boat by a passing ship wake, by wind or waves and it is extended out three feet away from the ferry. For safety we have allowed the ramp to telescope out this three feet, but when it does do that, you can see the very end,the handraildoesn'tmake ittothevery bottomofthetransition plate. And there is some details here in terms of telescoping gangways and transition plates and justwhat is required and how far does that handrail need to go, some additional clarification would be helpful. This is what's called a discontinuous overlapping handrail, and the current systemthattheGoldenGate Ferries has isa combinationguardrail and handrail, not allowed today, but it's what they used at the time. And those sections overlap one another with a few inches of clearancein between so that if it moves, you can't have someone get pinched in

it. However, with this condition

-- with this situation, although it works from the standpoint of the end of the handrail, it doesn't extend on to the boat too far under certain conditions. It doesn't move around where it can hit someone. There is a discontinuity in the handrail of about four inches or so where we would assume you would separate them approximately four inches at the overlap in order to prevent pinching but not too much that something can go behind it and that overlap is shown right here. So

-- >> NANCY STARNES: Right here meaning? >> TED BELL: At the section where the two sections of telescoping ramp come together, the two handrails overlap. So if you were going up or down the gangway and you use a handrail, I use a handrail because I have nerve damage in my feet. I don't have good balance. And you would have to move your hand from one rail to the other. You would have to move it over about four inches and so certainly doesn't meet your continuity requirements to do that. Although it does have some safety benefits of not extending onto the vessel too far and potentially hitting someone under certain conditions. And then finally it was the telescoping alternative that I've already explained meeting the continuity requirements, but it does have some maintenance issues but just as importantly some safety concerns that we have also. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. Did the additional information generate questions from the board? Apparently not. So we want to thank you very much for the interesting information that you provided to usand appreciate your interest in this topic. >> TED BELL: Thank you very much. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. This actually concludes our formal list of people who had signed up to speak. Is there anybody else in the audience here that

-- whose interest was sparked by something that you might have heard? Are there individuals on the phone that are waiting to speak?

>> ROSE BUNALES: Operator, will you poll the callers to see if anyone's wanting to testify?
>> OPERATOR: Thank you. If you would like to testify at this time, press star then 1 please. Once again, that's star 1 if you would like to testify.
>> NANCY STARNES: We're not hearing anyone and we take that as a no, that everybody has provided all of the information that they want from us today. We have about another five minutes or so. I know that Ms. Blye

--

>> ROSE BUNALES: Madam chair, I do have Stephen Spinetto
. --- And operator, when he's ready, will you unmute his line, please. >> STEPHEN SPINETTO: Am I on? >> NANCY STARNES: Yes, sir, you are
. >> STEPHEN SPINETTO:Thank you for allowing me to comment. I really wish I could be there in person. But circumstances didn't allow me to get down there. When I served as chair other passenger vessel committee I was the commissioner for persons

--. >> NANCY STARNES: Excuse me just one moment. Mr. Spinetto, wouldyou provide us your name and affiliation.
>> STEPHEN SPINETTO: Yeah. I was just in the process. When I was -- I served on the passenger vessel committee as chair. My name is Stephen Spinetto and I at that time was commissioner for persons with disabilities for the city of Boston. I retired about two years ago so I am no longer speaking for them. Although I've been asked to speak to the group

--- as a member of the multicultural independent living center of Boston for which I am vice president. Iwasvery proudtoworkwiththe committee last century -- and represented a very wide range of interest and we worked really hard. It was almost two years that we worked on them and came to a very reasonable consensus to some very difficult issues. So a lot of us needed to learn the language. As you can see there is a lot of different language in terms of vessels. And I will say at this point am disappointed on how long it has taken. It's been a very -- almost 15 years since we first started off and things have changed since then. That's one of the things that I want to talk about and very happy that they have lowered the limit on ferries down to 100. But ferries have becoming increasingly important component in our national transportation system. Here in Boston they have grown tremendously during that time and the 100 passenger cut-off even for us here for the number of vessels that we're currently operating within the Boston transportation system would actually except for our own state regulations but by Federal regulations would no longer be within the scope. When I was chair I made a presentation down in New Orleans concerning the on/off requirements and in my presentation I highlighted the servicehere in Boston that was actually in operation back then, relatively new

at that time. It serves the south shore of Boston including Logan International from downtown. And it

-- there are 89 passenger vessels so they would not meet the

-- not fall under the scope of the proposed regulations. These are high

-speed catamarans and they are front loading, and evenwith that the fact that Boston has a mean tide of nine and a half feet which is one of the highest tides for any major city, in the country, not including Alaska. These vessels work within that mean high tide and obviously

-- we had a tide this year of almost close to almost 14 feet at one point I believe, so it doesn'twork at that end and doesn't include when the tide drops to below zero
. I would love to see the changes, take into account the fact that this component of transportation is a growing one and that it's a very public component where people, part of our transportation systems and increasingly in cities like Boston andwaterfront communities connecting the various communities in the city, so our ferry systems connect the various neighborhoods now that are on different sides of the harbor and it's well used and very important part of that, our basic transportation system. So hopefully that some time we will be looking at cutting down, lowering the number below 100. I think we can do it here with our tide and in the harbor and things that it can be done in other places also. I'm also very disappointed that the employed areas were taken off the largevessels. Ithink it's somewhat short sighted. I believe it should have included. We worked hard on it. The committee spent a lot of time on that issuewe literallywent down to Piney Point
. Maryland at one pointas a group to see how the training proceeded for the people that are going

to be working in the cruise industry. I think really just can't cut up a whole category of employment for people with disabilities and just believe that that's a very large missed opportunity and I don't believe itwas an undue burden. I think thatwhatwe opt for is the cost of common area and the 1.5% of the cabins for employees. And I also think

-- just have one -- I kind of have a question for the industry because I couldn't find any real data. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place, but the infinite body last year with the cruise ship Concordia over in Italy, Iwonder how much informationwas on it and there were a large number of passengers on there and some passengers with disabilities aboard that vessel I'm sure and the information on how they achieve the evacuations of those persons could be critical to the Board's decision making on how evacuation emergency procedures happen on those vessels so this is the real world. And particularlythe factthatthat ship began listingquite rapidlyafter it hit the rock which clearly makes, you know, person itself evacuating getting to their evacuation stations exceedingly difficultwhen the list becomes fairly steep and fairly quickly so I would be interested in any data on that which I think would be

-- would help a lot. The other issue is and I'm trying to be quick I'm going to put some of these in writing and have it submitted by the deadline. But I also think there should be consideration in the regulations. I won’t call it sunset reg. so much but at least to the point that where technology and other issues are changing so rapidly and that there should beatimeframe,a reasonabletime framewherethere isanautomatic review of the regulations and I think this works well for the industry andadvocacy at the same time because technology changes quite rapidly and

I think things are quite different now than they were when we finished the regulation. A whole different ball game now than it was back then. So I think that they need to be reviewed in a few years just to see if things are going first of all

-- as to how they're working and if they are working well, and I think it should be a very specific date and look at it again and with all that, I'll let all this go and have something in writing for you in September. Thank you. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you, Mr. Spinetto. Let me just see if anybody on the board wishes to ask you a question. Mr. Hart, are you trying to

-- >> STEPHEN SPINETTO: Hi, Chris. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Steve, thank you for commenting. Currently in Boston we operate now four high

-speed catamaran under 100 passengers? >> STEPHEN SPINETTO: That's correct. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Okay. And we also have a variety of tourist boats, whale watching, multi

-deck boats? Correct? >> STEPHEN SPINETTO:That's correct. There is quite a few of those
. The ferries are part of our public transportation system. The others are private, you know, for

-profit companies, small operators, that operate out of downtown Boston and also general Massachusetts, other places like Salem and Gloucester also.

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: Are you aware of issues where folks trying to access multi

-deck vessels?>> STEPHEN SPINETTO: Yeah, there's

-- you know, most of the for

instance like the whale watching boats have multi

-decks and there's generally for the small boats,

... there's none that I know of operating here that has lifts between the decks and it does put passengers with disabilities at a disadvantage because sometimes the lower deck is mostly the cabindeck,which isgreat iftheweathergoes bad. But iftheweather is wonderful and the whales are jumping, you really want to be on the upper deck because generally it's limited deck and some of that deck is where the mooring lines and things that are not for the public. So on the lower deck, usually these vessels are two decks or at most three decks, vessels so if there's not any vertical

-- mobility to move vertically. You're at a disadvantage particularly in thewhalewatching which are quite a few of them here. So it does make a difference. Even though, you know, the ferries going back and forth, they are small vessels and upper deck and on a summer night you can bet there's almost nobody in the cabin. Everybody on the upper deck. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Thank you. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you thank you, Mr. Spinetto. I understand that Mr. Jensen is waiting to speak on the line from San Francisco.
>> BO JENSEN: Yes. Can you hear me? >> NANCY STARNES: Yes, sir, we can. >> BO JENSEN:Okay. Thankyou. I just had really a question aswell as a comment. Ted [Bell] presented our alternatives. Did a nice job summarizing itand I'm sureasyou canappreciatethere'sa lotmoredetail there about various factors in each of the alternatives. I am in the position of designing it and what I'm wondering is once -- now that wehave had the presentation, what is the process at this point to assess

these? How do we get some direction? What is the schedule to it? I heard Mr. Spinetto mention a deadline. Not sure exactly what this is. And then on a separate topic almost, if we had other questions regarding interpretation of the rules and as Ted alluded to there are a couple of others as well which he didn't bring out, how do we get those questions addressed in the future? Thank you. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. The only information I can provide for you now, Mr. Jensen, is that we are waiting to collect the remainder of the comments that we expect to come in before the September 23rd deadline as it's currently

-- as it's currently made. If you do have some additional comments, questions, you can certainly call the Access Board and speak to Mr. Paul Beatty. He'd be glad to receive your call and discuss these things with you. >> BO JENSEN: And do we need to submit something in writing by September 23rd or is Ted's presentation in place of that?
>> NANCY STARNES: Well, it's completely up to you. We're always interested in collecting testimony, comments, and that's certainly an open opportunity for anyone prior to the September 23rd close.
>> BO JENSEN: Okay. Thank you very much.

>> NANCY STARNES: All right. Of course if you want anything else added to the public record, you can proceed to provide that to us now. All right. Before we close out and we are getting close to the time for the end ofour hearing, I want to go back to Ms. Blye and Mr. Guthrie. I know you

all appeared to have some questions for a previous commenter. I want to give them the opportunity for them to come back so you can ask your question. Do you still have a question, Ms. Blye?

>> REGINA BLYE:Thankyou,madam chair. Regina Blye, publicmember. It's not so much a question. Maybe it is. Itwas for Mr. Thompson. You made the comment about there were several people that would use wheelchairs to get on to the cruise boats but they didn't necessarily request an accessible room and I was wanting to know did y'all do any follow

-up as to see as to why there weren't any usage of the rooms? Because I think some of the comments and I think even Mr. Welch made the comment about trying to make sure that we have reasonable number of accessible rooms so I was just trying to see if y'all did any study over why people were/were not using the rooms? >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. Mr. Thompson? >> TED THOMPSON: Thank you. We have not done a particular study. What I would do is refer to the SS -- or SIPP study that was referenced by the Access Board in the NPRM and note that in that SIPP study it indicates there are a tremendous number of people that use wheelchairs for long distance travel that would not necessarily need to use the chair within the room itself. Andwhenwe collected our database, I think that is what we were seeing in that analysis, the discussion that was provided that we have a tremendous number of people that come onboard that use scooters or wheelchairs for that purpose but don't necessarily need them for short distance travel within a room. Is that responsive or

-->> REGINA BLYE: That's good enough. Thank you. >> NANCY STARNES: Mr. Hart? >> CHRISTOPHER HART: So if that's the case, where does the scooter live? If they're not using their

-- if they're not using the scooter, where is that scooter stored? >> TED THOMPSON: That is an excellent question and we are actually seeing an increase in the number of passengers that are using scooters and that type of mobility assistance. We normally expect to see those scooters to be able to fit through the door of the standard room and be storedwithin the room. However,we are seeing more and more that that's not the case, and it is an issue thatwe are dealingwith on a daily basis. Our members dealing with this just how those scooters are handled if they can't be fit through the door and be stored in the cabin itself. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: And the scooters are typically your target population for customers?
>> TED THOMPSON: No. We are very open and welcoming of every member of the traveling public. We welcome folks within

-- with mobility disabilities of any type, whether it be a full

-time wheelchair user or otherwise. However

-- let me just stop there. We don't target any specific group. We try to make cruising available and accessible to absolutely everybody. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. All right. I understand Mr. Guthrie's question has already been answered. So this is your last chance if you want to say anything at this hearing, whether you're in the room with us or on the phone, speak now or forever hold your peace. Looks like everybody has provided all the comments

-- >> CHRISTOPHER HART: There is one question for Ed.>> NANCY STARNES: Andwith that, it's my intention to conclude this

hearing. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Ed, during the break, a couple of us got together and we were wondering your association as it references the ferry, your association, at what

-- will provide alternate provisions with smaller vessels?

>> EDMOND WELCH: Yes, Mr. Hart. In fact, I was noticing during Mr. Bell's testimony, I was referring to something that's in your rule that I think I might go along there and also might want to highlight and that's in 5101, purpose, you have got an equivalent facilitation section which is a little buried and it basically says "nothing in these requirements prevent the use of designs, products, or technologies as alternatives to these that are prescribed, provided that they result in substantial equivalent or greater accessibility." That's somethingyoumightwantto unburyand highlight becausethatmight provide an answer to sort of the dilemma that Mr. Bell is noticing

-- he's saying, look, you have got sort of prescriptions for requirements to handrails but it doesn't necessarily fit this different type of technology we're looking at. Thismight be the type of thing thatwould allow the useof that technology if everybody agreed that it provide equivalent access. And there may be other technical types of problems that the engineers can identify that this could be used for. As far as the smaller ferries, I mean, I'm assuming there's going to be a second rulemaking coming down the road. You have always said that there would be applying to smaller vessels. And probably using this, but making modifications to it to apply to thesmaller vessels.

So, you know, maybe not in this rule, but eventually the Access Board and therefore ADA -- Justice and Transportation have indicated there are going to be mandatory construction rules for smaller vessels, including smaller ferries. So let's remember we're in a 2

-stage process. And finally Iwould like to emphasize...just because this draft doesn't scope all vessels, you know, whether the cut-off for ferries is 99 or 150 or whatever, we're already covered by the ADA. All ferries have to comply with the ADA. All ferries have to provide nondiscriminatory treatment and access. There are in effect Justice Department rules and Transportation Department rules that apply to these vessels. So, you know, if your phase 1 rule doesn't cover a particular vessel or a particular ferry, that doesn't mean that they aren't providing accessibility to peoplewith disabilities. It's just that they're doing it through operational measures as opposed to a vessel construction measure. So let's keep that in mind as we consider what the proper scope of the construction rules should be. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you. >> EDMOND WELCH: Chris, did that respond appropriately? >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Yes. >> EDMOND WELCH: Thank you. >> NANCY STARNES: Thank you so much. Are there any last questions or comments? With that, I declare the hearing closed. And thank you all very much for your attention and your interest in this topic that's been going on for a long time and your interest has been sustained and we really appreciate that. Thank you.>> ROSE BUNALES: Operator, thank you for all your assistance today.

The meeting is now closed. Please disconnect all lines. >> OPERATOR: Thank you. Thank you for participating. You may disconnect at this time. (End)