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

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

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

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

- Rail Vehi cles Access Advisory Committee (Day 1 of 2) U.S. Access Board Thursday, September 11, 2014 Start Time about 1 pm.

>> PAUL BEATTY: All right everybody. We are ready to start, CART is up, conference call is up. M arilyn a question? We are not ready to s tart? >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Administrative, go ahead.
>> PAUL BEATTY: Okay. We are starting the rail vehicles access advisory committee good afternoon. A nd as the starting process we will go around and introduce themselves. So starting on Paul Beatty. S t aff of the Access Board.
>> PAUL BEATTY: Remember press green. >> Uwe Rutenberg from Montreal.
>> Blair Slaughter , Amtrak. >> JANICE SCHACTER LINTZ: Hearing Access Program. >> Terry Soesbee , RailPlan. >> ROBERT CARLSON: Community communication

-- transpo rtation association.>> Andre Gagne, Bombardier.

>> CRYSTAL LYONS: Southwest alliance association. >> John Holbrook , Alstom transportation. >> David Hughson, Maryland Transit Administration. >> David Gayle, Hearing Loss Association. >> Carol Tyson, United Spinal serving as Jim's alternate. >> Ed Hoff, New Jersey Transit. >> Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund >> Clifton Perez , National Council Independent Living. >> (inaudible) >> James Lucas, alternate for Stan Hunter, Cal. T rans >> Dave Martinez, Metro Chicago. >> BILLY ALTOM: Billy Altom, the Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living or APRIL. >> TERRY PACHECO: Terry Pacheco, American Council of the Blind. >> Melissa Anders on, Access Board staff. >> MARSHA MAZZ: Marsha Mazz. >> Susan Brita: Staff. >> Lisa Fairhall, Access Board staff. >> Rose Marie, U.S. Access Board. >> Bob Reuter , Access Systems & colonial paralyzed Veterans.
>> Dan Viser, CH2ML.>> Don Mebius, LTK.

>> Fra ncis Mascarenhas, Metro Chicago. >> Gricelda Cespedes, MTA New York. >> Bob Franklin, BART San Francisco bay area. >> Glenn Holland , BART. >> Jennifer Hu, Texas central railway. >> Larry, interfleet technology.
>> Jim Pecht, staff. >> Lou with Virginia Rai lway Express >> David Nelson, Amtrak. >> Gary Talbot, Amtrak. >> Thomas Fodor , Department of Justice >> One second.
>> PAUL BEATTY: Rose >> Rose Marie: I have people on the line one second. Okay. I have Keith Frasier, Glenn Millis, Melissa Shurland, Jo nathan Michel, Calvin Gibson. M ichael Chisena , Sid Goldstein and Bill Lay, Paul? >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Chris Hart Access Board liaison. >> FRANK MALDARI: Frank Maldari, MTA New York >> BILLY ALTOM: Thank you all very much. Welcome. For the record we have a quorum. S o, Rose anything that you need to do before I hit this list of stuff? Perfect. (LAUGHTER)>> BILLY ALTOM: First on the agenda, we have approved

the minutes by we sent those out May 9 E

- mail for the from the summary of t he meeting. B ecause the minutes are required bit federal advisory committee act to be certified as complete within 90 days of the committee meeting, the May 9 E

- mail asked for approval of the draft minutes, and majority of committee members responded all approving the draft summary minutes without change therefore they were accepted. B ecause the next meeting date is more than 90 days away we will follow the same procedure to review and approve the minutes of this meeting. Watch your E

- mail dockets they w ill be coming. A lso, as a reminder the new meeting dates at the April

-- >> We lost you. >> BILLY ALTOM: Come on work with me. You are flashing green. Very good. A ll right. T hank you very much. For your patience. We have new meeting dates at the Apr il committee meeting the Access Board asked the committee to select two additional dates as it appeared the advisory committee would not complete our work until by September 12. S o in April the committee directed the Access Board to send out dates from wh ich the committee members would make selections. A nd by E

- mail April 15 date options were presented to the committee. A pril 29 most of the committeeorganizations submitting votes on the dates the voting was

closed the results were that write these down February 26 and 27 of 2015 were the first meeting dates. A nd April 23rd and 24th as the second additional meeting date. I t was recognized that no one two

- day period matched everyone's schedule but the schedules represented best available outcome we had t o do what we could do. S econdly, the Federal Register lobbyist due to a recent change in the guidance from Office of Management and Budget. T hey may serve under some conditions if you have questions about the change talk to Lisa. A ll right. A nd continu ing on with the updates. O ne of the things that I would like to mention to you we will be form willing an editorial work group. At some point in this process the committees will start writing it's final report to the Board, to get that process started I request the four subcommittee chairs form a working group to address the matter. D epending on the level of completeness to the subcommittee reports we will hear today we might be able to start laying out the final report. T his working group would not est ablish any position for the full committee. U ltimately any report developed must be reviewed and approved by the full committee. A nd if any committee member is skilled in report writing and desire toss participate, please let me know. We will be having public comment period although a time ofpublic comment is scheduled for today the public is reminded

comments may also be submitted to the RVAAC electronic docket at regulations.gov. S ince our last meeting comments have been submitted by Michael Chisena and under Emily Bacque 's name at this point to plan for the public comment time is there anyone who plans on commenting from the audience? D o we have a

-- >> PAUL BEATTY: Just to let you know this is Paul speaking. We have two people Mary 

### Lamielle calli ng in and Michael Chisena. I noticed Bob Reuter raised his hand we would say plan for at least three people. >> BILLY ALTOM: All right. We will plan for those at the end of the meeting today. We will allow time. S o, if you have looked at your agendas u p next, are there any other administrative matters that we have not looked at? I am looking around Marsha Paul? C hris? >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Just want to emphasize that we look forward to committee making progress between now and February on a draft report. A nd if we are expecting that the committee can present a final report in late spring or at the latest at the July Access Board meeting. S o, that is your time line so please keep that in mind, I realize you guys have been working very hard, some of you have been on the call every week. We greatly appreciate that. B ut we also want toemphasize that we have to actually have a written document

that is in some shape or form ideally by February full meeting and then we can revise from there. >> (inaudible)
>> PAUL BEATTY: Somebody is. >> (inaudible) >> PAUL BEATTY: W hoever is speaking on the phone, >> (inaudible)
>> PAUL BEATTY: Those listening on the conference call line, would you remember to keep your phone muted? O ne other administrative matter. F or those that are only participating in this meeting via the CART system, if they desire to make a comment make a statement, raise a question, please use the RVAAC E

- mail address which we will be monitoring at RVAAC @ access

- board.gov to communicate your desire to participate. T hat's it Billy. >> BILLY ALTOM: Thank you very much. A s we have just finished our introductions we do have one other person who has joined us I would like to give you an opportunity Dennis would you quickly state your name for the record >> Dennis Cannon, National Disability Rights Network. >> BILLY ALTOM: Awesome. T hank you. G ood to see you too. A rty, if you looked at your agendas we have done introductions and administrative matters. We have scheduledbrief reports on subcommittee conference calls of April

through August but we are going it dispense with those in the essence of time. A nd go to item number 4 which is review and comment on boarding and alighting subcommittee reports and first up that would be Marilyn and Marilyn if you so choose you can remain there if you would like to come to the head of the table however you want to do it is fine with
me. B oarding and A lighting S ubcommittee portion of the meeting >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I am going to stay. >> BILLY ALTOM: Perfect. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Appreciate everything that you are doing. Yes, so boarding alighting subcommittee happy to be up to share what we have done with the full committee. I want to thank all of the staff, particula rly Melissa, who has been tremendously helpful to us. I also want to thank a small group of our subcommittee made up of Dennis Cannon, Ed Hoff and Ed Steinfeld who maybe a proposal which Dennis is now going to go over for the full group. I would like to ask if you could hold your questions until he is finished because the different parts of our proposal, which in essence form our subcommittee report to the full group interrelate with each other so much that I think if we start

-- if we start discussing
on e we will just be tied up in knots and we might as well hearthe whole thing before we start discussion and questions.

So, Dennis? D ennis Cannon, who really took the lead on this, told me he would be willing to report on it. I s that still true? >> DENNI S CANNON: Yes. (LAUGHTER) >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I am so glad. >> DENNIS CANNON: Assuming that you can hear me. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Yes. >> DENNIS CANNON: Okay. We basically started out with some scoping provisions and then added some technical provisions for the various things like lifts and ramps and bridgeplates and so forth. M ost of which were taken from previous either the existing rule and changed or some additions because of kind of special things that we are going to do. I f you have the document

- - there it is. I can't tell whether that's red or not is that red?
>> PAUL BEATTY: Underlined it red. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: It's on the web too. >> DENNIS CANNON: I can't read it any way. T he general is to try to set forth some scoping provisions for the different kinds of rail that we are talking about. Rapid rail high

- speed rail for example which includes MAGLIN by the day purchased after the effective dates of th e requirements that's determined by DOT. S hall be designedfor full length level platform level boarding. U sing the same

definition of level boarding as in the DOT ADA issued in 2011 I got a comment from somebody who thought we were referring to the 1991 DOT regulation that set out the first standards and we are not we are talking about the new one issued in 2011 about level boarding. We will get a direct citation for that section as we go along. B ut we don't have it right now. I don't have it now. A nd I will meet the section the provisions of this section in stations constructed on or after January 26, that's the date at which the building and facilities requirements took effect, all car doors through which passengers board and alight much meet the gap requirements set forth below. S tations constructed before that time at least one door in each car. A nd the reason for that is that some old cars are old stations are on curved platforms and so we are not

-- you are not allowed to do that if you complied with the 1990 regulations. B ut we have to have some ability to meet these new cars and old stations. We have all doors on light rail cars and commuter rail cars operating exclusively at level boarding station platforms shall comply with the gap requirem ents, at least one door through which passengers board and alight on each side serving each on board seating area for wheelchairs and mobility aids on inner

- city rail carsthat's Amtrak and commuter rail cars operate at mixed high

and low stations shall me et the requirements. S o, not every door. All doors on AGT that's people movers operating at speeds of 20 miles per hour or slower meet the special requirements, they are listed later on gaps and I will explain that in a minute. O ther people movers that m ove at speeds faster than 20 miles per hour have to meet the same standard as rapid rail. B oarding alighting is the next section, all new rail cars and fixed guide way vehicles shall be compatible with all level boarding all steps incorporate and bring th e car level to the doorway of the same level of the platform. D oorways you have a minimum vertical clearance of 74 inches. T hat number comes from measuring the height of the Acela we may want to discuss whether that's the appropriate number or not. The s ection on gaps is where we talk about where you have a condition either or both of the conditions set forth below you have to have a bridgeplate, the car

- borne bridgeplate or a car

- borne lift I. and we will

-- lift and we will discuss that later. H orizont al gap for I the horizontal gab between the boarding platform is greater than 2 inches. A nd or the vertical difference between the boarding platform height and the vehicle floor is plus or minus 5/8 inches.Whenever you meet those conditions and rapid ra il we know

you can meet those conditions without a device, we know several systems have actually retrofitted existing cars. I f you can't make that requirement then you have to provide a bridgeplate a ramp or onboard lift. T he section that says people movers is actually a subset of gaps that shouldn't be as set forth the way it is in the document. A nd this says that you have slow moving people movers they have further requirement they have to meet a 1 inch maximum horizontal gap. F aster ones need to be t he

-- need to be at the 2 inch if it's 20 miles per hour or less in speed it needs a 1 inch requirement. T hen we have operation issues which is where car doors open automatically at platforms design for level boarding ramps and bridgeplates shall deploy a utomatically. That's where the doors open automatically without intervention. I n other words, like a rapid rail system, for example. Deployment shall be integrated with the door opening and closing. We want the thing to come out when the door opens and retract when the door closes. M anually deployed ramps and bridgeplates shall be permitted where doors are open by train personnel and where the horizontal gap exceeds 12 inches. We will discuss where that 12 inches comes from later.There is one question that was raised by Ed Hoff about

manually deployed, and not to preclude that it might be electrically operated but manually deployed. I n other words, the operator would push the button and it would deploy. There is an advisory note we are asking the comm ittee asking the committee is asking the board to require all entry vehicles to have automated technology bridgeplates and ramps after the year 2020. A nd the board is going to have to decide whether that's feasible. T he rest of the provisions that start out with ramps and bridge plates are primarily the same requirements that currently exist with a few changes. S o I will only go over the differences. D own on design load the old one was 600 pounds. We have upped that to 800 pounds. T he reason there is a half that amount in a short bridge plate is because a short bridgeplate will be partially on the platform and partially in the car, so the full width of the

-- the full length of the chair is part of its resting

-- is resting on the platform or the car. So we figured only half of the weight will be suspended by the ramp at any time. T he next section starts with handrails. C urrently there is a provision that says, where handrails are provided, and now we are going to actually require handrails in some c onditions. And we need to put the standards for handrails and stanchions recommending from buildings and facilities talkingabout gripping surface and diameter and mounting and so

forth. S o we need to include that somewhere. T hat might be with the

-- in the on

- board circulation section. And they shall be provided on ramps and bridge plates with a horizontal gap between the platform and the car floor, exceeds 12 inches. T his is where your going across a gang plank essentially and there is quite a operatio n in some cases I am told as much as 24 inches in some areas. We don't want somebody

-- it's very uncomfortable to move across such a gap and have only a little two

- inch edge protection. S o, we want handrails to be required in that case. T he clear width has been increased to 32 inches because that's where the number where working with these days on this. Advisory the clear width we talk about wider is bet he ever. B ut the ramp or bridgeplate can be nearly as wide as the door. I t has to be slightly nar rower to fit inside if it fits inside but it can be from

-- it can be something that deploys on the outside. And might be wider than the door. T he attachment is currently in effect except there was some people felt it was a little weak in terms of the fa ct that some bridgeplates and operation tend to be dislodgable. S o, we have a section that says ramps and bridgeplates shall engage to the vehicle in such a manner they may not shall not be dislodged by horizontal or vertical movement until activity disen couragedby an active member of the crew. We want something

physically attached in time for that to happen. U nder surfaces we need to include a section this is probably, again, for on

- board circulation, a section that talks about surface discontinuities and so forth typically what you say in buildings and facilities gaps and maximum gaps and so forth. O r openings I think they are called in building and facilities the edge barriers that's current slope is current, transitions this is one where we talk abo ut we need to add some provisions about tactical provisions about surface discontinuities you can have maximum vertical of a quarter of an inch if it's more than that, it's up to an inch it has to be a 1 in 2 slope over that it's a ramp. We need to add th at provision as a general provision to cover lots of things. L et's see. T he next thing is gaps. We have talked about a gap

-- we don't want a gap between the vehicle and the bridgeplate. A nd we have added a section that says that that also applies to th e connection between the bridgeplate and the station platform. Stowage is current lifts again the only change is we changed the weight. I think that may be

-- let me see everything. We have to fill in some reference or fill in something about surfaces, s ize of the lift platform has been increased. A nd let's see. V isual contrast deflection movement all of those are currently part ofthe current requirement handrails, we need to simply add

again this is going to be a generic requirement for handrails stan chions and handholds we need to put that in a different section so we can reference that. I believe that is the end of all of the changes. B ack to you Marilyn. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Thank you very much Dennis. S o, the floor is really open for discussion, q uestions, Blair? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. D ennis, thank you and Marilyn. I had a couple of questions. O ne was on the issue around the width of the ramp or the bridgeplate. A nd the clear width of the door opening. B oth being 32 inches. What's the

-- what's the thinking there for managing that would that imply that the doorway clear is really going to be more than 32? O r that you are going to have a little insert but ultimately the pathway is the clear pathway is 32 inches through that transition from the through the door at no point you have anything that encroaches into that 32

- inch

-wide path at the floor level. >> DENNIS CANNON: The idea was that the doorway has a minimum clear width of 32 but in the

-- especially with the manually deployed bridgepl ates and so forth, it has to fit in the door. S o, that part of the door, the bridgeplate that actually goes into the doorway has to be a little bit narrower maybe a half inch or sore so

-- or so it will fit inside thedoorway. I n some of the designs that we have seen. T he

newer ones that Gary Talbot has been working on, the edge protection, the edge barrier is actually outside of that area, in other words, there is a little lip on the end that slides into the doorway. A nd that part doesn't have side edg es. T he side edges start on the outside. S o that gives pretty much the maximum width that you can fit in a 32

- inch door. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That takes care of it. We have done those kind of things I have seen them obviously with different ramps it work s I thought it was worth clarifying. One of the other questions that I had was on gaps it's not gaps as we typically think about them at the side of the train, but once you are inside the car, you have thresholds and then the transition area is between car s through diaphragms as we call them on the railroad. You can have elements that create small gaps, and I ran into it this year with new cars where you think about a threshold at home, or north mall building situation, it handles swinging doors but we oft en have sliding doors or big swinging doors that have to seal water tight. And so, you end up with in some cases needing a guide way or a door that has, you know, a depth and a width. A nd when we went looking we really couldn't come up with anything that

-- that filled the void there. T hey gave us the answer. That might be something worth putting in there somehowbecause it was one of those questions we

-- and it came

about because we had a ramp or a threshold that was less than a half inch or right at a half inch then it had some shape to it we were looking at how wheels traverse those small gaps and what's, you know, what's a gap that creates an upset in a wheel as you move. L inda bar ton and I talked about it we came to a half inch. W hich I think co mes out of some of the architectural regs. T hat can create some problems depending on the door system. B ut we ultimately figured out ways to make it work because we didn't have anything else to go with so we did it. B ut having come up against that kind of void in the information that it might be worth filling that gap literally and figuratively. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: And then I had one other question. We seen the 800 pounds we all talked about it for a long time, what was the driver and the research or the science behind going from 600 to 800 pounds? T hat's just a question. >> DENNIS CANNON: Yeah. T hat came primarily from Ed Steinfeld's research that's been collecting that kind of data for a while now. T hat was a recommendation from, that 's not 100%. I don't remember what percentage of chair that is
covers. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I know it's a higher percentage.>> DENNIS CANNON: It's a higher percentage. R ight now

there is enough of those chairs in that range that they are being excluded from current design. S o that's the issue. About the surfaces thing, yes we need to add a whole section on surfaces that will cover all kinds of things. N ot just the ramps and the lifts and the bridge plates but the routes inside the car and all of that a nd we will have to come to grips with what that actually is going to be. We haven't put that together yet. T hat's a separate section but it's generic because it covers lets of things not just the ramps and the lifts so we that's still a piece that needs to be attached. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Something to think about too, some of those elements are dynamic. I f you think about the pathway and the Acela which is one of the better path

-- it's the best we have at Amtrak because it's fully connected. B ut that's a dynamic set of gaps. S o if we could come to something that helps define that while respecting the dynamics of the train, I think that would be a good thing at least give us something to work toward and around. >> DENNIS CANNON: I have gone from in the Acela from the seating area into the cafe car a number of times. A nd the platform there, the connection is kind of bumpy but it's doable. You get a cup of coffee you better make sure the lid is on tight when you go back.(LAUGHTER)

>> DENNIS CANNON: But it's not like the

-- a number of people here went to Union Station a while back to look at some of the bridgeplates and so forth. A nd one of the things that we did is get on and off of cars and went to 30th street station in Philadelphia and so forth. And you can go through from one car to another when it's stop, not a good idea to do that when they are in motion and there are lots and lots of dynamic things going on. A nd a lot of bumps and what not that's probably

-- could be improved but the amount that we can improve it is unknown at this point. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> Ed Hoff New Jersey Transit. You are saying the on board committee solves the gab issue it will solve it for the

-- you accessible the chairperson for the on board

-- if you can solve that gap issue we will apply it to our subcommittee.
>> Who says? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Well and there are those gray areas where we have overlap between the different things but it was
one o f those things that I in sitting and listening to Dennis going through everything it occurred to me that we hadn't talked about that we talked about threshold height and you can do a lot to deal with that. B ut when you look at the otherphysical requireme nts of closing doors on trains, and sealing

them for the water add snow stays out. I t gets to be a challenge. B ut the more that we can put in and base it on the dynamic realities of moving a wheeled vehicle over those thresholds, and not just you know le t's don't pull a number out of the air let's make it realistic, you can have a fair amount of gap and not upset a wheel but, again, lets

-- if we can define it, it gives engineers something to work towards versus wondering if they are getting it right or n ot each thinking about it which is worse. >> This is the add on section you were talking about a minute ago? D ennis or >> Pardon me >> You were talking about a section we need to develop that addressing the matter that Blair just discussed. >> DENNIS CANN ON: Yes in general, what we have is a set of technical in the rules you have a set of technical provisions some of which refer to other sections cross referencing whatever, we need rather than duplicating it we need to develop a section on surfaces that wi ll cover all of those things. A nd that you will then refer back to, it will be you know a number that's referenced complying with XXX section and then that section needs to be filled sought. T he same thing is true for controls and operating mechanisms. Whichapply to a whole bunch of different things like faucets in the

restrooms and doors on the cabins and buttons the call buttons and whatever that's a operate section that needs to be developed too. We can grab a lot of that from the proposed bus new b us update because we made some changes there to the old sections and we can take that out and stick it in here copy it essentially and look through it and make decisions as to whether we want to make changes into those things but we don't

-- we don't have that section in front of us right now that's a section that still needs to be developed.
>> Handrails too >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Thank you. Yes, staff has

-- staff has asked me to

-- that we should remind ourselves when we think about the proposed bus update that they have maybe been changed now, but we don't know what they are. S o, we would love to know. (LAUGHTER) >> MARSHA MAZZ: Well

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: I want to let me address that issue. I am not suggesting that we reference that regulation because it's not in effect and we don't know what it is. B ut what I am saying is in the draft there were some things being proposed that we could look at and see if we think they are a good ideaand if they are we can take them out and put them in this rule

>> M ARILYN GOLDEN: If we disguise them the staff won't know. >> DENNIS CANNON: If staff have made improvements to those sections we could leave it up to staff to, you know, pull those over into this section when the rulemaking takes place. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: T hank you I have Chris let me let you go ahead you wanted to go to Marsha. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Yes, go to Marsha. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Gary wants to speak. H e is after that. >> MARSHA MAZZ: I wanted to let you know we sent the vehicle rules to OMB we don't know how long it's going to take for them to clear it. B ut I

-- I do want to remind you that we really don't want to see you spend your really precious time word s mithing, dealing with format, whether you reference something somewhere else it doesn't

-- th at really isn't your job. S o, if you

-- if you can identify a set of requirements that you want to work from, or set >> Jack Andre: Of proposed requirements you want to work from go ahead and identify them. A nd then just let us know in narrative or in an y form that you want how you would like them to change for rail. A nd that will be sufficient. Please don't waste a whole lot of this committee's time todecide whether they are getting cross referenced or not or

how it's going to happen. B ecause there have been format changes in the bus rule. A nd so, we

-- we really would like to not have you feel badly or upset with us when we go to use your work and we don't necessarily use the format that you chose. S o, the main thing is to get your ideas across to u s. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Thank you. I have Gary and then I have Uwe was something else? >> No, I have just been requesting it down here I wasn't doing it properly Terry also. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: And Chris. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: And Chris okay. >> Thank you.
>> Here Gary. >> Sorry about that thank you madam chair Gary Talbot Amtrak. I wanted if I could launch of what Dennis talked about on the side edge guards for just a moment the edge barriers O on a bridgeplate especially my comments would be more for a brid geplate. I appreciate everybody's help to date. You guys have been wonderful to help us with our design work. I n another week and a half we will show you the latest iterations of those. I think to Marsha's point to the big idea piece, I think we need s ome language in here that would better reflect like allowing the side guard to terminate onceyou get on the platform of a bridgeplate. A nd you will see

why I don't need to go into that now I wanted to bring it up. The bigger issue for me is the slope. We have ramps and bridge plates I have slopes not steeper than 1 in 8. B oy, I wish I mean, you can make that anything that you want I suppose. W hat I have found with the ramp work that we have done, is that A, we don't often have the space at a station t o have a super long ramp but the other problem that we have is it gets so heavy when you are using carbon fiber that it's too long too heavy nobody can deal with it you can't fit it on the vehicle. S o, like a 1 in 8 if you look at a bi

- level car like a
su perliner Amtrak has my comments are only for inner

- city, often you will have 15 to 17 inch vertical from the surface of the floor of the vehicle down to the grade. S o down to a grade crossing. To do that in a 1 in 8 you are talking 10, 11 foot runs on a ramp that you may not even have space to deploy, let alone you won't be able to pick it up move it put it together and then carry the load. T he other thing that happens is when you get that long, you have to support the load underneath the ramp it's just too long. A nd now you really have this like erector set you put together when you pull up. I don't know the right answer to that. We have the right answer that everybody can look at, I will ask you on the 1 and 8 we need to figure out something thatis a little bit better for the rail environment, especially when

you consider you know using the lightest weight materials we can find something that's got to go on the vehicle that can be deployed quickly and easily by one person and then a person with a dis ability can have better access to multiple cars that's a real problem. T he harder we make it for folk toss deploy stuff the more we will get stuck in one car only, thank you very much. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay. D ennis, did you want to address that directl y then I want to go back to the queue. >> DENNIS CANNON: Yeah. I t's a problem. (LAUGHTER) >> DENNIS CANNON: I mean, it's clearly a problem that we can't do 1 in 12 that's without question. M any of these situations. B ut it relates to an issue that Dick Cogswell of FRA raised looking at one of the Earl question things and what we say in the scoping is the cars shall have either a car

- borne bridgeplate or a car

- borne lift. N ow, if you are buying cars that you are going to run on the northeast corrido r where they have a bunch of high platforms I think those are probably about 48 inches, you would order your cars with car floors that are 48 inches high and you would have short bridgeplates that were either kept in a compartment or maybe they are hinged out or automatically deployed. T here are lots ofsituations or if you are running on some systems where you

have got most of your platforms are at 21 inches say or your cars for that line to be 21 inches. M ost, as far as I know railroads don't just move cars from one place to another. There are lots of places where the cars that run between here and Chicago, for example, can't run up and down parts of the northeast corridor because of tunnels and bridges and so forth. S o you have to decide where they ar e going to go. And make them fit that. T here are places where on a particular run, you are going to have some mixtures of high platforms, and low platforms. 8inches above top of ground in fact Orlando there is no platform. T he pavement simply runs straight out from the

-- from the station to the rail at the

-- the top of the rail itself. T he conductor has to put down a stool for the passengers who are boarding by steps and they have a portable ramp

-- portable ramp that they use for boarding wheelchai rs. B ut if you are running in that kind of environment, then probably the only thing that is going to work is a car

- borne lift. I n those cases where you have got those really strange mixed plat form heights that may be the only solution. I know the

-- s ome of the operators think, well, we'll just use these

-- we had an exception in the old rule. T he lift and ramp sections were always for car

- borne lifts but then we had an exception that said, if you had a liftthat met these requirements on the platform , or was portable

that was permitted. We are trying to get away from that because most of the people who have used those things find them difficult at best, and they are always locked away in some corner somewhere. I have been on a train as long as an hou r waiting for somebody to go find the lift and bring it to the car. S o, in those cases where you have got constrictions you are not going to have the room to deploy a long ramp, a long ramp is too heavy of. Too difficult to maneuver. T he option is going to be a car

- borne lift. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Thank you Uwe? U we Rutenberg: Thank you Marilyn. T his is Uwe. J ust adding to what Dennis said and I think it was Ed and you as well in terms of ramp complications. I was recently in Europe, and I found a cou ple of instances where the platform is actually higher than the car floor. A nd I mean substantially higher. I saw some bi

- level cars in Stockholm, and in Germany, and they had actually built in ramps that sloped into the car. S ome were car
- borne ramps a nd some were just per mentally installed

-- permanently installed. T he slope was such if you go there with a wheelchair you roll fast right into the center of the car. I was wondering if we had the situation here in North America and if we do, then how we address this?>> DENNIS CANNON: I know there is a blog put around

Ken Shiotani I don't know shared with the group or just on the subcommittee. Ablog for the folks trying to develop the high

- speed rail in California. T he high

- speed rail is required to have full platform level boarding. T hey are planning to run some of these

-- some of these tracks on a bunch of different current railway with a bunch of different stations. T he platforms all of which range from 48 inches and some of 20 inches some are 2 2 and so forth. T here may be 8 inch they are trying to decide how they are going to deal with this. And it's an issue that is not just for these new rules. B ut it's an issue there today. O ne of the issues of course is you can build a platform. You can create it. You can tear one down I guess if it's too high. B ut you may mean that you have to build essentially

-- a mini low platform. I nstead of a mini high platform at one end of the station you may have to build something that's lower at one end of the station that you pull up to and you may have to do then double stopping or respotting the train to do it it's going to be a problem until people start investing in things like building new platforms. The DOT rule the 2011, DOT rule talks about instanc es in which you are required will be required to build full length high level platforms but there are very few of those that meet their criteria. S o, they are not going to happen very often.We are not likely to get a whole bunch of mini highs built

arou nd the country that's just not likely to happen. M inute me highs will be less likely full length platforms will be less likely. We may be stuff with lifts on trains or some time to come, if that's the case, until there is some kind of large

- scale rebuild ing project, which I don't see. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Dennis this is Blair. You make a very good point. B ecause you could have, and I would see it quicker in say California than on the northeast corridor, but if suddenly we started running superliner or su rfliner bi

- level equipment on the corridor mixed with the standard equipment and in the Acelas we would have to build low platforms that are stations that are all high platform now. Certainly into places that are traditionally low platform, if you start r unning single level high speed equipment that has to have full length level boarding you have

-- somebody can't stop there anymore. S o, it creates a problem. A nd I

-- the most frustrating part, I think, is that we are trapped between

-- we want to

-- we want we all want to have accessibility but we don't want to generate conditions where service is either decided not to go to a certain place or deleted because you know something is seen as too onerous it's a quandary that we are up against. A nd unfortunately some of this stuff lasts too long there is not enough money putagainst it to fix it and change it. A nd that's very frustrating

for all of us. >> DENNIS CANNON: Our job is to make recommendations and the board write regs get comments in the end depen ding on the comments it gets from industry plus what OMB tells them to do which is the 800

- pound gorilla. T hose changes will be made and there will have to be a compromise. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Hopefully more than a grassy spot with a step stool. >> MARILY N GOLDEN: Really Terry you had something? >> TERRY PACHECO: I do. I am not sure this may be not be the most appropriate time for it, but I do believe it's appropriate in this committee. I just want to ask: H as this committee done any work on

-- trying t o come up with a nice way of putting this. B oarding issues for people with other disabilities. W hat I am thinking of in particular, is knowing where to board a vehicle. T his is particularly the case as far as commuter and light rail vehicles are concern ed. T he issues of people accidentally going

-- thinking that it's the end

-- the door into the train car and it's actually the space between cars. T hat's kind of a misboarding misalighting. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: That's

-- >> TERRY PACHECO: It seems to me it 's a piece thatabsolutely needs to be addressed. A nd I am wondering if you

have done anything with that? >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I don't think we have talked about it isn't it already

-- I mean

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: It's one of the sections that we need to pic k up from the current regulation and transfer over. >> TERRY PACHECO: I would hope it would be >> DENNIS CANNON: Requirement between car barriers. That needs to be

-- there are a couple number of things in the existing rule that we weren't really worried about changing, so we didn't, you know, we are focusing on the things where we want to make changes and make different regulations in the current one but where there is a lot of things in the current rule that we just want to take and say, yes, keep that. There is a requirement for doors when doors close that the

-- there is a requirement that be audible and visual. A nd that's obviously something that we have to take
over. A nd that's probably in your committee, actually. >> TERRY PACHECO: Yeah. T he anno uncements would be our committee I was just more thinking about the actual physical chains whatever they are using between the physical equipment and hardware. >> This is Uwe I want to add quickly to what you are requesting. T here is a research project un derway right nowthat we are doing for TCRP and it's addressing exactly the

problems that you are mentioned.

-- that you are mentioning. All of the safety issues that are happening at gaps between the platform and the train in between trains people fallin g off platforms, people stepping on to tracks, all of the safety issues. N ot only for people with disabilities, but for all passengers because there is a big problem arising in all of the rail transit industry not only in inner

- city LRT's and trams there is a great number of incidents that are happening because of these issues. A nd specifically what you are mentioning, people with vision impairments, they step between cars falling into the cars when there is a big gap and this is happening specifically in LRT situations where the cars are not kind of welded together and there is a gap of two or three feet. A nd there are some operators and transit operators who have found solutions or at least are trying some solutions to solve these problems. B ut this pr oject is underway right now and will probably be ending mid next year. >> TERRY PACHECO: Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that we

-- though I do realize there are provisions that we carry them over into this. T hat this is also addressed in this, in our recommendations thank you. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Thanks Terry. I think that's areally important issue that you brought up and good

discussion. A nd

-- I don't know if I am right about this, but it just seems like the fact that there is a regulation on b etween car barriers doesn't mean everyone is following it today. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: No. T hey are not. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: They are really not. A nd it's really easy for people to think it's not in the rule because you see so many problems with it. S o, t hanks for raising that. I have Chris and after that Linda. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: I just a couple points. O ne is Uwe is correct to highlight the upcoming TCRP work. I t is in some ways a decade late in the UK to (inaudible) it's a huge effort causing signi ficant steps and that work the first step on behalf of the UK trains and injuries tied to that first step. And then University of (inaudible) up in is it Belgium or the Netherlands started to do a huge research looking at boarding and alighting of not jus t trains but buses and trying to figure out what was (inaudible) door and step height to improve low time and reduce injuries. S o, there is a fair amount of research albeit overseas. The one thing that I do want to kind of highlight, aside from Gary's acc urate point about the bridgeplates and ramps getting too long, some rail systems actually bring the platforms into compliance. You won't necessarily have (inaudible) vertical gap. A nd so, one maynot necessarily want to put the onus on the vehicle to sol ve

that issue. I t may actually be the railroad that needs to

-- to actually spend some money on its platforms and not on unnecessary upgrades to other things in the system. A nd that is said because at some point you may end up asking bridgeplates in vehi cles to do more than is reasonable and then ultimately as Gary has shown with his gap mitigation plat form, it may be better to solve it on the ramp and not on the vehicle. F inally, I want to turn to where we started some time ago and that was the diaphra gm question. A nd I would suggest that all of you may want to think some more about what diaphragms look like and what is expected. B ecause while the Acela diaphragm is somewhat viable if I use this chair that I am sitting in as an example, I will get hun g up on that diaphragm, basically 3 or 4 times and need a push to get through the diaphragm. A nd so, my chair is a very typical power
- based chair. S o, there is some need to think if I put on my international rail hat and I think about what is available, particularly in Japan, in high

- speed rail, as well as in Europe, you have absolutely flat diaphragms. A nd certainly Jon and our friends from Bombardier as well as Ivan and Patrick
can highlight what they have done overseas. Partly because of tripping haz ards but partly because of it's a pain to roll your luggage up and down these areas so I put that out to allof you to think about. F inally a part of the diaphragm

discussion you might want to think about handholds and where and what FRA currently require s for handholds. A nd where you need to make recommendations related to those hand holds or lack thereof. >> DENNIS CANNON: Let me respond to two points. O ne is, later on when we are talking about rooms and spaces I am going to show a photo and a video th at shows what happens between a fixed (inaudible) car mission consist for example you will see there is a very clear difference between the kinds of things and the surfaces issue though is one that is going to be a little tricky we are going to have to wor k on that separately. I just realize the that I forgot, there is something on the proposal that I forgot to highlight. I t's not in red. I t is a change in terms of the edge barriers, on a ramp or bridgeplate, the current rule is a 2 inch high barrier the full length of the bridgeplate. T he problem with that is that implies that it may be inside the door as well which you really don't need it. T hen there is issues when it's on the end on the platform when you want

-- might need to turn or move. And the fear is that you could trip over that edge barrier and it also restricts your ability to turn off and so what we added on the edge barrier was that the barrier the 2 inch high barrier can stop essentially 6 inches from the end and taper down tozero with s ome kind of taper which we didn't define. T hat is

a difference to address the issue that people have already raised about the edge barrier requirement going all the way to the end of the bridgeplate which can be a tripping hazard. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay. I just want to ask if it's a response to this before I go on the with the queue or

-- >> (inaudible) >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Let me put you in queue James. Linda? >> LINDA MARTIN: I just wanted to point out that there is no requirement in the inner

- city regu lation for the between car barrier. M aybe you know historically why that's too Blair it's in the commuter rail and subway light rail requirement. I mean maybe you provide it anyway out of an abundance for caution but for some reason it's missing from that section. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Yes. >> DENNIS CANNON: Can I address that issue because you are right. W hat the current requirement is, the real problem for between car stepping off of platforms is A, a high platform if it's at grade, you don't fall anywhe re although you might get in between cars accidentally. T he

-- between car barrier requirement is mostly a light rail and rapid rail requirement it applies when written only to new cars so you had a lot of instances where new cars were attached to old car s and thequestion is: Was there a requirement to put

something

-- you know that attaches to the old car I am happy to say lots of rapid rail systems that is in fact what was done. W hich is good. T he requirement does not generally apply to inner

- city ra il first because it only applies in high platforms where we have a problem. A nd because what happens in the

-- in a lot of rapid rail there is a window at the end of the car so the light from the window shows into that gap and to somebody that has vision, most people have most people with vision impairments have the ability to see some light, that looks like other a doorway. W hen you don't have lights on the end that area is dark. T he same thing is true in the existing rule that said, when you had the ty pical diaphragm accordion diaphragm between an inner

- city car that acts as the between car barrier. S o, with respect to inner

- city rail, you don't need to have a between car barrier. We may want to think about that. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> MARILYN G OLDEN: Did you have something further Linda? >> LINDA MARTIN: I wanted to add the way the rule is written now it applies to inner

- city section the high

- speed rail. S o, you would also need to consider what to do with high

- speed rail with regard to barriers

.>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Marilyn can I jump in there Blair

from Amtrak. In my brief almost 25 years now at Amtrak, I only plan to work there five years and go do something else that didn't work out. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: The

-- I have never heard of

-- we have had gap issues or gap incidents where people stepped into the gap and that sort ever thing but never that I am aware of did we have anything where people actually stepped between cars into the gap. I t's been more they were

-- they missed a step, they slipped something to that order on the inner

- city trains that would include the Amfleet cars the regional cars that we run. A nd I

-- going back in time, I read somewhere that the origins of some of those between car barriers were to keep people from trying to ride between the cars and avoid you know trains that they had missed or craziness like that to get to the next station. I nstead of just waiting for the next train. B ut I am not aware of any sort of raging problems with that on inner

- city trains or we would have

-- I have a hot line from our claims department they would have called me so I don't know. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: If someone is jumping on the train and riding I want that to be accessible.(LAUGHTER)

>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We will provide

-- maybe rapid rail should have to have appropriate gripping surfaces for holding
on. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I am going to hold you to it. Let's see I had James next did anybody

-- did I miss any other hands? Yes okay. F rank James Frank looking around behind me go ahead James. >> Testing testing. O kay. H i there. I noticed object the

-- I noticed on the proposal the platform plate for the wheelchair lift has increased 2 inches in width from the PRIIA specification. S o, I guess my question

-- I think this is similar to the bridgeplate discussion where we said that had to be 32 but noting some doors may also be 32 and how you reconcile that. N ow, that's not an issue for the PRIIA vehicles the door width is much greater possibly there are vehicles out t here where the door width is narrower I am not sure. B ut my question is: D o we
-- that may create issues for some vehicles, and for obviously compliance of the PRIIA specification. I know Linda actually came to test the wheelchair lift on that project, perhaps Linda could commented on about the 30 by 54 was acceptable and whether we really need the 32 by 54 whether we could keep the PRIIA specification.>> LINDA MARTIN: I

--

>> DENNIS CANNON: The 32 by 54 was based on, again, research by Ed Steinfeld we felt it needed to be

-- the current standard of 48 by 30 doesn't really fit an awful lot of chairs these days. Excluding more and more. When the

-- when the comment period takes place, manufacturers will be able to chip in and say, chime in and say we can or cannot do that. Remember, one of the things that the board has to do when it issues its reg it has to do a regulatory assessment, which is essentially a cost benefit analysis. A nd so, in doing that it will have to look at things like if current devic es don't meet that standard what would it cost to change it. O f course manufacturers will give information on what it might cost them to do it and so forth. It's very difficult for somebody to evaluate something like what's the cost of R and D to do an u pgrade. S o those are the issues that come up when the regulation actually goes out for comment before it's made into a final rule. A nd so, you are right, at that point I am sure that there will be a number of manufacturers. W hen the original bus lift re quirement was put out it had a requirement for 48 by 30. T here was a protest by General Motors which had a platform which was wider but shorter. A nd they got from DOT a postponement of that particular piece of the puzzle for them to makeadjustments. T h ey claim they were going to need two years, I

think, to do that, DOT gave them a year I believe. A nd so, that's an issue that when DOT adopts guidelines and puts them into standards, it can make those kinds of adjustments and say, this particular provisio n doesn't take effect until such time. S o, those are things that are available for the manufacturers in case there turns out to be a real problem. On the other hand if one manufacturer says I can do it

-- it's pretty clear that the others are going to ju mp in to try to do that too.
>> The point I was trying to make here is that the PRIIA spec is a clear

-- big step increase from the 30 by 48 which you mentioned and referred to. B ut it just seems that this specification in this proposal is almost that but not quite. Just 2 inches off on the width it's so close and it's going to create inconsistency issues and seems like if we are going to

-- if the PRIIA spec has already been gone through the loop that's acceptable, you are almost there I just didn't unde rstand why it was 2 inches difference. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: James, one thing that may not be relevant or may be not apparent for folks in rail, is in the paratransit world a lot of lifts have already standardized to 32 by 54. A nd they have long since gone to 800

- pound capacity. S o, it may just be a question of rail catching up andconnecting the dots with (inaudible) and the other

manufacturers. A nd saying, okay oh, okay you guys are making 5,000 of these a year. S o, there will be that little bit of a l oop that hasn't been closed. S o, you know, 2 inches I guess you guys can several discuss that 2 inches but I would just remind you if the big lift manufacturers are already there. It may not be

-- it may not actually be an issue that folks think is an is sue. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay. >> LINDA MARTIN: You want me to comment to I wanted to comment to James' point. I found it adequate with my individual wheelchair. A s Dennis mention that's the point of the rulemaking process is that it will take into accoun t you know all sides the industry and people with disabilities and

-- so I am not a

-- while I am a pretty good example of a rather large wheelchair I am not the

-- I am not everybody. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Yeah, this is Marilyn. You are not a scooter user. You are not

-- you really can't go from one wheelchair no matter what it is anyway, my state may need to catch up just a little bit. Frank. >> FRANK MALDARI: Yes. F irst question had to do with the change from 3 to 2 inches for the horizontal gap I was on the call I know we discussed it. T he example that I rememberwas that if WMATA can do it you should be able to do it just

about anyway. I n our operation

-- (LAUGHTER) >> FRANK MALDARI: In some of our service we can get down to 3 inches. A nd the cha nge from 3 to 2 requiring on board bridgeplates is big, especially in a subway operation where you have so many people going in and out of door openings during rush hour

-- I know it's an advisory for the automated one, it's a requirement for an on board o ne. T hat change is significant it's really going to affect the ability of people to get in and out of the train. S o, if I remember correctly, I thought that one of the things that WMATA had done was put the rubber bumper gap filler in to achieve the 2 in ches it's not an extension of the thresh hold plate as much as it is to prevent somebody stepping in between the threshold plate and the platform and falling in between. I t's not meant to support vertical load in the sense of a wheelchair wheel or somethi ng like that. I would think that you know, if there was a good standard that could be used that could be justified by saying a wheel an average wheelchair or something like that requires that would be one thing. B ut just to write the standard based on wh at WMATA could do with a rubber bumper may not be the best way to justify a reduction that has a significant impact.>> DENNIS CANNON: Admittedly I mentioned two systems

the rubber bumper in WMATA does reduce the gap to about 2 inches maybe a little bit le ss it's not the solution. T he much better solution is the extension developed by MARTA in Atlanta it's a retrofit that they added to all of the older cars and now it's part of the spec for the new car. I t's actually a metal plate that is bolted to the ou tside and extends the threshold out from the car edge. T he fear originally was that it would get knocked off from the platform, so far that hasn't happened. A nd MARTA has been running that for many years. T here are probably other extensions too. T he re ason for the 3 inch, originally, was because we were convinced that you couldn't do any better than that. I n the rapid rail situation. A nd we now know that you can. 2 inches is actually a bigger than we should have for wheelchairs wheels. The standard for opening in building and facilities, I think is an inch or inch and a half I don't remember. I f we were doing it on the basis of accessibility requirements and what's in the building in the facilities it would be even less than 2 inches. 2 inches is t here because that's doable. A s opposed to you know just guessing that it might be a nice number. We would like to make it smaller than that. We would like to have if the same as an elevator which is a half inch but that's not going to happen.>> MARILYN GOLDEN: Did you have an additional point

Frank something else? >> FRANK MALDARI: The other comment that I wanted to make, I know it's only an advisory at this point is the automatic deploying bridgeplate. I know it's a nice thing and it may have some ben efits. B ut if you think of the big picture and you take into consideration certain operations what you might have one station possibly a large fleet of cars that doesn't meet the requirement you have to equip your entire fleet with an automatically deploy ing mechanism. A nd from

-- I mentioned it before, and my experience the more complicated that you make any operation the more likely it is to have a failure. R ight now, the safest way to board would be a minimal gap and no mechanical manual or automatica lly deploying device anywhere. Everybody would agree to that. For the most part we have tried to do that to the best that we
can. A nd we do achieve that and in some areas we have to use a bridgeplate. T he manually deploying bridgeplate does work. You would do require special attention but it's not the
norm. T he major passenger stations that we operate in the gap is very small you typically don't use it but you can apply the same criteria to areas where you have mixed operations with freight which requ ire greater clearances to the platform. So, the point that I am making is: Every layer of complexitythat you add to a vehicle is another layer of unreliability that

you are suggesting

-- subjecting it to. T he suggestion is allow for the manual bridgepl ate do not require it. I f the operation is such an automatically deploying one works for that operation that's fine for them. S ome operations it may work for some it may not. I t's not a good idea to require all transit authorities to use the same featur e for deploying a bridgeplate. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Frank on that point. I don't get why

-- these are new cars. S o your new cars might have automatic deploying bridgeplate. W hat makes that drive you to need to equip the rest of your fleet of older c ars? T hat's what I thought you were saying. >> FRANK MALDARI: No. I t's just older platforms maybe it was misunderstood. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I see. >> FRANK MALDARI: The platforms and freight territory are going to continue to exist and the ones in nonfrei ght territory

-- but I wasn't talking about not being able to do it on existing cars. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay. A nd just I know there is a queue here and I have David Nelson in it, and then I want to go to people on the phone. B ut Gary wanted to respond s o go ahead Gary.>> Gary Talbot: T hank you Madam Chair, Gary Talbot

Amtrak. I wanted to respond on the manual versus automated on new cars. A ny time there is a manual something manual where a human intervention is required, I mean, it's just

-- I can't begin to tell you how many times I have waited. A nd others of us have waited, and will continue to wait. T hat's the whole reason behind the automated deployment. I f you need to mitigate that gap, whether it's vertical or horizontal and you are going to do so with a bridgeplate of some kind, I think what the

-- what you have got there today says it's going to be automated. I think that's a huge win for us going forward on new cars. B ecause otherwise you are waiting for

-- we are getting fewer and fewer head count on the trains fewer head count in the stations if it's manually deployed somebody has to if it's on the platform they may have to walk to the platform and get it all of that time you are just waiting. I f they forget about you, you are still wai ting that's what happens. At least from my perspective and people I have talked to that's the reasoning behind it. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: It's also boarding not just getting deboarding but boarding. A nd any way there is a lot of reasons to get away from plat form born devices. D avid did you have something? D avid Nelson?>> David Nelson: Yes, just a comment. N ow, Blair

maybe you can help me with this. You know, we have been here for a brief 24 years or so yeah. (LAUGHTER) >> David Nelson: A mtrak borrowed two European train cars to

-- to do some kind of experimentation. I can't remember which train whether it was in Sweden or Germany. And I was standing on the platform one time the train pulled up, the door opened, and then when the door started to op en automatically the bridgeplate was instantly deploying itself. It was already on >> it was the Swedish one. >> David Nelson: O kay, okay, thank you. Sorry I lost my train of thought. O kay. W hat I was saying was that the bridgeplate reached the platfor m before the door was fully even opened. S o, I think that somebody had the concern about time and I don't think that would be too much of a concern if it was something like that. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay, thank you. W ho was just asking

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHT ER: Thank you. I remember watching the ICE train I believe it was with that and one time we had >> MARILYN GOLDEN: In Germany? >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I think the

-- ICE train inner

- cityexpress in the U.S. demonstration

>> MARILYN GOLDEN: Sorry. >> BLAIR SLA UGHTER: Yeah we ran that around the country and on the corridor for a while as well as the X2000 from Sweden before we wrote the specifications for the Acela. But when you look at those types of devices, most anything can be made to work, but when you get into inclement weather and things like that that's when they get

-- when it gets dicey. B ut that should be extreme situations. I f you have ice and snow and things frozen up, and I think the authority would have to be prepared to deal with that if someth ing is not functioning correctly because of weather. But those things happen. We fight them all the time. We think about what works in fair weather and then it shows

-- snows and then you get freezing rain and then it stops. (LAUGHTER) >> MARILYN GO LDEN: We are hoping they will test it in the
snow. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: I think it's probably worth looking at is because IRE and a couple of other major door manufacturers have offered these retractable step or bridgeplate systems for probably a dozen

- plu s years in (inaudible) it may be unheard of in the U.S. rail market rightnow, and so some of the product testing cycling has occurred

in Europe will ultimately need to occur in the U.S. deployment. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay. D id someone on the phone have a comment? >> Can I make a quick comment Marilyn? Yeah I have him on the queue. I don't hear anybody on the phone saying that they do. S o, I will go on Bob Reuter? >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I'm sorry, are you there now? >> Yes, I am. T his is okay for public co mment? >> MARILYN GOLDEN: No. Paul Beatty, our staff is saying
no. I guess if you are on the committee. >> No, I am not a member of the committee. (Discussion off record.)

>> I can wait. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: I thought we said during

-- (Discu ssion off record.)

>> MARILYN GOLDEN: If it relates to the issues that we are discussing then go ahead. Relatively focus comment not like a long public comment. >> It relates to the >> Who is this? >> (inaudible) proposal.>> MARILYN GOLDEN: If it relate s to the proposal of the

issues we have been discussing.
>> Thank you. I had several comments I put them in writing to the committee >> Sorry. W ho is this? >> Michael Chisena. >> Thank you. >> My first comment relates to the proposal on the scoping on pa ge 1 where the reference is to rapid rail and high speed rail concerning new cars where by the level boarding definition is related back to the 2011 DOT ADA regulation. M y concern there is that if you go to that regulation, more particularly 49 CFR 37.42F then it only relates to a situation where mitigation is required when the gap is more than 3 inches. B ut it also states that mitigation must be accomplished by a bridge plate ramp or other appropriate device. A nd it references other titles 49 CFR and
ce rtain sections. W hen you go to those sections, there is no reference in there that the mitigation device the plate the ramp need be automated or car

- borne. A nd that, to me, seems inconsistent with the central proposal made by the subcommittee that you de al with an automated on board mitigation device where the gap exceeds 2 inches. U nless I am misleading

-- misreading something.>> DENNIS CANNON: You are reference

-- you are

references the wrong DOT rule it's the 2011 you are referencing the one adopted in 1991. We will get the actual citation for that later but that's not the one. A nd by the way I have your written comments already and they will be included in the next round when we work on finessing this after we get the comments from this committee meeting. >> Okay. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Dennis Cannon Michael. T he other thing is that we have been encouraging

-- we have been encouraged to invasion innovation particularly at this stage

-- this is staff is really encouraged us to

-- to come up with whatever new ideas we are not now try to go narrow down, maybe soon we are beginning to. B ut in this initial stage we are really beginning to try to see what creativity we can pull from the group that I think has been named in order to try to find people that w ill have such ideas. A nd if previous regulation whether it is or not I will leave that to be decided, constrains us then the board will do that constraining. B ut we are not constraining at this point with anyway with

-- we are going beyond all kinds of t hings. S o, go ahead though do you have more? >> Yes, I do. M r. Cannon, that in my comments when I reference the 37.42 with all deference that is the newregulation. I am quoting right out of the 76 federal register

number 181 at page 57935. S o, that is the

-- that is the new reg I am not referring to the 1991 reg. B ut you certainly can check it out. My second comment deals with, again, under scoping, operation where you reference to a manually deployed ramps and bridgeplates shall be permitted where door s are opened by train personnel. I t's my comment that first choice of language can possibly give the impression that, again, we are dealing with manual deployment in all circumstances is authorized as long as the personnel involved in the opening, closing of the doors and the manual deployment of the device. A gain, am I misreading that? >> DENNIS CANNON: The issue was to allow a manual deployed lift where you had this exceptional wide gap that you were therefore going to have to deploy something that also has handrails. B ecause there is a requirement for handrails on any bridgeplate where the gap exceeds 12 inches from that standpoint we didn't believe automatically deployed bridgeplate that long with handrails was going to be feasible. It may be. S omeb ody may come up with that idea. B ut at this point we didn't we haven't seen anything like that. T he ramps deployed on buses are about 48 inches long or something like that. B ut they don't have handrails and youcan't fold those into the floor convenient ly. S o, it's very likely

that something that big is it going to be something that is going to like the one tested right now it's going to have

-- be in a compartment somewhere and somebody is going to have to take it out and assemble it and attach the han drails it's unlikely it's going to be automatic.
>> The choice of the 12 inch situation where manual ramps and bridgeplates can be utilized that I think you stated during the last subcommittee conference call was a number that you had picked out. >> DENNIS CANNON: Right. I came up with that off the top of my head and asked questions about whether that's the appropriate number. T he issue is >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Nobody said it wasn't >> DENNIS CANNON: Bridging a large gap on a gang plank with only a 2 inch si de gap and whether or not you would feel safe doing that without handrails. T hat's where the requirement is when the gap is that big, you have to have handrails. N ow, is a smaller gap appropriate? O r a larger gap and I don't know I am asking comments fr om the committee and what not as to whether that's the right number. B ut that's kind of an editorial thing that we will deal with at some later time when we do the actual write up of the report. T he same is true for the 74

- inch door height which isonly from the Acela, the question is, is that the appropriate

number? >> With respect to the 12 inch number, I would think it's more appropriate to provide in lieu of 12 inches I think Mr. Shiotani mentioned it on the August 28 telephone call I agree that inste ad of picking a certain number like 12 inches, wouldn't it be more appropriate and progressive to pick a rule that say my thoughts were I put it in my written comments I quote, in circumstances where actual utilization of an on board automated ramp or brid geplate has not mitigated the horizontal gap to at least 2 inches close quote, wouldn't be it more progressive to provide such language instead of picking out an arbitrary 12

- inch rule to allow for manual deployment? Why wouldn't you let technology run it s course and say if the device technology doesn't permit the gap to be closed if it's so big then and only then can we have manual deployment. Other than that I think you are leaving it to the discretion of the rail carrier some of whom may not have the f unds some who may be not technologically advanced saying if it's 12 or 13 inches we can manually deploy maybe there are devices out there that can bridge the gap to a larger extent. I just don't think that's progressive enough in my opinion. M y next
comm ent deals with attachment under ramps and bridge plates. W here you

-- there is a sentence there which talksabout ramps and bridgeplates shall engage to the vehicle in

such a manner that they may not be dislodged by horizontal or vertical movement until a ctively disengaged by a member of the crew. Again, it seems like it's blurring the line between authorized manual deployment of the bridge plated or ramp and I would suggest, I know that's not the intent, but I would suggest language to

-- to the extent b ear with me I quote, ramps and bridgeplates shall engage with the vehicle in such a manner that they shall not be dislodged by a horizontal or vertical movement unless purposefully disengaged by crew or authorized rail system personnel during manual operat ion as defined below or for maintenance. E nd quote. S uch a language, I think, would make it very clear that manual deployment is not what is being called for and that is only authorized when you have a maintenance issue or you have a brown out or the ele ctricity goes out and the device cannot be automatically utilized. I would ask you to kindly take that into

-- into your thoughts. M y last comment Madam Chair is that with regard, again, to attachments of the automated device to the vehicle, I think it's lacking from the standpoint of the definition where by it doesn't take into account in that device is attached to the exterior of the vehicle there has to be some principle or some rule that pre vents the device in the sole position from affecting necessa ry side clearance distancebetween train and platform side edge to avoid the

catastrophic collision. I think last May, Mr. Cogswell of the FRA spoke to the subcommittee on the necessity for that necessary side clearance and even mentioned 7 inches would b e appropriate to be safe that safe clearance distance yet in the attachment definition for the on board device in the revised proposal being considered today, nothing is stated about the application of the device the attachment of the device if it's touch attached to the exterior of the car it can be attached to it. B ut what about the impact that it could have upon the necessary side clearance? S o, I think there should be language added to the definition to the following and then I will be finished I quot e, if either ramps or bridgeplates are attached to the exterior of the vehicle, neither shall impair in their stowed position necessary side clearance between the train and platform side edge close quote I would ask you to give that consideration. M adam C hair, thank you for allowing me to comment. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Good. M ichael send us that sentence, okay? >> MARSHA MAZZ: It's in the comments he sent. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay. O kay. B ob? >> Bob Reuter: Very quickly, I have a concern about the 400 poun d weight limit on 30 inch ramp where 90% or moreof the weight can be on single axle I think that may be a bit

light it should stay at 800 pounds like the rest. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Does anyone have further thought? >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Marilyn just a note t hat the committee may want to consider referencing the standard engineering safety factor at least. S o, whether it's 400 or 800 the safety factor really is 12 or 2400 pounds. >> It's three times the passive

-- >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Yes. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: We have to make sure that engineering document is in there. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Speaking of engineering your (inaudible) >> DENNIS CANNON: T here is already a requirement for safety factors in both the lifts and ramp so, yes, that's something people often miss it's like 2,000 pounds not 2,000 but I don't remember. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Again, this is minutia, and we are trying to get overall intent. >> DENNIS CANNON: Right. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Gary you wanted to? O kay, what else. T hat's it? >> FRANK MAL DARI: I will make a comment if you want. (LAUGHTER)>> CHRISTOPHER HART: Here is your question, are you

going to tell us about your gap mitigation standard for your platforms? >> FRANK MALDARI: No. I was just making a comment the way the regulation is written, and I am just giving you
a
-- the proposed wording, if you have a hundred stations on your system and you have a thousand rail cars if one station has a gap bigger than 3 inches then every single car would have to have an automatic gap mitigation device. J ust seems that you would be better not something anything except the one station and it could have it on board 99% of the time it's not used why would you want to require 100% of the cars to have the device. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Well, on that happy note. >> DENNIS CANNON: First of all, we do have different provisions for what happens in stations that were built according to the 19

-- after 1992 when the ABA

-- when the ADAAG essentially took effect versus what happened in the other one. T hat has t o do with one door versus all doors and so forth. S o, that's an issue that we may want to address in terms of other kinds of exemptions with what happens with these new cars when you operate them in old stations some of way may have been built on curves a nd you can't get. T hat why it says one door instead of all doors in that stationbecause if it's

-- the car is straight the platform curved if it's

inside curve you get indoor two doors closer than the middle. If it's outside the middle door is closer th an the two end doors. T hat's one of the reasons about the difference in those stations we may want to refine that a little bit further. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: This is a

-- (inaudible) there remains considerable work nation wide on track maintenance and trac k leveling, horizontal vertical positions. W hich operators are either not undertaking because they don't know they need to do it or they just don't have funding to do it. But much of the for better or worse clearance that exists in rapid rail are really tied to requesting of (inaudible). A nd if the covered entity was able to do more track maintenance the vertical gap would certainly be reduced. N ot necessarily horizontal but the vertical gap and I don't think we want to take on any entity, we simply have stations where upwards of half a million people a day are using platforms with 5, 6

- inch vertical gaps and that's ultimately an overall safety issue. I t's not just an access issue. A nd that's why I go back to my statement some time ago, to a degree, it may not be appropriate to ask the entire (inaudible) to solve every gap. And it ultimately comes back to physical station infrastructure. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Okay. I think we are ready Billy togo to the next

--

>> BILLY ALTOM: Thank you very much I have a couple of quickies for us thank you Marilyn awesome presentation Michael are you still on the phone? >> Yes, I am. >> BILLY ALTOM: Were those comments do you have other comments that you want to propose at end during public comment period? >> No, I do n ot. >> BILLY ALTOM: Because I wanted to make sure I don't miss you I want today make a note going back to you. We are fixing to take a break look at our watches 2:30 we are going to take a 5

- minute break turns into 15

-- let's go. We have 15 minutes. (S hort recess taken.)
>> BILLY ALTOM: Ladies and gentlemen, will you start migrating back to your seats please? We will get started in a moment. A pparently I have a lot of weight with this committee. Would you please join me back here at the table and l et's get started so we can hopefully knock this out this afternoon. I like it people are starting to come >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Does that mean that I am done what a relief.>> BILLY ALTOM: You are done.

>> DENNIS CANNON: I can actually read that. >> BI LLY ALTOM: All right. T hank you for coming back we do have a couple of empty spots but we are going to go ahead while I have your attention it's quiet in the room. Let's go ahead and start again I have one announcement I failed to make earlier. A nd you are just going to love it when you make this announcement if you would please refrain from making as many cell phone calls out here in the hallway as possible. T here are two other organizations that have office space right there it's as if there are no wa lls it goes right in their office. S o, we have a couple of rooms behind me, that folks could go into to make phone calls if they need to or if you just want to it's a beautiful day outside you could step outside on the sidewalk for a moment and make a cal l. >> Billy is that trip

-- >> Low bidder got the deal for the walls so we can hear in there. (LAUGHTER) >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Very nice building.
Rooms and Spaces Portion of the Meeting

>> BILLY ALTOM: It is a nice place. H aving said that keepin mind our neighbors and they will treat us the same way

with the same hospitality next up on the agenda we have rooms and spaces. A nd that subcommittee is chaired by Dennis Cannon I will going to turn it over to Dennis. >> DENNIS CANNON: Okay. I want to do li ke Marilyn did I want to try to go through this document all the way through otherwise we will get stuck in the we understand if we stop and do everything

-- stuck in the weeds if we stop and do everything. I f you have questions or whatever about a specific section please make a note of it and then call

-- let me know after we get through it to try to get to it there are a couple of things that I am going to talk about how we are going to explain some

-- fill in information after I get through it. B ut I wanted to try to get through the entire document first. T he first part has to do with restrooms we have a scoping requirement where restrooms for the public are provided in a car, a restroom meeting the following technical criteria will be provided. T hat' s basically the current regulation right now. A nd it says a car that does not have a restroom for the public does not have to have an accessible restroom. A DA is a nondiscrimination provision. W here you don't provide facilities for anybody you don't hav e to provide accessible facilities. C urrently, there are a couple of different provisions scattered in the regulations with the

-- that differbetween commuter rail and inner

- city rail. A nd partly it's a

result of trying to write the inner

- city rail prov isions in such a way that we didn't make every car Amtrak currently owned have to be replaced immediately. S o, some of the things that were done were done specifically to try to grandfather in some of those cars so we would have some kind of accessibility

. The next provision it says, accessible restrooms shall be in close proximity to the spaces for wheelchairs and mobility aids. C urrently, in the inner

- city rail requirement it says, the spaces shall be adjacent to, not defined really. A nd in the commute r rail it says in close proximity. Again, the question is why is that different and I said we were try to go make some of the grandfather in some of the provisions. I have been in lots of Amfleet cars and frankly adjacent to the restroom is not a pleasan t place to be. (LAUGHTER) So, we think close proximity is a better definition of what that means. A nd then the next provision is the one I am going to explain in some detail a little later in fixed consist trains that's a specific definition not the typical car that you have with two coupled cars that have a lot of lateral movement. I t says in fixed

-- fixed consist trains where a restroom is not provided in a specific car an accessible restroom shall be permit the in a adjacent car provided, A,requ ired wheelchair spaces in the car without a restroom are

located in the end of the car closest to the connection with the car that has an accessible restroom. Bthe accessible restroom is as close as practicable to the connection between the cars. C , the doors along the path are automatic and D, the floor surface across the transition is smooth. A nd that means we are going to have to define we are talking about riding a

-- writing a standard for what surface requirements are we need to fill that in at so me point it will get back to this point after the regulation. I will videos and pictures to show you. T he technical requirements recommending for the restrooms are that there be a

-- oops. D on't go too far. (LAUGHTER) >> DENNIS CANNON: That there is a 60

- inch turning circle. We want the board to solicit comments from wheelchair mobile aid users whether there are other configurations without a turning circle which are nevertheless accessible. I happen to like the accessible restroom in the Acela. You can, in fact

-- I can make a complete 360 turn. It has a side transfer part of the reason that you can make a 60

- inch turn

-- I mean a 360

- degree turn is because it's kind of L

- shaped. T here is another restroom that Bombardier made for trains that are currently running at

-- in California, that is smaller. B ut, again, I was able to turn around. T hequestion is whether there are other configurations, the

California car has a big bathroom. We talked about in the subcommittee the possibility of a T

- tur n which is permitted in the facility side. U nfortunately, because the trains are moving it makes some of those things less usable. S o, we like the board to try to collect information maybe before a comment period on what kinds of configurations there mig ht be which are usable given the fact that we have constraints of space. T hat are usable though not necessarily in full compliance with what you would find in a building. The second thing is has to have side transfer to the toilet or the water closet. I t 's what it's called in the building trades. That's, again, why the Acela works for me the a least. We need a power doors we want controls to

-- a section we haven't completed that's generic and cover a lot of things other than that. A nd controls 12 inch es minimum from inside corner. S o, that you don't have to when you are trying to push a button or whatever it's all the way in the corner near the door it's very difficult to get there because your footrests are particular sticking out in front of you thi s doesn't apply to the handle latch on the door that you use in case the power fails. We have grab bars on the side and behind the water closet. A nd we want to use the building's standards there was also discussion of possibly picking up the requirementthat is currently in ANSI for a vertical grab bar. N ear the

toilet as well. I n fact, vertical grab bars are probably very desirable in a variety of different places, and we may want to think about whether we want to require some of them. G rab bars along the front of the lavatory, they may serve as the side of the

-- the side grab bar for the water closet as it does in the Acela. We want the fold down grab bars are permitted. But this is going to be a tricky way to specify them because they have to meet all of the force requirements to be able to put them up and they have to latch positively up so that they don't accidentally come down again. T his is in a moving vehicle so it's swaying back and forth. I t's going to be tricky to specify those things in such a way that they can be easily operated by a person who is using a wheelchair. The ones that I have come across in the Netherlands are not. You have to really have a lot of strength to get them to fold up. We will have to write that provision careful ly. Lavatory faucets and controls shall be proximity operated that's typically infrared you put your hand on it, it comes on move your hands away goes off. W hen feasible it should be within reach of the person sitting on the water closet. T hat's a desirable design function. I t may not be possible in all of the various configurations but it would be nice to have it close enough that you can actually reach it. W herefeasible

-- table space for two

-- that's in the wrong

provision. (LAUGHTER). We lost

-- we lost a division there. T his is for I believe this is for the anyway it's mixed up. Let's go down to the next

-- no. Lavatory should be within reach of the person. I don't know where the tabletop th at's from the inside

-- that's from the sleeper car. Right after where feasible that should be now all of these next provisions are for the compartment. I t should be there. I don't know what happened to the heading. We have table space this is for

-- th is is actually for a dining car. Table space for two wheelchairs and transfer seats for two. I believe it also requires storage in the current regulation. T he tabletop needs to be 34 inches max, 29 inches minimum under the table extending 17 inches minu te mum back from the front surface. 3 2

- inch width if you have legs for example they got to be at least wide enough for the chair to fit in the front these are all from the building standards. A nd then the next section side transfer to toilet. T hat's now compartments the next part is compartments which have interior toilet room. So the toilet room meets most of the same requirements for restrooms in general which is side transfer to the toilet. Shower chair. M eets requirements for restrooms. I n the 60inch turning circle in the sleeping area with the bed deployed.

You can turn around in the room until the bed is deployed then you can't move. We want the controls for all lights H VAC call button within reach that's part of controls and operating mecha nisms that we need to work on. We think they could be a remote that's hard wired so it's tethered so people can't walk off with it accidentally or on purpose. We want to make sure that there are you could have redundant controls. T here are currently in the sleeper compartments that are accessible there are lights for the upper bunk. A nd controls are up by the upper bunk which is fine for the person in that but then you find out in nighttime all of a sudden you can't turn the lights off. We want to make sure all of those things meets some kind of standard. We have a

-- we want a positive door latch so the door actually latches instead of swinging free. I t has fob openable from the outside by trained

-- by train personnel. We suggest using the VIA rail design as a model. A nd that diagram was sent around to the committee. I think it's in the docket but I am not sure that the full committee is actually seeing that drawing.

-- has seen that drawing. We will have to make sure that that is available for e verybody. We want the bed at the wheelchair seat height 18 inches. We want a table that's usable by wheelchair users and has all of those things about the max height and spaceunder neither and in the next section there is dining, single

level dining car which we lost. O kay. (LAUGHTER) >> DENNIS CANNON: I see. T hey got jumbled together. Okay. S ingle lively dining cars this is already screwy. Table space for two is

-- that's the lounge car now. A h. T he fourth one up from the bottom table space for two. T hat starts

-- that's lounge it's lounge car. >> Uwe: After the sleeper you have another section there go up >> (inaudible) >> DENNIS CANNON: They just got duplicated for some reason some of these don't belong in there. H e I think that's all

-- -- I think that's all go down to the sleeping compartment see if we miss anything. T he scoping of sloping is at least one compartment in each sleeping car meets these technical requirements we gone over those technical requirements for turning circle and so forth. Let's try lounge car now. I don't know how the other things got moved up there. O kay. S ingle level lounge car shall comply with the following technical bi

- level lounge cars shall comply on the lower level. Abi

- level lounge car shall have di rect access to the station platforms on the lower level. N ow, here is the new provision that says where Vertical Access isprovided I believe in the on board seating the on board route

is going to be the discussion of where that may be required. But where it's provided accessible seating spaces shall be provided on the upper level of the lounge car where a bi

- level dining car is provided an accessible bi

- level lounge car shall be directly connected to it. N ow, the statute prohibits us from making any req uirements for space and seating a and whatever in the dining car. T he bilevel dining car congress didn't want us to inadvertently require Vertical Access. We have to decide what to do about that. M y idea is what you would have happen since you got space in the upper level of the lounge car they are coupled together, you would simply provide dining in the lounge car for people in wheelchairs who otherwise couldn't necessarily get into the upper level of the bi

- level dining car. Technical provisions are p retty much the same table space for two, the same as the dining car and accessible restroom this is on the lower level of a bi

- level lounge car. T he self

- service areas that have vending machines and so forth or the service counters should meet the guideli nes from the facilities for cafeterias, talk about tray rails and so forth. Vending machines have to meet requirements for controls and operating mechanisms. We generally in a building don't cover vending machines because they are not fixed. B ut the ven ding machines in trains arepretty much fixed. You don't wanted them bouncing around

when the train moves. O kay. Let's see is there more? That's the end? O kay. I think we have covered them all then. Let me go back now and briefly talk about this iss ue about the fixed

- consist train. M ost

-- when you think about the cars today you have they are coupled together. We have
a
-- they have a flexible diaphragm between them. W hen they go through a curve there is a lot of lateral motion sheering action occ urs because of end of one car moves in one direction the end of the other car moves in the other while it's going through the curve. A nd the result of that is that space which might have been accessible in the beginning when the train was stopped, can red uce to sometimes as little adds 12 inches or less. O bviously you don't want to be in that position when there is a train moving a fixed

- consist train has a different situation. T he cars are not coupled together they are physically joined. You cannot take them apart. T he result of that is very different in terms of the motion that you find between cars. A nd there is also in

-- I am talking in this case one of the models that's being proposed for high speed in Texas is the Japanese bullet train and the first thing that I want to show you is the plate that covers the transition between the cars. T here it is (indicating). W hat you see is a kind of a if you move awayfrom us going into one car if you move toward us you are

coming into the second car. A nd what you see is a very smooth plate that's I don't know oval shape perfected a little bit. T his joint rotates but it does not have lateral or vertical or horizontal displacement. A nd the edges of those plates are all bevelled. T hey meet or probably will meet and can meet surface requirements that we specify. T his is a lot different than the connection between the Acela car which is quite rough. T he next thing that I want to show you is videos that were actually taken of the train in motion and let's pu ll up the video and pause it. O kay. W hat you see here is a camera looking from one car directly into the other. I n the very back in a door that goes into the compartment of the next one. We are looking from the compartment door of the car that we are i n. You can see the transition plate down there at the bottom. O ff to the right that door that's open that's the restroom. W hich is not in the car in the back. T he car in the back does not have any restroom for the public. S o the idea is that the restr oom for the public are all in the second car. A nd there is an accessible restroom and there maybe inaccessible one too. T he insert in the upper right corner is from a camera that's located in the cab and so it's going to show you exactly where you are go ing while

-- excuse me. W hile a person in a wheelchair comesrolling through I believe he is going to come out of the car

door behind in front of us. H e may come through the other way. Let's start the video you will see this is 240 kilometer per hour an d you can see (Video plays.) This is straight there is a gentleman in the wheelchair who goes through very smooth, door opens automatically into the next compartment. T he train is zipping along at 240 kilometers we are hour you see how smooth it is on a
relatively straight track. You can see there is virtually

-- let's try the next one. Again, the insert showing what your looking at from the standpoint there is a wheelchair empty wheelchair sitting in the space between the two cars right on top of that n ow it's going around a curve with the radio of 600 I believe meters it doesn't say but you can see from the upper right insert that the train is going around a curve. You can see that the chair basically is quite stationary. T here is a couple of differen t curves let's see if this is a different one. Here is a different curve here is a machine in the wheelchair. We are going through now I believe a tighter curve. A s you can see, he doesn't have any problem. T his is very different from what you would fi nd in a typical coupled

- consist where the cars are only coupled together. H ere is a 1200 radius
curve. M ore gentle than the other one. I believe last this is 400 this is the sharpest curve. A s you see there is twistingthe cars rotate about the center plate but there is virtually no

vertical or horizontal displacement of that space so the cars are rotating around the space here goes our wheelchair user, and he sits in the doorway for a if you minutes while it's going through the 400 meter radius curve. I believe that was the last one. I s that right? O r was there one more? T he turn out is the tighter one. T his is where

-- this is 1100. W hat happens here is the train

-- they created a gauntlet track

-- this isn't particularly gauntlet track it's a sh ift to the other track. There is some idea in the Texas proposal that that the stations would be off to the side a little bit and you would have gauntlet track at the station so that the

-- which means, parallel track the train would move off the main trac k closer to the station platform for the stopping and then would move back away from the platform before going through. Atrain that went through the station and didn't stop which would go through at high speed would go through the straight curve or the s traight track away from the platform. S o that's the concept of having the ability to put the restroom in the proposal in Texas the restrooms are only going to be in every other car. S o the idea is can we put accessible restroom in every other car as well provided that the wheelchair space is closest to that end of the other car that you can just gothrough that connection. T he

-- I believe the Talgo is the

same way in the cascade line. I s Talgo here? I t does not have a restroom in every car; is that co rrect? I t has one in every other car. I t's the same

-- it's the same idea. T he Talgo cars are very short. P utting a restroom in every car would have taken up lots of space. O kay now that's the presentation do people have comments on the specific

-- le t's go back to the proposal Paul. Questions yes? C an you take

-- (inaudible). >> Did I hear you say Dennis this proposal, if you put a restroom in every other car the restroom has to be at end

-- the nearest to the end without a restroom? S o that

-- I a m thinking in a multiple car train consist at one end you are going to be the furthest end from the restroom. >> DENNIS CANNON: Right. T he proviso that we have that provided that is that you have the accessible restroom in the end of one of the cars in th at car there is a space for wheelchairs there essentially at cross proximity to it. I n the other car that doesn't have the restroom sorry. >> (inaudible) >> Lights back up for the interpreter she is in the dark. >> DENNIS CANNON: Sorry about that.
>> Thank you. >> DENNIS CANNON: The idea is that the restrooms in onecar the space for wheelchair users is in close proximity to that

in that car. T hat the space in the second car that doesn't have a restroom has to be in that end of the car that's closest to the connection. S o, that's one of the provisos of the

-- that's B, I think. R ight? S o, proviso B up there in the proposal. T he idea is we don't wanted you have to go through the length of the car to get to the restroom at the other end. >> FRANK MAL DARI: I believed the fix

- consist to be clear, it's known as articulated train where you have two cars sharing a bogie that allows you to have the motion around the curves without the offset between the ends of the cars you might want to include that langua ge in here when you write it so it's clear what it means the fixed

- consist are cars permanently coupled together but don't share a common truck where you don't have this condition. >> James: T hat's not necessarily the case. >> DENNIS CANNON: I think the fact is the Japanese train does not have a shared bogie. >> They don't. >> MARSHA MAZZ: Whoever is speaking use the mic. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: This is Blair Slaughter. Yeah the

-- I think the train that Dennis was looking at was
a
-- was individual cars and trucks versus articulated like theTGV where it's a shared truck.

>> Looks like a shared truck. >> DENNIS CANNON: My recollection from the folks who are working on this thing is that it's not that way. B ut we can both probably work. We can check that.
>> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: A lot of that is driven by the geometry how much swing they have on the end how generous the turn outs are. F or us the worst case is we call them back to back switches with the limited tangent between them you get the sheering action. B ut I think the challenge if we have something like the Acela is come up with a smoother floor transition. We handle the continuities pretty good we have a lot of vertical difference that I think needs to be worked on. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Could we pause o ne second just to help our wonderful CART reporter with a term. (LAUGHTER) >> CHRISTOPHER HART: However if we want to do the boogie, we can wake up. >> DENNIS CANNON: We can say trucks too, if that's clearer. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Okay. C arry on. (LAUGHTER) >> DENNIS CANNON: Let's get the people on thecommittee first before we do Uwe?

>> Uwe Rutenberg: T hanks. T his is Uwe. J ust a clarification here Dennis on the first on the scoping the first sentence reads where restrooms for the public are provided a restroom meeting the following requirements shall be provided is it always necessary to have two restrooms. >> DENNIS CANNON: No. >> There could be a universal design restroom. >> DENNIS CANNON: That's right when we are going through this early on and writing the provisions Amtrak was adamant that there had to be two. Period. A nd we couldn't have

-- we said the original writing of the

-- of the statute working with (inaudible) whatever the folks that were there from Amtrak no, no, we can't have just one we have to have two so we said okay we will let you have two.
>> But it's not a requirement? >> DENNIS CANNON: There is two in every car the old
ones. T he Acela has two one is accessible one and one is the phone booth. You couldn't fall down in if you tried. (LAUGHTER) >> DENNIS CANNON: We don't say there has to be two. In our view in my view at least I think having one accessible one restroom is universal is just fine I guess the issue was the fear there wouldn't be enough capacity.>> Uwe: Actually I saw one they have two one for men

urinals and lavatory only and then the general one. S o it's a different culture there. A nother question that I have for the second bullet, which says allows side approach to the toilet close WC. S hou ld we specify also a space for assisted transfer? I s that included in here? >> DENNIS CANNON: The things that

-- there was a big study done on assisted transfer in light of trying to design restrooms for single level single aisle air craft some years back

. T he idea of the assisted transfer was that you could transfer essentially from the front essentially reach forward and grab somebody and swing them over to the side so you didn't need to have space. We get

-- during the writing of the facilities guidel ines we always got people who say, we want to transfer on the right side and then you would have a bunch of people wanting to transfer on the left side you can't solve that unless you may be put swing down guard grab bars on both sides and then you have th is problem of having the grab bars

-- because you have got to get rid of one side because that's where your wheelchair goes. T he idea of being able to do that with somebody with a disability who is not strong to do that is tricky. S pecifying swing down o r folding grab bars is one of our we are going to have to deal with at some point to make sure. Remember, when you havea grab bar in a wall anchored on both ends, you have got a

swing down grab bars anchored only on one end. A nd it's got to be a lot str onger. You have got possibly maintenance problems and liability if it comes

-- anyway, never mind. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Thank you Dennis Blair Slaughter from Amtrak on the issue of the dining rooms in the dining cars just so I understand we are looking at two accessible spaces for wheelchairs at dining tables and if you have that the transfer seats are easy. B ut there was a note about the storage for the wheelchairs. M y concern is I will go back what we did with the new dining cars they are the simple

-- at the end of the day the simplest design to get most capacity in the car is four

- person booths down the length of the room. If you get too exotic you lose some space in there. And

-- but when you get a table that's accessible to easy get into, so you do n't have to raise the table and create what was described by folks looking at it you don't want to become a spectacle. You want

-- you don't want to draw attention you want to go eat like everyone else with no issue. I t doesn't consume a lot of floor spa ce in the car to make that transition in. S o, I was sitting here thinking how could we do it and do it so it's maybe like a lot of the other things that happens on long haul trains. I f you are in a sleeper, a sleeping car, you are attendant no matter whe ther accessible room or one ofthe other rooms, comes and says while you are at dinner

would you like me to make your bed down for the evening. And you come back and your room is transformed. T hey also come through and take dinner reservations. Would it

-- would it be inappropriate or at least worth considering that when they take your reservation you are coming at 6 or 6:30 or 5 whatever it is, that some of that space maybe not both but one of those case spaces has convertible feature and they are prepa red for you just like they were making down your room or anything else. A nd they convert that space so that you come in, you pull in and have your dinner, with no issue. Versus having that space lost when there is no one there to utilize it as it was int ended. >> DENNIS CANNON: Right. R ight now you can't get into dining cars when you are in the sleeper car because for obvious reasons. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I have been in them a number of times you get served in your room. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We are curing that part of it for
sure. >> DENNIS CANNON: That we are try to go get rid of because you know you kind of are isolated and you never get a chance to get into the dining room. T he idea of convertible spaces is of course

-- we don't preclude it maybe we sho uldsay something about encouraging it, because I am thinking of

the Talgo that I was in the cafe car, it has a chair that sits against a wall in the corner and two of them I guess on one on each side of the table. A nd then it slides back into the wall. And that's where the wheelchair can pull into the same table. It's quite an interesting design. S o, things like that, I think, are great where you can actually get double duty and you are right because in typically in the

-- in the

-- they have different times for people to go to the dining room. You sort of have to sign up or something advances I am going to go between 7 and 8 or 7 and 8:30, whatever. S o, theoretically a person could make a specific time arrangement that they are going to be in and who ever it is the conductors can configure the space appropriately for that time. A nd would have it in a different configuration the rest of the room. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Right. A nd that's

-- I want today make that a point that we

-- if we can include if so mehow so it's understood. A nd

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: The issue of storage is tricky because you can say

-- I mean, you could say, well, there has to be a transfer seat and a place to store it. T he alternative is that the storage is in a different car. A nd the question is: How would you get it

-- your chair there. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I know that everyone's concern

-->> DENNIS CANNON: You move to your end of the train

and transfer you need to put your chair where you are and not assume that there is going to be personnel who are going to be able to take your chair somewhere. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: That brings up another level of space complexity you could have a situation where someone comes in and realistically the number of folding or foldable wheelchairs yo u know the old fold and store. H ow many really fold and store anymore. >> DENNIS CANNON: Right. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: No one wants to have

-- that was our thinking too originally. O kay. I only have

-- I have accessible vestibule next door to the diner we can put the wheelchair back over there for storage no. T hat's

-- that sunk. T hat didn't work. I t needs to be close to the person who owns the chair. S o, we could have two positions for people who are remaining in their wheelchairs two positions for peo ple who transfer. We are going to run out of car if
we
-- if everyone is there. S o I don't know quite how to handle that. I just know from

-- from the long distance side there will be a lot of what do we do how do we manage to have

-- I don't know that we could put enough convertible conditions in to handle that. S o, if we did two spaces for people who wish to stay in their wheelchairs, or transfer soyou could have either one person is in their wheelchair one

person transfers they both transfer. B ut t here is dual use of the space where the wheelchair is sitting. O r something along those lines. I have not tried to apply it dimensionally to see what it does I can do that and we ask discuss it more. There those are concerns I know will be raised from t hat side of the industry. >> DENNIS CANNON: Right there are some questions I don't have it in front of me there is language in the statute that says some things about what

-- what you have to have. And so, I am not sure that you can do double duty like th at but we will see. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Yeah. A nd the folding chairs is in the statute. >> ANDRE GAGNE: Andre Gagne From Bombardier. To answer one of Frank's comments from before I looked on the Internet for the >> Speak up a l ittle, please. >> ANDRE GAGNE: I found pictures on the Internet it's not an articulated car. >> DENNIS CANNON: Next Terry, then Marsha, then Cliff. >> TERRY PACHECO: Very quickly. A s far as the table space is concerned, can

-- what I am concerned about i sspace for service animals under the table so that there isn't a

leg blocking area for the dog to get in under for dog to get in under that perhaps has like a guide dog harness that does take additional space beyond the dog something to take into consideration. T he other point, also, is you were talking about the possibility of a remote control for all of the lights and accoutrements particularly in a sleeping car a sleeping room that remote control also needs to be accessible. Thanks. >> DENNIS CANNON: Right. A nd that controls operating mechanisms would cover things library the fact that buttons are discernible if you use a mic

-- if you use a membrane switch, my controls on my chair are membrane switch. B ut each one of these has a raised circle around it so by feel I can find them and I can find them without activating them. A nd as long

-- once I know what the sequence is they don't

-- they are not marked. T hese are not marked but at least they are discernible. I t's a fairly simple arrangement so I could learn that. You are right we need to make sure that the buttons are labeled in some way. >> TERRY PACHECO: They need to be labeled someone would not necessarily, no they have turned the lights on or off. >> DENNIS CANNON: That's part of the controls andoperating mechanisms sections that we need to incorporate.

Mostly from the buildings and facilities sections. >> MARSHA MAZZ: Marsha Mazz. Yeah, I was just wanting to respond to the earlier discussion about space for transfer fold down grab bars. G eorgia Tech is doing a further study on the issue of assisted transfer and space requirements along with some very serious study of the structural capacity of fold down grab bars particularly when you put a point load on them. S o, that

-- and looking at
e xactly how people in fact do use those. S o, hopefully that study will be available to you and if it isn't we will certainly consider it at the time that we eventually do some rulemaking in this area. I f your intent is to ensure for assisted transfer in t hose toilet rooms. >> DENNIS CANNON: Okay. C liff you are on deck ready to go. >> This is Cliff from the National Council Independent Living. T his is an issue that my mother told me I needed to raise here. I t may not necessarily

-- >> Uh

- oh (LAUGHTER) >> My mother took the Amtrak from Florida to visit me. And I said to her I was on this committee oh, really? S o, the sleeper car she told me there were two things one who is itwith them there are two doors the door you come into the

room and bathroom door they are sort of she described horizontal to each other. I n the middle there is let's say a little wall between the two doors they put the electric plug there with no platform to put anything on but the doors open up into it it's not pra ctical at all you couldn't plug anything in. She told me to address that issue I am addressing it. T he second one show told me she got up and walk from the bed to bathroom because the train was shaking so much she would like to have something to hold on to there was nothing to hold on to she told me to raise now I can tell her I raised them, thank you. (LAUGHTER) >> MARSHA MAZZ: If we do nothing else. (LAUGHTER) >> Dutiful son. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Cliff, I say we could call and in turn deny (inau dible). I don't know what you call the other. (Discussion off record.)

>> CHRISTOPHER HART: Is that how you save on gas? (LAUGHTER) >> FRANK MALDARI: Yeah quick question on the 60

- inch turning circle for the bathroom. I know that you put in theques tion about there may be other criteria that would result in

a good bathroom the 60 inches is

-- it's in looking at the car layouts that we have it really affects seating. I t's not an insignificant amount of seats that you lose the impact is going to be fa irly big. I looked at that Amtrak toilet you mentioned it too it seems functional the one in the Acela car. W hen I look at it, to me it seems like having a lot of space adjacent to the bowl is the key to making it accessible. I s that

-- the question is: Can you put into words what the Acela bathroom does and maybe that's a little gives you the benefits you want without tying up the amount of seats that the other requirement does. >> DENNIS CANNON: Yeah. T he Acela actually was built

-- I thought it had a 60

- inch circle but Blair

-- um, Andre sent me a diagram we could share with the folks that shows what a 60

- inch circle in there it does not have one. I t actually complies with the current regulation in that there is a rectangular open space that meets that requirement. T he difference is, in addition to that, because there is

-- there is space for side transfer by the water closet it's actually an L

- shaped space that's what allows you to make the turn. T he question is, now I raised in one of the earlie r reports with the subcommittee that the Acela restroom could be a model and several people said, well, they weren't thathappy

-- wheelchairs users weren't that happy with it. I t was

not necessarily usable by them and cited the California car for example which has a much bigger and better designed restroom. I think Bombardier sent or Ken Shiotani had some pictures taken of a Bombardier design that was in a commuter rail car in California, and it's smaller than each the Acela, I think. A nd said oh, don't use that it's not that good. I have used to restroom before it's really quite usable. You do have to jockey back and forth to turn around you can turn around. The key is it allows the side transfer to the water closet. S o I am convinced though others may not be that there are in fact designs that don't have a 60

- inch turning circle which are very usable and, again, given the space constraints we really need to try to figure out what those are and be a little more specific about

-- I am hoping that we w ill gets lots of comments and somebody from people with the disability community who actually used some of these things will be able to recommend certain designs and we can maybe even someone will do mockups but at the very least set minimum criteria. I t hink the 60 inch circle maybe difficult because of lots of constraints of space. I t works in the California car but that's a bi

- level car. S o you have seating on the upper level and lower level you have restroom plus seating you don't loose as many seats proportionally you don't loose as many sheets.>> Uwe Rutenberg: Adding to what you are discussing

now I agree maybe the 60

- inch circle is not always achievable let's put it this way. I think the criteria here should really be that the person in the whe elchair should go into the wash room facing inward and going out facing outward. B ecause very often you see wash rooms that seem to be accessible and the person in the wheelchair has to go in and goes in but they have to back out to come out. A nd to me t his is not accessible wash room. S o, yeah there might be other ways that you can turn around without the 60

- inch circle as long as you can turn in such a way that you can face out again >> DENNIS CANNON: The trick will be specifying it in such a way that people can actually do it so

-- that's going to be difficult, I think. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. C liff at some point if you can let me know tell me the room your mother was in I want to look at room. >> Yeah okay. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Please. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: You know, I forgot what I was going to comment on never mind. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Blair that was it was accessible room what use is

-->> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Oh, restroom. I forgot I had a

senior moment. (LAUGHTER) >> I was going t o speak to accessible room smaller than 60

- inch turning circle but I was on a car and in Paris years ago I was trying to find the picture it was a curved power door, and you the

-- there was just enough room for the chair to go in you did the side transfer

. D efinitely you would be backing out of it. B ut a 60

- inch turning circle toilet room in a commuter

-- like a commuter car, sight line you are going to have sight line issues there it would be back to the wheelchair community to tell us if it was

-- you had a power door how important is it that you exit facing out. >> BILLY ALTOM: I think it's very important from a personal standpoint of being a wheelchair user. C oming out backwards I have

-- you may have some tip opportunities to get a chance to look at what the ceiling of the train looks like. >> This is Robert Carlson, a regular commuter on the Marc train system and having used restrooms occasionally backing out is always a problem particularly in the morning when people are outside the door waiting to run off the train when you get into Union Station and you are backing into them and going over their feet and say why are you standing there.(LAUGHTER)

>> DENNIS CANNON: And we do have to remember with respect to as opposed to buildings, this is a mo ving device that makes everything more complicated. I n one of the earlier versions of this, I suggested the possibility of a T

- turn which is a T

- turn is permitted in buildings and facilities and several people pointed out that that is really problematic w hen you are in a moving vehicle rocking from side to side. I f you were in the Acela is so much better in part because it's stabilized and has the tilt mechanism very much different in terms of riding in a standard older car. S o, again, I

-- I don't know the answer to that, and I don't think anybody in your committee knew exactly how to specify the issue so, we are going to have to

-- you know, you are going to have to depend on commenters to tell us the standards I agree it's difficult to back out of anyt hing even in a building. I n a moving train it's even harder. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: One thing that I kind of put out and I think the committee had discussed previously is that there may be a need to consider a different way out for commuter rail (inaudible) , it's a different operational piece than, say, the sitting

-- sitting on a train 6 hours going from point A to point B. A nd are there things that folks can live with in the 40

- minute commute that is much different thanyou are on the train for a day goin g to Chicago or you are

doing the Boston to DC run. A nd that may be one thing that all of you want to think about. I think that (inaudible) to piece together is that there are some good types of the Acela. And if you begin to merge that with the Califor nia bathroom, and the VIA rail bathroom and possibly the newest ICE bathroom, then maybe you have got something that is actually viable in the long

- term. B ut you all can think about it and input from Andre, Jon, Talgo and others to help inform that discus sion. >> BILLY ALTOM: Next question, David. >> Yes, David Nelson here from Amtrak. S o, language was brought up, you know, to be

-- to specify and language you know maybe in saying

-- current regulations say there is already a definition of a, I think it's a common wheelchair is what they put in there. I think that a common wheelchair needs to be revisited. E specially with specific

-- is it gone c it's long gone from the reg. >> How long?
>> A couple of years. C 2008 was it 2006? Yeah >> David Nelson: O kay. I thought I read something recently with the wording in there yeah I will re

- look at that. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: If you did we should report that

-->> DENNIS CANNON: People are still us ing that definition

in many ways, again, it was taken out because it was being used inappropriately. A nd we decided, the Board decided a long time ago not to include it in its revisions of the guidelines for buses and vehicles. D OT still had it in its de finition list. A nd so in the proposed bus revisions it didn't mention it, it just said all of the definitions are in DOT. A nd then DOT is self

-- itself decided that the definition was problematic enough to get rid of it. S o, there are, of course, peopl e still using that definition, but they are not really correct. B lair and James. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Okay. B lair Slaughter from Amtrak. I know in the circulation side we were talking about it one time was there any way to come up with a not a device that exists not that it's

-- it would be this wheelchair or that scooter or anything but some sort of a test fixture that when you are in the design phase and in the testing and mockup phase that you could actually take something through that will give you re alistic geometries and behavior coupled with the guidelines and the rules you can say, okay, I have done these things now let's see if it works kind of thing. A s a
-- on the engineering and design side you always want to make sure that

-- that you are doi ng things right. A nd you can follow the rules all day long but it might not work. T hat's

-- thatcan be very annoying. A nd at the end of the day we want to

do what is required and what is right. You know, those are not always the same thing in doing wh at is right is critical. So, that was something that we discussed. We didn't get very far with it, but I know that for Frank and I looking at it from the design perspective, creating such a tool and maybe some of these researchers are going to come up wi th something it would be awesome to say that, you know, if you can get this through you are going to take care of X percentage or something to know that you

-- and it would be, like I said it wouldn't with anything that anyone could get in and really use b ut it would have the appropriate clearances and things that you could say when you run through the mockups or the 3D models in the computers you run it into thing oh, my God we missed something let's fix that while it's still cheap and not a change order. Those kinds of

-- that kind of device or tool would be an awesome thing to have it would be

-- it doesn't need to be developed by the thoughts it needs to be a joint situation. >> DENNIS CANNON: Some transit agencies have in fact created a box 30 by 48 in I forget how high

-- >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: We have all done that

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: Push through a bus to see if it's accessible. T he difficulty is that if it doesn't go through ifthat box doesn't go through doesn't mean it's not usable.

Because wheelc hairs aren't boxes. S ore not shaped square and what not. T here have been attempts to do that. M y understanding was that one of the things that Ed Steinfeld was trying to do was to create not a physical device but a computer device that you could run on your design and I forgot what he said the last time I mentioned it I think he said maybe that they had run out of money to do it or time or something. B ut that was one of the ideas that you could take a program essentially apply it to the design and deter mine whether or not a wheelchair could actually get in and out of that and maneuver probably you would know that when you had the design on paper as opposed to when you built it already. S o, yes, those things are nice and performance specifications are go od but, unfortunately, you need sort of both performance and design so that you can fall back on something they know exactly what they have to do is a minimum. S o, it's possible that Ed and his group would create something like that which is probably the vehicle that that is going to happen from. >> James: I wasn't going to comment on this in response to Blair isn't the best test to actually do a physical trial with someone in a wheelchair? I mean, you could even simulate people in wheelchairs on a compu ter now I would think thatyou could have a model of a representative person you do

things like the 95th percentile percent in the

-- person in the biggest wheelchair rather than boxes and crude measures. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: So, along that lines just shar e, we recently were giving a demonstration by a manufacturer who, a lot of their product would fit 95% of the chairs. A nd we had 12 chairs here, and four of them failed. (LAUGHTER) >> CHRISTOPHER HART: He

-- the manufacturer wondered what chairs were 30

- plus years and to have four fail out of 12 I think was a real eye opening for him. >> That's a successful outcome of the test. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Yes it is. B ut

-- but you know that gives you an idea of the variety of equipment

-- James: Yeah sure. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: It's very different to figure out the right way to test for only one or two.
>> James: I t's just a thought my actual comment was going to be on the proposal one of the bullets says where feasible lavatory should be within each of pers ons seated I wondered was there a plan to tie down that requirement a bit more specifically and how that was going to be done because obviously any requirement that says where feasible is

-- is not really a tight enough requirement to prove complianceyou are basically not going to get it.

>> DENNIS CANNON: Yeah. I t's a tricky one to

-- to tie down because the

-- I will take the Acela because it's the one that's easiest. T he water closet is in one corner right against the cabinetry or whatever that the lavatory is in. S o the lavatory is right there. I am not sure that it's, quote, within reach if you got long arms maybe. I f you moved it any closer to the water closet then you might not be able to approach it from your wheelchair. S o, you can't have it right beside the water closet. A nd tying down the issue of how close it is I am not sure we can

-- we can specify a number. M y hope is that designers will kind of play with the designs and see if they can't come up with something that works. A nd I don't want to make it too restrictive where they can't do that. I also want

-- we didn't want to necessarily outlaw the possibility that the lav was in a different corner because that may be the only place that you can put it. S o, we wanted to encourage desig ns to get it close but we didn't feel like there was a way to actually require it. A nd if we required it, no way to actually specify that somebody could use. By the way I wanted to mention the national highway traffic safety administration also developed lift standards based in part on ours and one of the things that NTSA does for the barrier requirement on the lift has a test specified test vehicle that's weighted. I t has aspecific size. H as wheels specific diameter. I t's

-- the

design is that vehicl e is essentially run, driven into the barrier and the barrier has to stay intact when that test vehicle is used. S o, there is precedent for the idea of trying to design some kind of test vehicle I am not sure how to do it though. And it seem toss me prob ably that is something that's going to come from Ed and others. >> BILLY ALTOM: Next up Marilyn there you are. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Sorry. M arilyn Golden DREDF this might be ex post facto now. I wanted to say in terms of studies and speaking to Frank's com ments and all, there you know the Ed Steinfeld study we call it that like this guy did it in 5 minutes at his desk. E d is one of the most reputable and well deservedly well

- known and expert architects on accessibility in the country he did his shop at the university did a very large multi

- year human factors research project with hundreds of subjects. A nd human factors research is very expensive. A nd complex. A nd a lot of time study human factor studies have 5 subjects or 15 subjects. H e had 300 or 500 subjects. S o, it's

-- you know it's a lot better than getting a few people to try something. A nybody else with questions from the table? I f not >> Anybody else with questions from the table if not Bob has one right behind us.>> Bob Reuter Access System s my first note power access

at the seats of all sleepers. I wrote on the same car your mother did. (LAUGHTER)
>> The other thing is my concern with water closets and making them so big is they are not required. S o if you make them big enough, people are going to stop putting them in the cars. A nd we will have none. A nd some commuter runs are quite long if you ever run from south bend into Chicago you are talking better than two hours. O n a commuter train and coming from New York to Washington, DC when Marc gets extended I am concerned about that. I was going to throw in here I don't know how many people are as old as I am remember the original Metro liners they had accessible restroom and they had a folding tapered seat that you went in and the se at folded down and you put your wheelchair basically as far in as you could because the seat was tapered. But the widened came out at the wear closet and wrapped around the water closet you could transfer on to the seat and slide up to the water closet. It was a long narrow thing. A nd the

-- it was side entry the door was so long, that when it opened, you just turned to the right and pulled out. You didn't

-- it died. B attery. O h, okay. You just turned to the side and pulled out. S o it was, yes, you were coming out sideways but you could see where you were going. You were

weren't backing out. A s far as, I think something my mic is mall functioning it isn't? I t's me I am malfunctioning today. I am concerned

-- I think we need to consider somethin g besides that big 5

- foot circle. I t's

-- it really concerns me where we are in a 90

- foot long by 9

- foot wide box we can't make it bigger. I f we start eating up space they will say the heck with it throw it out. T he other thing that I had here, was VIA sleeper. I don't know how many people seen it, used it, I think it's won of the poorest designs I have ever seen or used. That's just a personal opinion. A ppear track super line certificate is 10 times better. I t takes up less space less floor space. So, yeah, they it needs tweaking but I think the VIA sleeper is really very poor design I don't think we should use it. T he other concern in the sleepers they have the water closet turned at a 45

- degree angle there is no way to make a 90

- degree side appro ach to that I think that needs to be addressed. >> DENNIS CANNON: One comment. T he design you are talking about in the restroom with the triangular fold down seat the seat never folds up or down one or the other that's the current standard that's the one that's currently specified in the guidelines itself which has been deemed by, I think, everybody you are the only person that I have heard who likesit, as a totally unusable device it depends on you either have

to do a standing transfer because you are fa cing the water closet or you try to do that pivot slide around whatever and there are lots of people who cannot do that. A nd so, that's generally been decided from everybody I have heard other than you, that >> (inaudible) brought up it up as idea. >> DEN NIS CANNON: It's a horrible design we have to get rid of it. (LAUGHTER) >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: I remembered what I was going to say now. Two things just as a matter of information. E arlier there was conversation about Amtrak and you know screaming about two toilets. Two restrooms in each car. There was also our marketing folks were convinced that the world was going t o implode if we had unisex restrooms if we didn't have men's and women's rest womb the world was going to end it did not. To the point we are looking at some cars and going how about we put one really nice accessible restroom in, with all of the amenities and forget the other one? A nd that helps take care of some of the pressure on the space. T he other thing and this is a big concern when we start talking about tables remember the FRA has in the tier 2 requirements for high speed trains the requirement for thestrength of the tables because it's not the table has to exist it

has to keep facing people away from each other in an 8G crash we know about that from our single table issue on the Acelas, that's a favorite bone for Dennis and I to pick because it used to be really nice before that was imposed. B ut so keep in mind when we talk about tables in dining cars, if that is applied to a high

- speed train that issue is going to come up again as far as the structure that supports the table. I t becomes very b ig. >> Uwe Rutenberg: I just want to respond to your comments about the VIA wash room. I don't know which one you used the sleeper I mean. B ecause the new sleeper has not even in service I don't know which one you have used. And you know we are just in the process of finishing it. S o it hasn't been in service at all. S o, I am not sure what type you have used
>> The Renaissance car. >> That's a very old one. T he newer ones are I think you have a drawing of this and specification for that Dennis. A nd because it's not in service yet so you know no comments can be made regarding

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: The diagram of that new design was given to the subcommittee members not to the full committee. I am thinking we can get it posted on the for thefull commi ttee to see rather than just us there are a couple of

things given to us a lot of photographs that were shared with the committee subcommittee by Ken Shiotani, pictures he has taken of restrooms all over the different kinds of cars and whatever, and I thin k we are going to try to get some if not all of those available so people can actually see what's in service so that they can make some judgments about that. >> MARSHA MAZZ: Dennis all subcommittee materials are posted on the website you just go to the sub committee. I f you exchanged them among yourselves but not made them part of the formal then they are not. A ll subcommittee materials are posted already. >> DENNIS CANNON: Any other comments >> BILLY ALTOM: Anything from the audience? >> Gary Talbot: T ha nk you Mr. Chair Gary Talbot Amtrak I wanted to comment on the restroom issues that have been raised and really just to chime in on Dennis and support his comments about that little shelf and just hope that subcommittee doesn't come up with other grand ide as like that. B ecause I am not really sure who could or would ever use that but I know having actually deployed it a couple of times looked at it thought about it and realized I had done a lot of silly things in my life I wasn't going to add one more to i t I am just hoping that we kind of like create access to thetoilet and not have to go through secondary calisthenics to

get there. >> BILLY ALTOM: All righty. A ny other comments on this particular topic? I f not, thank you very much Dennis, I appreciate it. W hat I would like to do now do we have anybody on the phone that had a comment too I don't want to leave those folks out. >> Give me two seconds operator can you pull the participants

-- poll the participants if anyone is willing to testify at this po int in time? A nd

-- people on the lines for purposes of this particular segment your lines are muted so that you can respond to the operator, operator go ahead. >> if you wish to testify press star 1 on the phones. Anybody in the back in the meantime wan t to

-- >> BILLY ALTOM: Seeing none anyone have anything for the record for public comment.
>> That is a negative I do not hear you. >> BILLY ALTOM: Anybody in the audience anybody with public comment for the day? I don't see anything there. What I would like to do quickly before we move on today. I t is September 11th it is the anniversary date of 9/11 what I would like to do is just take a moment of silence in remembrance of that occasion. I f we could we will do that right now. (Moment of silence for9/11, remembering.)

>> BILLY ALTOM: Thank you all. A ll righty it is what time is it 4:15. I f you look at your agenda what I have done we asked for public comment. B ecause I made an executive decision we are going to have Blair start us off tomorrow. What time you start to start 7 sound good to you? (LAUGHTER) We have got 9:30 a.m. what we will do is convene in the morning at 930 and we are going to start right off with your
on
- board circulation. A nd seating subcommittee. S ound like a plan for everybody? Awesome. Well, >> (inaudible) >> BILLY ALTOM: Okay. A ll right. You can sneak it in. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Blair Slaughter, Amtrak. R ight now in the United States in Nort h America for that matter, if a railroad person that's in the operating crew hearing three whistle blasts he knows that the he or she knows the train is going to back up two whistle blasts they know the train is going forward typically they know if the tra in blows one time the train is stopped and secured. I s there I am not aware of anything but is there anything for door opening and closing notices that is standardized for the number of Bing bongs and the stones it would seem in the effort to have seamles s society when a bus pulls up its doors open if there is a chimetrain light rail whatever pulls up that the noises are universal

and what they mean is universal is there anything around that certainly I would say that the Access Board if anyone has an opp ortunity to control that this is the place. S o, are we
-- we should start in the communication side. >> DENNIS CANNON: Board requirements are only there be audible and visual announcement when doors open automatically. A nd so what has been done is in the original Metro cars, for example, they had two tones that everybody claimed was the first two tones of swing low sweet chair I don't think now it's a choice announcement of a woman who says, doesn't say the doors are opening I think she says the doors are about to close. A nd there is a red light over the door that flashes. T hose are the only two requirements from the accessibility standpoint we want to make sure there used to be an audible tone when the doors close and blind people

-- excuse me deaf peop le didn't know what the doors closed we said no there has to be a visual one too. S o the requirement about standardizing the signal seems to me that something that APTA would want to do. M aybe there is something in the RIMA specs I don't know my guess is APTA should if anything should maybe convene some signed kind of a committee to standardize that. >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: Along with the visual side if youhave two tones for one function and three tones for another

you could have lights that flash with the t ones that would indicate

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: There are requirements or elevators for telling whether it's

-- when it's going up and down. O ne for up one up two for down so elevators have a standardized requirement. B ut I am not aware of anything on the train side >> BLAIR SLAUGHTER: As we were talking about the on boarding and alighting that seemed to be a painfully logical standardization no matter what mode you went to when you heard those sounds, you knew that what was going to happen, yeah. N o matte r where you went in the country. I f you are in LA or New York they all mean the same thing. There is no confusion. >> TERRY PACHECO: Dennis, >> DENNIS CANNON: Yes. >> TERRY PACHECO: Am I

-- I could be remembering this wrong but I thought that there was

- - I know there was at least discussion if not a determination on what was more important at the time was a short period a length of time prescribed between the time that it dings and the doors actually close. S o that it wasn't dinging as the doors
were
-- saying doors closing at the same time. I thought there was like a

-- I want to say a two or three

- second delay.I am talking about on subway, particularly

--

>> DENNIS CANNON: I am not aware of anything. T here is nothing like that tar >> TERRY PACHECO : I thought there was a discussion. >> DENNIS CANNON: There may be something in elevators I don't remember there are requirements for timing of doors closing and so forth that's for buildings as far as I know there is nothing. >> There is something in rail cars that it has to ding and flash prior to the doors closing the time element I don't remember >> TERRY PACHECO: I know I thought there was >> It's a warning not like okay I am going to do it right when the doors are closing it has to be before the doors begin to close there may be a time element in there as well. T hat's
a
-- on some light rail vehicles with operator intervention, what could happen and what does happen every day the doors will begin to close the operator will open them again see somebody else wanting to get on board close and open again real quick it could get confusing if I am like giving a signal for the doors to open and close. T hat what happens now. I f it
was a
-- if it was a standard signalization that you wait for 3 horns two horn s or two flashes you are going to have a lot of flashing and sound going off and very difficult to interpretwhen the operator opening and closing the door several times

but it was designed specifically you are right specifically to allow people to know th e doors are about to close so either get in or get out. >> TERRY PACHECO: The other issue with this also is that in some

-- in some systems, there is

-- there are electric eyes so if there is something blocking the door it won't close. Unlike WMATA where literally my pocketbook wrote from Silver Spring to Tacoma. (LAUGHTER) >> TERRY PACHECO: I was very pleased it made it. >> DENNIS CANNON: With respect to

-- they warned you sensitive he edges are not like elevators. M y recollection is that the Metro

- - the system rapid rail system in Baltimore did have and may still have sensitive edges on the doors, the problem is so that the doors would rebound when they hit something and close it. T he problem is that the doors opening or closing stops the train and so what was

-- what was happening is kids had a great idea of pushing their fist through the sensitive edge of the doors and essentially stopping the train. S o, I think they took those out. >> TERRY PACHECO: Like the MBTA in Boston have them I thought it was much safer. E specially I saw some

-- there was a woman actually not too long ago who she

-- I mean herchild got on and the door closed before she could get on.

And the train just went. >> DENNIS CANNON: In theory the operator is supposed to be watching. >> TERRY PACHECO: The operative word is theory. >> Bob Reuter: I wasn't talking about the folding seats. It just happened to be in the car I was talking about the huge door that opened the whole side up. I t was like four foot long. A nd it allowed you to turn 90 degrees to come out you didn't have to back out of the water closet. A nd that was what I was really discussing. I

-- I don't like that seat either. It just happened to be in the same restroom. >> DENNIS CANNON: Okay. >> Andre Gagne: This is Andre. I have a comment on boarding and alighting if possible this is a bit late but something that popped up in my mind. I t's about the gap mitigation device we don't say exactly what they are supposed to do and they could bridge the gap so go over the gap and extend beyond the gap and allow people to get in I think it would be good idea to accept devices that reduce the gap without touching the actual platform so you would let's say reduce the gap to something that would be now acceptable someth ing like two inches or less for instance. A nd those device exist those divides exist elsewhere in the world itwould be a good idea to accept those at least make them

acceptable. >> Can I ask a follow

- up question to that. D oes that

-- does that come unde r the general category of gap fillers? >> Andre: Yes. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Right. A nd I am not sure we

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: If we could get pictures of that as you described it would be even better to get a video.
>> Andre: I have video pictures it's a te chnical drawing so there is IP it's there is an IP on it. B ut I have a video of the device in function so I could present it tomorrow. A nd

-- >> DENNIS CANNON: That would be terrific. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: Not something that is just keeping you from falling down it's something that you could actually put weight on? >> Andre: Exactly. >> MARILYN GOLDEN: That's great.
>> Andre: I f I have a chance tomorrow I can present a video it's not long 30 seconds something like that. T hank you. >> BILLY ALTOM: You are welcome looking around I don't see any other hands. B efore anybody gets their hand up let's call this day.(LAUGHTER)

>> BILLY ALTOM: I want to thank you all, all of the committee chairs and Blair we haven't heard your report I know it's going to be s pectacular because the others were. >> CHRISTOPHER HART: Blair don't leave because Billy and I and staff need to talk to you. >> BILLY ALTOM: Awesome. Well I will see we are going to adjourn and see everyone at 9:30 in the morning.
>> Ladies and gentlemen on the teleconference the teleconference codes are the same as they are for today please call back then. O perator thank you for all

-- all of your help please disconnect all lines thank you.
>> Please everybody here take your expensive things with you. Otherwise you can leave things at your places. (End of meeting around 4:30 pm .)