I am the senior manager of the Civil Rights Division at RTD.
And my office, really, is responsible for ensuring
that we have equal opportunity, equal access to all
of our transit facilities.
We are also responsible for investigating protected class
discrimination.
And we also oversee the small business office.
Today, though, we're going to talk about changes being made
to seat design on all of our current and new light rail
vehicles.
That's going to happen within the next four years at RTD.
And some of those retrofitted vehicles
have already been in service for about a month.
So you probably have noticed some of those changes.
And to accommodate the redesign, 16 seats per train at each end
will be removed.
The larger space can serve as additional standing room
when not being used by passengers
with assistive devices.
These changes are being made with input
from passengers with disabilities
and as a result of the settlement agreement reached
in August of this year with a Colorado Cross-Disability
Coalition.
The Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition
is a Denver-based organization that
advocates for social justice for people
with all types of disabilities.
RTD has agreed to complete these changes on existing light rail
vehicles by August 2022.
And at this point, because it is a settlement agreement,
it's a done deal.
And we are here to inform you of those changes
and why those changes have to occur.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.
Today we have a couple folks here from RTD.
The actual presentation will be done
by Phil Eberl, who is our General Superintendent of Light
Rail Vehicle Maintenance.
I have here with me from RTD Ed Newburg.
He's right there in the back.
He's our RTD ADA manager.
Ann Hillyer, she is right there.
That's our new ADA investigator.
And also we have, on that side, you will see a form.
If you have any questions or feedback
that you would like for us to respond to you via email.
Please feel free to complete it, and we'll
send you the response.
I will try to answer all the questions that you have.
But for right now, I am going to have Phil come in
and do the actual presentation.
And he will go through and explain all of the reasons
why this occurred.
OK.
Any questions at this time?
Yes, ma'am.
Two things.
First of all, the acronym CB stands for car,
but, disability coalition, not organization.
And second of all, will this presentation be available
online or in hard copy?
This presentation, we will film it.
And whoever was not able to be here today,
we will make a video of it and put it on RTD's website.
And for folks who would like a copy of it,
we'll be more than happy to send you a copy of it.
Who would we send a request to?
You can send a request to either myself or Ed Newburg
at RTD, 1600 Blake Street.
Actually, it's going to change October 27.
The address is going to be 1660 Blake Street.
And that is Denver, Colorado, 80202.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
All right, without further ado, I'd
like to introduce Phil Eberl.
Thank you, Zamy.
Thank you, everybody, for coming tonight.
It's good to see you.
So as Zamy said, I'm Phil Eberl.
I'm General Superintendent of Light Rail Vehicle Maintenance.
So with the settlement, I was tasked
with looking at the feasibility cost and the possibility
of making more ADA space for maneuverability
and specifically wheelchair parking areas.
And so initially we hired an engineering consulting
firm to look into this and contract this out.
And it was possible.
And it was very expensive going that route to contract it out.
And so I was asked to see what I could do.
And I looked at all, both models of our trains,
to see what was possible.
I talked it over.
And I was able to come up with a design that
was the least intrusive on the vehicles
and provided ample parking space for what is requested.
And so as you can see on the first slide here, it's basic.
I think most folks here probably know what this is.
But the lead vehicle of every train,
a train being one light rail vehicle to up to four
light rail vehicles, the front doors' leading vehicle
stop at what we call a mini-high block.
And so on that mini-high block, we can stop there.
The operator can get out of the cab, deploy the bridge plate,
and make a pathway for a person to use that bridge
to enter the vehicle, and then be on the vehicle,
and park in some various spots.
I have personally seen people use different spots.
And there are two designated spots.
And so in our original design, what
we're going to show you here, is how
some of the issues with the original spots of why
we did this, OK.
And so when the bridge plate is deployed, they couldn't get on.
And when that train is in motion and if somebody
chooses to park in the vestibule area up front--
And we will look at this area here.
And so this vestibule area up front here,
when you do you park there, those bridge plates
could be locked in the vertical position,
and to where it keeps the people there and then safe.
It also provides a barrier in case somebody
is standing at the mini-high block.
And it provides a barrier so people don't try and jump
that gap and get on the train.
It's a visible barrier for that.
And also, when that bridge plate, when that ramp--
it's also called a trap--
when that trap is deployed over the step well,
it locks out that door.
And so when the operator opens all the doors,
that door doesn't open unless the operator
opens a specific button to open that door for ADA access, OK.
And once we get on the light rail vehicle,
this is the original design, and you
can see with these red arrows here
is where we are able to park with the wheelchairs.
Now this design here on the original design, what you see,
and I don't know if you can tell it in this picture,
but you'll be able to tell it in the next picture.
It is not long enough longitudinally with the train
for a wheelchair to park parallel with the aisle way.
And so someone in a wheelchair would park perpendicular
to the aisle way.
And we heard that folks like to park parallel to the aisle way.
And also, hopefully, have the maneuverability
to ride forward or backwards.
Most people, I assume, like to ride forwards.
And so we need the maneuverability.
And so in this original design, you
could come in here forwards or backwards, most likely,
make a J-turn, and get it in there
and ride perpendicular to the aisle way.
And so then once a person gets there,
in order for this to become a wheelchair parking
area, on the original design we're talking now.
We're not talking about what we're doing.
We're talking about the original design.
A person must access--
my pointer stopped working on me.
I'll see if I can get it working for us.
So a person must, with one hand, release this knob.
It's a knob that locks the seat in position.
And so a person must release that knob with one hand.
And with the other hand, raise this seat
to a vertical position.
And then release the knob again, locking in that vertical.
That's a little bit of a challenging task for folks.
Or you can have somebody assist in doing that, OK.
So that's the original design, which
is also part of why we changed.
I'm sorry, this is a new pointer I'm not used to.
So now the retrofitted design.
And so the first paragraphs you see here
are pretty much the same until we get down
to the fourth paragraph.
And so what we did is, the only solution to provide more
wheelchair parking, access, and maneuverability area
is something inside the light rail
vehicle had to go away in the proximity of the lead cab
in the existing wheelchair parking
area of the original design.
And so in order to do that, what we did is,
we removed a section of seats.
And we had to make some other modifications.
And so when you remove these sections
of seats, what you end up with is about 85 and a half,
or 86 inches, of longitudinal wheelchair parking space,
which you can now park a wheelchair
parallel to the aisle way and ample room for maneuvering
in and out that way.
And so that's pretty much the basis of the new design.
And since I'm in maintenance, I was
asked to do this presentation.
And now I'm going to give you some details.
And this could bore some of you but, I'm in maintenance,
so here comes the details on what we've done.
So then this is a picture of the SD-160 vehicles.
And you can see this is a drawing, a conceptual drawing
before we did anything, of what we would end up with if we
can make this happen.
We have a couple of serious challenges
before we can make this happen.
If we could make this happen, these
are some of the dimensions you would end up with.
18 and 3/4 inches clear space outside of the 48
by 30 inch area, and then 31.2 inches in between,
and there you are.
And this here is a picture of the SD-160 flat-row
vehicle, retrofitted.
Now in this picture, I want you to pay attention
to these baseboard heaters right here.
See how they're angled down?
Those baseboard heaters are at an angle.
And they angle out towards the aisle way.
Also want you look at these white boxes here.
Those are called sand boxes.
And these sand boxes aid in traction
when the wheels spin or slide when the tracks are
slick or wet outside.
And so when that happens, these can slide and spin on the train
automatically, applying sand down to the tracks
to aid in traction, OK.
The seat we removed on the SD-160
had one of those underneath the seats.
And then, once we get this area, in a slide earlier here,
I'll go back.
You see how when the flipped seat is flipped out?
As soon as you flip up the seat, it
exposes a grab rail and a stop request switch
for the passenger that's in that area.
If they push that stop request switch,
it illuminates a special light on the dash of the operator
to know that somebody wants to get off at the next high block.
And they need to get out and give this person assistance
to do so.
And so with the retrofit design, it
seemed that we needed to add this to that area.
And so this required us to do some structural changes
behind the wall to add the grab rails
and some wiring changes to add the stop request switch,
right there.
And so in a light rail vehicle, which is similar to your home,
you don't want to just start putting screws in your wall
and mounting grab rails around for accessibility.
You don't want that coming down on anybody when they're
hanging on for dear life.
So what you have to do is, go to structure
and make sure the mounting fasteners of these grab
rails are mounted to structure.
And it's the same way with the floor in the light rail train,
too.
All the seats we take out don't just screw into the floor.
All the seats are actually mounted to car shell frame
structure.
And so we had to deal with those issues.
And so here's the SD-100 retrofit.
So the SD-100s, what we did in 1993
as a result of trying to provide the Denver metro
area with mass transit, we added on to an order
from San Diego, California.
And they had purchased Siemens SD-100 light rail vehicles.
And they wrote the spec.
And they were ADA compliant at that time.
So when we got those trains, we had part of that order.
And we got those here and implement it into Denver.
Those trains are DC propulsion, older technology.
But the design is common throughout the United States.
It's a real common light rail design and works very well.
And so we have different challenges
of that original fleet.
We have 49 of those vehicles.
And so the retrofit on these was gonna
be different than the retrofit on the newer trains.
The retrofit for the passenger experience
on these two models, the SD-160 and the SD-100
are going to be the same experience for the passengers.
It won't change.
The difference is my department in making the retrofit,
and so that's all.
I'm giving you some of that today.
So in this picture here, as you can see this heater here.
This is the baseboard heat of an SD-100 light rail vehicle.
And this blower motor protrudes into the parking area
where a wheelchair would be.
So if I took that seat out, you still can't park there.
There's not enough room.
And so we had to get rid of that.
And if you get rid of that, then you
lose the heat for the people.
And there's a couple of months here in Colorado and Denver
that that could be uncomfortable.
And so I was a challenged to get rid of that.
So what I did, the original design
is a squirrel cage, below our border design there.
And I found what they call a pancake motor
or a radial design motor.
And so I went to the feasibility of that.
I figured out it could work.
I got some of my engineering staff
that work in my department and some of the key players,
and I task them with seeing if they can get that boarder
warmer to integrate into the cycle of heaters
and still let the passengers have some heat, if in,
fact, we remove this.
And so this is early on, all conceptual design,
so I can report back to my superiors
to see if it's feasible to actually see
if they can go forward.
And they did a great job.
They did some details. it was a pretty extensive retrofit work
to modify some things, and some duct work and everything.
It brings in air here and blows the air across the top
out across the heater to the pass area.
Also too, we had to remove the walls,
see, because you have to get to some of this structure.
Light rail vehicles are strong.
But they're also built as light as possible.
So some of the structure, even though that's there,
it's not real--
There's not a lot of metal behind panels.
And so we had to weld in some plates
to provide mounting surfaces for the grab rails.
And over here on the right, you see a finished product
of an SD-100.
You can see on an SD-100, it's baseboard heaters are straight
up and down.
But they still protrude a few inches out
into the passenger area, OK.
And that's just to provide heat in the Denver area.
And then, later on during the retrofit,
I looked at what we're doing on these SD-100 vehicles.
We've had them for almost 25 years now.
And so it's time for a midlife overhaul of these vehicles.
And so what I'm doing is replacing all the floors
in these vehicles and rebuilding some of the major components
in there.
And so while we're in process of doing this mid-life overhaul,
we're going to perform this retrofit during that overhaul.
And they're going to come out of there clean, ready to go.
And I just closed the deal with the manufacturer of the floor
now.
But we can have the international wheelchair
symbols embedded in the floor.
And so we're going to go forward with that process.
And actually later this month, they're
going to come and train us to possibly how to put this inlay
into our existing floors.
That's going to be a while down the road.
This retrofit's going to take over four years to complete.
And so you won't see this stuff overnight.
But right now, I have 11 vehicles out
hauling passengers right now that have
this retrofit completed, OK.
So, so far, we're ahead of the schedule.
I'd even do about 35 of these a year.
OK, so the SD-160 retrofit that's our AC propulsion train.
And on this particular vehicle, the differences
are on that second paragraph.
And so with a different design of the AC propulsion light rail
vehicle, the sandbox location had moved.
And so the sandbox location had moved
to where the seat that's hidden away
is underneath there as a sandbox.
And so when the engineering firm looked at that,
it became an extremely large amount of money
to move that sandbox someplace else,
like under the outside of the LRV
under the floor where there really isn't a lot of room
under there.
There's a lot of equipment under there,
some sort of a really thin design in the wall.
And even though these designs were possible,
they really weren't feasible and cost effective.
So I got with the manufacturer and learned
that they were actually making new light rail
vehicles of a different design.
It's a different car shell design.
But the state of the art now is to provide traction sand only
on the leading axle of every LRV.
And so with the original design, we
would apply sand on the first axle of the first truck.
A truck is a set of wheels underneath the trains
on the tracks.
And then the last truck of the same light rail vehicle
would also supply sand to it.
And so it was found that they didn't
need that second deployment of sand on the trailing truck.
They could still get enough traction
to reduce the slipperiness of the rails
just by adding it to the lead axle.
Since RTD and myself are all about safety,
and we don't want to do things just because we think we can,
and so we hired the manufacturer to do an investigation
to make sure it would work on our vehicle.
And they actually did to some other vehicles in Canada, OK.
And so they did it in Canada.
And I had them come to Denver and do a study here.
And as you can see, this right here,
that is the sandbox that has to go away along
with this entire seat frame assembly, OK.
This is just an illustration of a graph
of when they came out and did some dynamic testing
on our train.
They disconnected the sanders and did
some charts of how well it affected
the traction on slick tracks.
And it worked.
So we got that done.
Internally, our safety certification approved it.
And so we were good to go on that.
And then, getting in the wall of the SD-160,
we had to do the same thing to where we looked at the wall
structure and designed plates to be welded into here
and rewired it to install the stop request switch
and move forward with that.
So one thing that we do when we do this, and this
is an actual picture.
Now, the SD-160s, they're not due for a midlife overhaul yet.
They're some years down the road before they
get a midlife overhaul.
So we need to do this now.
And so this is also part of our schedule, the SD-160s.
And so once you remove a sandbox,
you get a hole on the floor.
And then you get a hole through the wall that I must fill.
And in light rail, the floors serve a purpose.
Right underneath that floor, that
is the main car shell structure for strength and rigidity
in the train.
It also provides a smoke and flame barrier.
And so I need to be careful with how I plug that hole.
And so I went back to the floor manufacturer.
And I had some custom made-pieces
to fill this hole in the floor.
Now this hole in the heater grill, that
wasn't too difficult. That was easy to fill.
And this is a picture of the plates
we welded in, our nutserts to mount the grab rails to.
And then the finished product, what
we helped to use some existing grab rail
material from the ones that came off of the train,
and added these railings here.
So I assume that this horizontal piece of grab rail
would be one that someone using a wheelchair
would like to hang onto and ride underneath that.
A little bit protected by that grab rail
is the stop request switch that you could push and notify
the operator when to get off.
And then with the design of the light rail vehicles, like I
was saying before, the ADA parking areas
are ADA parking areas when it's the lead end
of an entire train.
And so we're going to do it to all ends of all trains.
And so these open areas are going
to be running around in the back ends of trains
and then further back in the train on the other vehicles.
And so there's going to be people standing there.
And so I added a vertical grab rail for standees.
Also what I'm doing, if any of you
have ridden our light rail vehicles,
there's these straps hanging down from the grab
rails that are close to the ceiling.
And those grab rails are similar to DIA.
I hang on to them every time I take a trip.
And similar to DIA, we're going to increase the number of those
because there'll be more people standing in the open area.
And this open area, like I say, is 86 inches long.
And so to do this, this floor is some tough stuff.
It's a phenolic based floor.
And it does hold up to smoke and flame.
And we had the manufacturer custom make us some plugs.
This is what they call in the industry a shiplap process.
And so we just take a router, and we go in there
and we put a rabbit cut into our existing floor.
And this stuff is really tough.
It goes through a router bit for one hole.
And then the manufacturer has a special glue
that they approved for their floor that's safe
and will hold this.
And so it's good for the life of the floor.
And so then we glue these in.
And then we're going to cover this up with flooring plugs.
And as you can see, the old sandbox
was down here with these bolts.
And these bolt holes actually go to car shell frame structure
on the train.
And so then here's the finished product of an SD-160.
You can see where the sandbox used to be.
And then here's the finished product of one
of our 11 vehicles we have running around.
The grab rail's in place, tape switch,
and we put a symbol up here, sign, too.
Also in this design, we left these seats in place.
We didn't take those out.
That still could be companion seating.
That could be seating for folks when somebody
doesn't need to occupy there.
So that is seats that is a good place to be next to your friend
when you're riding the train.
Also the row behind this seat is also priority seating.
And so folks can go there, OK.
So then that brings us up to the new fleet.
So the new fleet, we're always involved
with the federal government, but the new fleet
is a little bit more interested when
we buy brand new trains and the design of those.
And so the new fleet is also an SD-160.
But some of the technology has changed.
And so this has actually been quite a few years now.
So with our expansion throughout the Denver metro area,
you know we went out to Golden, you know, on the W line.
And then we went over to Aurora and went up I-225
and met the commuter rail line.
And then now we're extending our southeast extension.
The southeast rail extension is going in.
And with all of these extensions and us
having a really good idea what it takes to do maintenance
on all these trains, which each one of them
getting about 75 to 100,000 miles a month on them,
they require a lot of maintenance.
So I've got to keep some out of service.
So we needed to buy 29 more light rail vehicles.
Another reason for this, too, is since we
opened, we modified our infrastructure
throughout the city to accommodate four car trains.
And so nowadays you see four car trains out there.
And our original fleet numbers weren't for that.
And so we're going to buy 29 more
trains to try and get us more trains to accommodate that.
So there's a couple of things that happened on that.
Our senior leadership team, that's staff at RTD,
and our Board of Directors, they were
interested in changing our seat configuration.
And I really have no opinion on it.
But they had an opinion that folks don't
like the knee-to-knee seating.
So as you see our trains now, when you sit in a seat,
you're facing another person facing you.
And you're facing each other knee-to-knee, right.
And so they said, let's go knee-to-back like buses do
and airplanes and things like that.
And so I had the manufacturer look
into a design that incorporated knee-to-back seating.
And so since I was involved with this settlement
and I knew what I was doing on the retrofit, I went ahead
and I've read some things.
I'm familiar with the CFRs, the federal regulations
of what's needed.
And I happen to know that what's possible in my career,
even though I'm pretty old up here,
but still it's possible in my career
that the ADA accommodations and the federal regulations
could be a new wheelchair parking area that
equals 32 inches by 59 inches.
That's possible.
If that happens, I don't want to do this again.
And so I asked the manufacturer, let's just meet that now.
Let's meet that now.
We've already met it with our retrofitted vehicles.
I got a 172 vehicles in Denver right now
that's going to have 85 to 86 inches in there.
And so maybe you don't need to be that.
But if we haven't knee-to-back seating design,
see what you can give me.
And I need at least 59 inches of in length.
And so they did that.
And they were successful on that.
And I'll show you some of those designs.
Also what we heard from the federal government, which
throughout my career, I've been with RTD for 33 years,
and I've been at light rail since 1993,
the bridge plate had no side barriers.
And the FTA says, Phil, you need to have side barriers.
And so the new fleet is going to have side barriers
on the bridge plate.
And we'll show you a little bit of that.
And that's the federal government
telling me to do that.
So I will do it.
So here it is.
And so this is the design and overshot of a drawing.
I don't know how many of you are comfortable with reading
drawings.
They're a little hard to read if you're not
used to reading drawings.
But you can see the wheelchair parked here,
facing forward, like we assume most folks want to do.
And you can see how the wheelchair is interfering
with that seat right there.
You see that?
It's interfering with that seat.
So what that becomes is a flip seat.
And so then I said, well you know,
I have problems with the flip seats.
You know, me personally, and a lot of our folks, I think,
have problems with the flip seats.
I've actually read customer complaints
about the flip seats.
And so then they showed me a design
they had for another customer in the country.
And this design is nice.
This new design of a flip seat is a flip and stay,
they call it.
And so it doesn't take any lock mechanisms.
If you push it down to sit on it, it stays down.
If you raise it vertically, it stays up.
And I played with the one that was done for another city
while I was out at the manufacturer's plant,
the manufacturing plant.
And I just stepped over to it.
And I took my shin bone, and I just nudged it and kind of
pushed on it as I was walking towards it.
And it raised up for me without having to use my hands.
And so I kind of like that.
And so I went ahead and approved their flip seat design in here.
And so once the flip seat is down, it's 51 and 1/2 inches.
So that's still pretty good.
That still meets the current regulations
for ADA parking space.
If you flip it up, you will get almost 63 inches
of parking space.
And so I think we got to win there on that one too.
Yes?
It says, between side wall heater covers,
does that say 96 inches?
That says 96 inches.
I'm getting into that in a future slide.
So I'll answer that one in a couple of
slides away from here.
Thank you.
Very observant, because we don't have that now.
And that's why I was kind of pointing out
those baseboard heaters on the prior designs, OK.
So we have that one.
It's flipped up.
And so we got ample spot.
So here's the side barriers of the bridge plate.
I have to do this.
I don't know if everybody's going to like it.
But I have to do it.
So here they come.
It is scary, especially when you have to back off the train.
Yes, you don't want to drop a wheel.
You don't want to drop a wheel.
And so this will prevent you from dropping a wheel.
So here is an overview of that.
We did get some input from our community
here in Denver of what type of stop request
they would like to see.
Buying a brand new train is a blank sheet of paper.
Why not, right?
And so the folks picked this.
That's what's coming.
Now the manufacturer also agreed to put
in late symbols in these.
Yes?
Good to see you.
Just a quick question about that.
Is the driver still going to ask the person what
destination they want?
[INAUDIBLE]
I'm strictly in maintenance.
But I don't know of any operational or training changes
in the future because of this.
The way that we behave and interact
with our passengers and our customers
is going to be exactly the same or better, OK.
Thanks.
So here it is here.
You've got a picture of one with flipped up
and one that's not flipped up.
And then you still have what's left here as a companion seat
even if you flip it up.
And I was at Siemens a couple of weeks ago,
and that's our first vehicle right there, folks.
That's the very first vehicle.
And I unwrapped it a little bit on them.
And took a little picture with my phone of the actual floor.
So this is the floor that's coming.
And that's the area.
You can see our familiar sandbox hole here.
And you can see there is no sandbox hole here.
So the manufacturers also proposed again
adopting the reduced sanders in the new light rail vehicles.
And then here's an overview of the new seating.
And the board of directors approved
the knee-to-back seating.
And this is that configuration there.
You can see that we could utilize some of the old style
seating here.
But that's just facing a doorway.
And so we've done this.
And by this we've gained back some more seats.
We gained back 10 more seats, which is nice.
So over here is what I was telling Siemens
that this new regulation.
So the new regulation is out--
it's not a new regulation yet.
But what may come in my career could be a 32 by 59 inch area.
So 32 plus 32 plus 32 is 96.
And so they achieved it.
And I told them what they--
because this is the same exact baseboard heater,
but on the existing trains, it angles down this way.
And so I told them to look into the engineering design of this
and stack them on top of each other.
And they did that.
And they proved it out not to be a problem.
And so that's what's coming.
All right, so what I'm going to do now folks--
Is everybody still OK?
We doing all right?
You ready for some more?
Yes, go ahead.
Just a couple questions.
Could you go back?
Is that possible?
You bet.
On the one that you just [INAUDIBLE]..
I'm a little bit too fast on the clicker, aren't I?
Two questions on that.
The ones that you're going to be correcting,
will it be flush on the floor?
Or will there be like bumps where you covered it up?
On our retrofitted trains?
My folks have impressed me on that one.
So what we did is we took every millimeter into account.
And so we bought the sub-floor, which
is underneath the rubber flooring,
is an exact product of the manufacturer.
It meets the exact height.
And then the rubber that goes over
that meets the exact height also.
And so I believe, by federal regulations,
I have a quarter of an inch and still be OK.
But I don't think, I really don't
think you'll feel it through your wheels.
I don't think you'll feel it
And then another question I had is--
so, I'm trying to understand.
To the right side of this, where it
shows where the wheelchair will be,
so there's going to be, you're you're
space for two wheelchairs side by side?
Yes.
And on this side, the seats, the regular seating,
is facing the opposite side?
Yes, so what this is a picture of, and I'm glad
you brought that up, because I assume
people are used to looking at what I look at all the time.
So this is a half of the light rail vehicle.
This drawing is half of the light rail vehicle.
So right over here, that's the middle
of the light rail vehicle.
This is the leading end.
This is the cab floor where the operator sits.
And so this is the only wheelchair area here.
And so when we come back here, this
was the manufacturer's design, which we accepted.
You wouldn't be facing any knee-to-knee.
So we have, what the achievement was, and I kind of left
this part out earlier, but what this was,
was a 50-50 arrangement, see.
You've got about half the people facing this way.
About half the people facing that way.
So depending on which direction the train's
going, within the same half of a car,
you could choose to ride facing forward or backward.
And that's why they're there.
Why I asked is because since I'm in a wheelchair,
I never go back there.
I don't know what it looks like past the--
Oh, yeah, and the design is from the edge of this flip seat
forward to this seat.
That's the ADA area.
Back here, if a person goes back there,
there's no law against it, but if you go back there,
it's 25 inches in between there.
And then when you get back here, you've got step well holes.
And it gets risky.
And then people will come on, and you have
to beg them to let you off.
And that's not really a good plan.
What's that space that's right there, again,
because I've never seen it.
This space?
This is the same as this space.
But it's in the middle of the light rail vehicle.
This is the step well hole.
So this is a step.
So we have four doors on each side of the train.
They all have steps.
So on the mini-high block, that trap that I was talking about,
covers the steps so you really don't see it.
But the people that come through here
must use the stairs to get in the light rail vehicle.
Thank you.
That clarifies because I didn't know what that was.
Next question I have is, I don't know
if this is for you to respond to or not.
Since a lot of the, many times, most of the time,
frequently, people using strollers
will come and use this space.
And also, people with bicycles will
go up the ramp pushing a bicycle and then be there.
Even though the sign says, no bicycles
behind the [INAUDIBLE],, they still will be there.
So, how is that going to affect our ability
to have two wheelchairs parallel?
I don't know.
I guess I'm not wording the question well.
I think I understand what that is saying
because I'm familiar with this.
And there's federal law protecting folks.
And so that's up to the citizens to get along with each other
and notify the authorities if its not happening that way,
I guess.
But it is federal law that they have
to let you be free to move to park there.
Unless they also are in a wheelchair.
And so I don't know what to say to that,
but that is kind outside of my purview on that.
That's part of our operational issue.
And a community issue, how well we get along
with each other, type thing.
I got a question.
Yes?
So for non-disabled people standing in that area,
I don't think you're going to be able to fit the 16
people that you're displacing into that space
when you only have one handrail and a couple of rubber things
to hold on.
You're going to be forcing most of those people
into the center aisle.
What we have there, and this is a trying
to accommodate everyone effort.
And so the additional straps in there,
there are four of these areas for every light rail vehicle
itself.
There's four areas.
And so each area is going to have
six straps plus the grab rail.
And so if there's 5 people per area,
that's 20 people can be there.
But they're gonna be, if they're holding on to rubber straps,
they're gonna be in the middle.
They're not gonna be in that empty area there.
The only person that's going to be in the empty area,
is going to be holding on to that one vertical bar
that you have in there.
Everyone else is going to be in the middle.
OK, and that's a point well taken.
We'll see how that goes.
And we could take that into consideration in the future.
Also there's the horizontal grab rail there, also.
That's too low.
If you're standing, if you're an adult and you're standing,
that's too low.
OK.
You'd have to kneel to grab it.
So I lost my train of thought.
I do that all the time.
But I don't believe that they're going to be using all that.
That's gonna be a lot of empty area.
And you're going to have--
I ride the H line.
There's four cars on there.
Three of the cars will not have any handicapped people on it.
Just the first one will.
And so I wonder why you could not just
select a specific number.
And I know why you're doing it because I read about it.
But I think it would be better if you only selected
a select number of cars, designated
those cars for the first car, and left all the other cars
alone because you are negatively impacting thousands
of regular riders by doing this change.
Yes, that is a point.
And to do that, we would have to have a lot larger investment
to have a logistics of adding and cutting trains.
And so that's kind of how we do business.
Our four car trains can instantly
become a three car train or a two car train.
And at any time they become that, that front LRV
must have ADA access or be removed from service.
And so this is the direction that the district chose
to do with agreement with the settlement is
a 100% of anything that can possibly be in the lead cab
is to meet the requirements.
You know, the regular riders have no say in this at all.
No say at all.
And there's nothing posted on the trains that
say this change is even going to be coming in.
I only knew about it because I happen
to ride on one that's already been converted.
And I get the newsletter.
That's how I knew about this meeting.
That's the only way that I knew about this meeting.
RTD has not done a goo job promoting this change
and getting input.
And I appreciate your comments and I
understand your frustration.
And we did expect that there would be some concerns of this.
And that's where we have the comment cards and the board
meetings downtown if you would like to have some input.
Yes, Zamy would like to speak.
I just want to add, that the settlement agreement
was reached in August of 2017.
RTD could not advertise anything until we figured out
what we were going to do.
And so reaching that agreement, every train
now has a transflux.
There's a message on there that explains
exactly what is going on.
That's not true.
I rode the train this morning.
There's no signs.
Zamy, he is correct.
My boss has instructed me to put signs
on every train that has been retrofitted.
OK.
So we'll talk more about making sure
that we put signs on the other trains,
so that folks can know what's going on.
But again, as Phil explained, when
the train is out there at any point
any time that car, whatever car, can
become the lead car because one of them can go out of service.
And so we need to insure that all of the cars
comply with this, regardless if it's the front car or not.
Yes, another question.
On the hand rail, is that what they're called, though?
We call them grab rails.
When they're over in this area, are they
going to be on the sides where that bar goes around like that?
Or can they be suspended more like towards the middle so
that people, you know what I'm saying?
Yes those grab rails, do you see this line?
They're straight above that line.
That's where they exist in the ceiling.
And so along here in that middle spot, there.
There might be people standing?
Are they just going to be along there?
Do you see my question?
Or will they be more towards the window area
so that more people can stand and hold on?
This area here, this is a step well.
And right about here, there's a vertical grab rail about,
I would say 34 or 35 inches high that comes up for that area
right there.
And that exists right there.
I'm just asking that because, again, I don't go in the back.
Right.
And then the second thing I wanted to ask,
is the area that's in front of those seats that are there.
Yes, right there, those seats.
If more people with wheelchairs or scooters,
et cetera, come on, are we still going
to be able to park in that area?
Yes.
Yes.
It's still going to be OK?
OK, thank you.
Yeah.
If you're up there, you may have to move.
And that is another reason we did
this retrofit is because you get one person to wheelchair park,
longitudinally there.
And if it's an oversized wheelchair,
that may interfere with the movement of this person.
So what happens a lot of times is folks park here and here,
right?
And they park like this.
And so when other folks come on, whether they
are using a mobility device or not, they end up moving.
And so we're trying to reduce that.
Yes, Doug.
Oh I'm sorry.
Yes I think I we're--
I didn't know if I needed to snap my fingers, or what.
I must have a crick in my neck here.
I'm looking to the left.
I understand the adjustments [INAUDIBLE]..
However, those of us with wheelchairs, walkers,
canes, we are also regular riders.
So, I want to make that very clear.
We use that services quite often,
especially the Dudley line.
And we have multiple people who use
that who are regular riders and people who
have mobility limitations, not just wheelchairs.
The thing is, what I'm concerned about,
is I understand what you're saying on the hand rail.
I don't think I ever used one before I ended up
in a wheelchair.
It was so nice to fall into someone's lap.
But nevertheless, that was my younger days.
I'm just joking, of course.
However, I understand what you're saying,
but I was on one of the new ones that has been redesigned.
And it was packed.
And very few people at that time,
I'm not saying this is a general thing,
didn't even use the hand rails.
They did use the ones that were level on the seats,
or whatever.
So I wanted to make sure people understand that a lot of this
has to do, and you said it earlier,
even though I could talk about how
people act on the light rail, is that this
was done for a reason.
It was done because others would not move.
You know, know, the space is so small.
You could not put two wheelchairs on there.
And right now, the drivers have been
very great about getting as many at those stops.
Sometimes he has two or three wheelchairs at a stop.
And he has people with their grocery carts,
or some of the other things you see on the 16th Street Mall.
[INAUDIBLE]
As well as people with walkers, and I
think what you all have done here is a darn good thing.
It's a lot better than what we were having.
But those of us who use the specific light rail,
I'll say D because I'm on the D quite often.
And there are quite a number of people
who are limited in their mobility
and they've been going to the A line.
I ride the A line.
Often I get to be stuck on that.
And it only has helped.
Oh I've probably jinxed myself by saying that.
But nevertheless, it's the same issue
that you find on 16th Street mall.
They have the things that you can hold on to.
Most people don't hold on to them.
They'd rather just fall on each other.
And that sounds silly, but it is a reality.
But I just want to make sure people understand
that those of us in a wheelchair, those of us who
use walkers, who use canes, we are also regular riders.
And sorry that's an imposition to some folks.
But there is a tendency for most of us to work together.
And we have.
We bump into each other with our wheelchairs.
And we make space for each other.
So I really appreciate what RTD had done here.
It may not be perfect, but I can guarantee you,
it's a hell of a lot better than what has been going on.
Thank you.
Yes, Doug.
Something else just to help this discussion, that it's not just
when the train goes out of we need to make sure
the new oncoming line has this space,
but when a train reaches the end of its line
it does not pickup and turn itself around.
It reverses.
And so that means the other end of the train is now in front.
Right.
And so there's no way that we can
have a crane at ever ending of routes,
or the H line stopping at Florida.
Yes, but his point was is if you had a four-car train,
you'd only have to have two, with one
end of those two modified.
And that's what his--
Sure, and so but in my travels around the US,
I've been blessed to have visited
over half of our states, the public transit in other places
has a lot of open space.
In fact, it's more open than it is safe.
And so public in other areas have figured this out
decades ago.
So I'm not concerned.
[INAUDIBLE]
I think there's going to be a lot of opinions on this.
What I need to do folks, is I need to show you this video.
I promised I would, and it's a video that no--
we didn't hire a professional video team to make this video.
So this is a pretty bare video to just demonstrate to me,
the manufacturer is demonstrating this to me
and I'm having RTD, the district,
that what they proposed will fit wheelchairs
with maneuverability, and will meet the requirements,
and hopefully, meet the improved requirements of the future.
And so we have in the specification
I was involved with, they had options
of how to prove this to us.
And so there's a computer-generated graphics,
right?
And so we sat down, we thought, we
can make computer-generated graphics
look like anything works.
And so we decided to use regular folks, and one
of the folks in the video, so no laughing please.
But we didn't hired actors, they're not professionals.
The manufacturer has a mock-up of [INAUDIBLE]..
We had them configure it to the new proposed seating, ADA area.
So it's only a mock-up of the lead doorways.
It doesn't have everything in there,
but it's dimensionally accurate of what we're getting.
And the area is there, and the distance
between all the seats in the aisleway
is dimensionally accurate.
So what you're going to see in this video is accurate.
You're also going to see us driving wheelchairs.
We're not good at this.
And so the manufacturer was worried.
And I said, don't get worried.
I said, I think it's better.
If novices, not knowing what we're doing can make this work,
then maybe it's really going to work.
Now, when you see this video, I'm telling you,
I was on my Jazzy, and--
That's the best one.
--it wouldn't go backwards and left
at the same time, which it didn't work.
So you'll see me struggling with it a little bit here.
But I'm going to play this video and pause it intermittently
here.
And so this happened in April 14th of 2016.
This had to happen before they broke ground, so to speak,
on building a new vehicle.
And so this is the mock-up they're going to do,
and I'm going to show you what we did.
There's a couple of uncomfortable pauses in here.
We didn't make them edit this close enough.
So here's what we're going to use.
So I decided to make things show what I really see out there,
and as somebody commented now.
We have strollers, we have kneeboards, we have scooters.
And so I've seen Quantum 600s out there.
I've seen Jazzys.
I think they're-- I don't know, in my opinion,
look like the most maneuverable.
We have the Golden Literider, that's a scooter.
I was really nervous about the scooter.
I didn't personally think the scooter would do it.
I thought I was going to have to come home and think
of something new, because I really
thought the scooter would fail.
Then we had a manual wheelchair, your traditional wheelchair
like you see in hospitals.
This is the wide one.
This isn't the narrow one, this is the wide one.
And so this is the extra wide wheelchair.
We had a person in a kneeboard, and we
had a person in a traditional walker,
and then we had a baby stroller because they
show up all over the place.
And they, a lot of times, use the highwalk,
the mini highwalk.
So here we go.
I'm going to start playing this.
And that's a list of the equipment we're going to use.
I get into some detail here.
This is them.
This is a picture of what we're going to use right there.
There's your Quantum 600.
That's what it is.
It reclines and extends.
This is your Jazzy.
It pivots on a dime here.
This is the scooter.
This is a Golden Literider This is
the one that doesn't have a very good turning radius.
This is your manual wheelchair.
These are tough to operate out there.
This is an external view of our mock-up.
And so this is our view from the camera,
which we're going to keep view for purposes
of most of this video.
And so here comes a gentleman, one of the engineers,
in the Quantum.
And so he's demonstrating coming in here,
he's demonstrating maneuverability.
And the seat is already flipped, because they
didn't have that new seat in production yet to actually use
it.
So we just tied a seat up to show the flip position.
And he showed maneuverability.
He went in forward in this scenario.
I wrote some scenarios to have him try different scenarios.
So different wheelchairs, different folks
in different scenarios.
So he's maneuvering.
He got himself inside of there, and then there he is.
So he's parked there.
And so in this scenario, he pulls straight out and moves--
I like this overhead shot because you can see clearances
here.
You can see the room.
On the floor, I don't know if you can see or not,
it shows 37 inches between the ADA access aisle.
And it shows 25 inches in between the seats
that are not ADA compliant access,
because that's where you're talking
about going further back.
You have to be less than 25 to go back there,
and then once you do, you're at risk.
So we got an uncomfortable pause here.
This is the part of it, was editing,
because I believe that gentlemen actually goes outside and gets
into something else and comes back.
And so here's the manual wheelchair.
And so he's going to come up in a manual wheelchair
with a companion-- well, he's the companion.
And this person in the manual chair's coming in there.
They also came in forward, they also
maneuvered, and spun it around.
This is your 60 inch circle demonstration.
How wide is that chair?
32 inches.
And there's a 60 inch circle requirement, by the way,
for maneuverability, and so this achieves that.
And so he's parked there.
And you can see he chose to do the companion
seat with his buddy, and so there they are riding.
So they're ridding there, and they're not
quite all the way in the area.
But here I come, and I'm coming in in the Jazzy.
And so I also come in forward, and then I'm
going to spin around here and try and find my parking spot.
And then a lady in a stroller is coming behind me,
and I'm maneuvering a little bit.
And this is where I'm learning that the joystick doesn't
have a left and back at the same time, so I'm struggling.
But I got in there.
And then she comes in, and she just goes straight on through.
So that show you a wheelchair--
I mean a stroller, can get through that area.
Here comes a person in a walker, so let's see where he goes.
So he decides he wants to sit in front of me, and I say, sure.
And so I backup at little bit to give him a little more room.
I think he would have fit anyway,
but you can see our knee room now.
And this is on the 62 inch space.
So this is the new design, 56 seats, [INAUDIBLE] space.
Here comes a lady on a kneeboard.
She comes straight on through.
Right where she's at, that's priority seating, folks.
That's a priority seating area, and so that's where she goes.
And so here comes this race for the door it looks like.
So they're racing for the door, and now they're leaving.
So see, we got everything on, and now we're
getting everybody off.
Yes?
Can they show back?
So we can see where the lady with the--
behind that [INAUDIBLE]?
Way later in the video you can see.
This is just a mock-up.
I know that.
And so back there isn't real.
I just wanted see what it looked like with her back--
At the very end of this video you'll see back there.
It's nothing fancy, it's a mock-up, but we'll show you.
Yes?
And one of the great things on this new train,
that extra few inches of lift.
Yeah.
It allows that full aisle to be there
for people with luggage, all the regular people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we're not going to change our policy and procedures
on who uses and how we use light rail vehicles.
So here comes the Quantum again, and he's coming in here.
So you have-- so this turn is he's going to,
I believe, back in now.
And so that's this scenario, so let's see
if he can back this thing in.
And again, we're not used to this.
I think this is a common practice right now,
before the retrofit, of backing in.
I don't know for sure, but I think
it's real common that that's maybe the way of choice.
I don't know.
I assumed to show both ways, and so it looks
like he accomplished that one.
And what we basically tried to do,
so now we have a Quantum in place, and a Jazzy Elite.
So that was doable.
Now, the last guy, he just backed in there.
He cheated a little bit, right?
Because there should be a sandbox under that seat.
Oh, that front seat?
Yeah.
See, he was underneath the seat quite a bit.
Oh, OK.
But it's still OK.
Yeah.
So here comes a scooter.
It made a turn.
It made a turn pretty good.
I was surprised.
So he comes in there, and then he's
going to back up, and go where you suggested earlier.
And he's going to park there, even
though we have extra space for him back the other way.
I just wanted to show that it's doable.
I'm not telling you you need to park there or have
to park there, it's doable, you can park there.
And so he parked there.
And then here comes a person walking in,
and everybody's in the runway, and he's going to sit there.
So he's going to sit there, so he did.
And so then, here I come again in the manual wheelchair,
and it's getting tight in there, but I needed to see this.
Because I'm real good at these things, but I need to see,
does this happen?
So I got in.
So we had a scooter in the way.
We have a Quantum 600 in the other parking space,
and I'm over here maneuvering around trying
to get myself in here.
Now, there's a gentleman over there.
So he gets a little bit of [INAUDIBLE] and I moved
my knee a little bit for him.
And so that he moves his knee, and he
lets me come on in there.
And so that's just real world stuff.
We were professional.
So this is what we were experiencing
what it's really like for folks riding in our trains.
And I really wanted to see what it's
going to be like to ride our new trains.
And so we got a lot of stuff in here.
We got a scooter in here, a Jazzy-- not a Jazzy.
We got a Quantum 600, and a manual wheelchair, extra wide.
So we're in place, and I'm over the line.
And so here comes a lady in a walker,
and I guess that other guy is moving back.
And so she makes it back to the priority seating.
And so then she moves back to the priority seating area.
And so we skipped a couple slides here, but we're moving.
I did bump into him, but there was clearance
if I had been a better driver.
And so now we're unloading the train again.
He's getting the [INAUDIBLE] out of there.
And then we'll go to our next scenario here.
I know this is a little bit boring,
but it was a requirement that they
had to prove that we can do this,
and this is real world stuff.
So here comes the Quantum again.
And so now he's going to park over here.
So I wanted it in straight, that it's not just
a scooter can park there.
The Quantum is a significant-sized wheelchair.
What I've read in the manuals and stuff, a transport mode.
So that's the mode your transporting stuff around you.
And so while he's there, the scooter
makes its big turn to come in there, and I like to see that.
That actually happened.
So that's achievable.
He can actually fit back there.
So he went back there.
I don't know how anybody's going to move back there,
but he went back there.
And so then here comes the Jazzy again.
And so the Jazzy's going to spin around.
And is he going to park that way?
Yeah, I think he's going to park facing backwards,
which to each his own.
And so you see how we saw the Jazzy fit back there?
It's not an ADA area, but it's a demonstration.
The Jazzy went there.
So it's possible if it was necessary?
Yeah, it's possible.
A lot of folks will come in behind you and sit in the seats
and block aisleways for you, so you just have to,
"can I please get off the train," type communication.
So now I'm coming in there with a buddy
of mine in a wheelchair.
I part him over in the area, and then
I'll take the companion seat, and hopefully I
remember to set his brakes.
And he set his-- did his set his-- he set his own brakes.
I didn't do it for him.
So everything was-- we got a manual chair
in there, a companion in there.
And here we're going to get up and move.
We're just showing that's possible.
This is actually one of the more challenging [INAUDIBLE]
extra wide wheelchairs are a little more challenging,
and your hands are out there on the wheels themselves.
And so you need a little extra room,
and so we achieved that sort of an effort.
And here comes the scooter again.
He's going to park over into this doorway again,
I believe, for this last scenario.
Oh, yes, go ahead.
The question I have is more of a policy or operational.
But since you're on this scenario, a lot of times
the drivers, the operators, will pull off
before you're able to get into your space, which
can hinder you from actually knowing the turning
and operation of your wheelchair.
So my question would be to whoever is in that position,
is there a policy or is there a way
to recommend that before the operators pull off--
and I understand sometimes they're running behind
and they're trying to do catchup.
But when you're maneuvering like that it's
hard to do all this when it's already in motion.
I see your point on that.
And I know for sure that we have agree,
that we've actually agreed to improve our training.
And I'm sure that [INAUDIBLE] and stuff, will
bring that concern forward, to make sure
that we do keep people's real experience in mind
when we're driving around out there.
And not only wheelchairs and maneuvering,
but folks that haven't got to a grab row yet--
Exactly.
--or they have a cane or something like that.
You don't want to put anybody on their face
in the middle of the aisle.
Bill, aren't the train operators supposed
to accelerate at a certain level so people aren't jostled
around, right?
The train has an acceleration level
that's computer-controlled.
But if an operator-- yeah, they can put somebody on the ground.
So it's a matter of training.
It's really a matter of training.
I learned that fast when I was a teenager.
When I got off a school bus and I got on public transportation,
I better be sitting down.
The school bus driver waited for me, but when I got to-- this
is when I was a teenager.
So we'll address that another way.
So this gentleman's parked there, straight on end.
And this is a demonstration if the operator came out
of the door while the gentleman were parked there.
Now, everybody see that it's possible, but not everybody
parks in the right place, and you could get hit by the door,
just like what happens now if you park there.
Just a point of transparency.
It's possible, but it may not work out.
So I've seen this.
And so I asked [INAUDIBLE] to do this.
I said, I've seen these Quantum 600s
moving around with the reclined and extended mode.
And so let's see what happens here.
So here comes the Quantum 600 in the extended and reclined mode,
and we had some maneuverability there.
And we didn't practice with these, except for this one
here.
We did take one practice shot.
And his first shot was one moving up perfect.
And then we tuned the camera on, and then he
misjudged a few things there.
But he did make it, and he maneuvered around,
and he's all extended out there and everything.
And so, again, this is not your 86 inch parking area,
this is your 62 inch parking area,
and a Quantum 600, extended and reclined,
made it around the corner, by an [INAUDIBLE] out the door.
And so I really wanted to show that,
because I think that was another one of our challenges.
And so I'm going to open up to questions,
and just let you view the rest of this, because that's
the end of the video.
This is just a different camera angle.
So if you're interested in what our mock-up looks
towards the back, it'll come up here in a little bit.
But this is just a different angle
just to show you a different perspective.
Is there any other questions today?
Yes?
Just to apply you--
the number of pieces to this puzzle that you solved,
just hats off, and thank you.
And thank you.
This is no small feat that you accomplished.
And I hope you can pass this on to your boss,
that you deserve a raise.
Yeah, and I appreciate the sentiments, I really do.
And I am proud of what I do, and I
am very aware that we're not making everybody happy here.
This is not a everybody wins scenario,
but we need to do this.
We're ordered to do this, and we want to do this,
and it's a long time coming, for 20 years,
it's a long time coming.
And it probably should have been this way from day one.
And then we wouldn't have had to disappoint some other folks.
There's a lot of different solutions,
and really none of us at RTD have gotten our way
on what's out there, because it's just not--
we just can't afford it.
We just cannot afford to do what's really nice.
But we can afford to get some reasonable transportation,
and hall the masses around, and people
can use it for what it is, and so
we hope you enjoy what we've done.
And if you can use it, please use it.
And if not, keep letting us know.
We have the customer service line.
We have comment cards over here.
We have public board meetings at Blake Street,
and so we're open to new ideas.
And I'm hoping that this retrofit here
let's you understand that RTD is not closed.
That we're not opposed to change and closed to ideas.
and we really try.
So there's the end view of the mock-up, if you're interested.
And so back there it's just aisles and seats
is what's back there.
That's all that's back there.
All right, folks, well thank you for coming.
I appreciate you coming out, and thank you.
Let's see, what time is it?
We're doing OK on time.
Oh, yes, another question, go ahead.
[INAUDIBLE] it's not 8 o' clock yet.
I live in a community that we have one, two, three, four,
five, six facilities of older people.
I'm trying not to say elderly--
older individuals and retirees, people
who have some mobility limitation, not just physical,
but others, visually or others.
And my question here is--
and they would have been here tonight, but they have no--
they use [INAUDIBLE].
So we were trying to make arrangements to get them here.
So I want to go back to your response, or someone's
response, will this be able to be seen online?
Because they really were interested in seeing how
this would work.
Yes.
We're going to have this available online.
I don't know how fast it will be there,
but it will be available online.
And would you be able to like, say a large organization, that
works with people with disabilities
and the elderly community, this is a presentation that
can be taken or assumed to be done at their readings
or whatever?
Are you saying, am I a traveling road show?
Yes.
[LAUGHTER]
I don't know--
I don't know the answer to that, because there
is a cost to this for us.
And so I don't really know the answer to that myself.
If I'm asked to do this, I will, is all I can say.
That's fine, thank you.
I just want to add that we are filming this,
and so we will have a video when we're finished, published
on our website for anyone how missed the meeting today.
And if there is a request for us to go and do a presentation,
we can see about arranging that as well.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Yes?
I have a question.
This open area here, boarding and also for loading,
there's one bar, grab bar, sitting down.
Are there going to be other grab bars along there as well?
What you're going to see on the new trains
it's exactly what you see now on the trains.
That configuration has not changed, except for the side
barriers on the bridge plate.
That will be new on the new vehicle only.
And just so you know, and I don't know--
this isn't part of the settlement,
and it isn't part of the orders from the FTA, but just in case,
to cover myself is that bridge plate with the side barriers,
I had the manufacturer make that reverse compatible to the older
fleet, just in case I could afford
to retrofit the older fleet with the bridge plate that
has the side barriers.
And so it's possible, and this is a long ways down the road,
this is after this retrofit, this is if our income goes up,
and our ridership goes up, and we
can afford to add bridge plates to the other ones.
Or if the federal government says I must, then I will do it.
And that will be a cost savings if I have to.
The view that we're seeing right now,
is this exactly how it's going to look?
This is dimensionally how it's going to look, not exactly.
Because I'm saying, because what I like about that is that,
because I've had experience where my chair has gotten stuck
on-- the wheels have gotten--
on the side.
Off the bridge plate you're experienced dropping a wheel?
Yeah.
Oh, I'm sorry about that.
Well, this will help that.
So was I. But I liked how that look, because it just looks
like it's moved--
That car was not accurate.
So everything-- the space in between those posts
is accurate, but everything outside of that vehicle
is not accurate.
Our bridge plate is narrower than that.
Do you have a shot [INAUDIBLE]?
A shot of the new one?
Of how it's going to look [INAUDIBLE]??
It's not built yet.
Thank you.
But we did have some pictures of our--
when the bridge plates were in place on the existing trains,
that's going to be dimensionally the same.
Thank you.
And actually, the side barriers, even though they protect you
from falling off, they also become something to run into.
It's physics, I guess, falling down.
Thank you.
You bet.
All right, folks, well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
[APPLAUSE]
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