Final Transcript

	STATE OF CA-DEPT OF GENERAL SERVICES: The Detectable Warnings Task Force
	March 6, 2019/1:30 p.m. PST 

SPEAKERS

Susan Moe
Kristin Vandersluis
Jonathan Adler
Chris Downey
Kaylan Dunlap
Michael Gibens
Rosa Gomez
Marcia Mazz
Tim McCormick
Vidal Medina
Steven Twist
Gene Lozano
Derek Shaw
Jessica Axtman
Ida Clair
Debbie Wong

PRESENTATION

Moderator	Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by.  Welcome to the Detectable Warnings Task Force conference call.  At this time, all lines are now fully interactive.  To ensure the best audio quality, please keep all background noise to a minimum and please use your mute button if available.  [Operator instructions].  As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.  

	I would now like to turn our conference over to our host.  Susan Moe, please, go ahead.

Susan	Thank you, Jack.  This is Susan Moe, here at the headquarters office at the Division of the State Architect and I’m going to turn the call over again and the session over to our facilitator, Kristin Vandersluis who’s going to help us with the meeting today.  

Kristin	Thank you soon Susan.  Yes, this is Kristin and I’d like to welcome everyone to our meeting.  Let’s begin with introductions.  I will begin here in the room in Sacramento.  I’m Kristin Vandersluis, our facilitator today.  We will move to my right to Eugene.

Gene	Gene Lozano representing the California Council of the Blind and the California Council of Citizens with Low Vision.  

Kristin	Thank you.

Derek	Derek Shaw, DSA staff.	

Jessica	Jessica Axtman, DSA.

Susan	Susan Moe.

Ida	Ida Clair, DSA.  

Kristin	Now, we will move over to our remote participants and ask each of you to please, let us know you’re here by sharing your names. 

Steven	Hi, this is Steven Twist.

Kristin	Hi Steven.

Steven	Hi.

Kaylan	Hi, you all.  This is Kaylan Dunlap.

Susan	Hello, Kaylan.

Marcia	This is Marcia Mazz.

Susan	Hi, Marcia.

Tim	This is Tim McCormick.

Susan	Hello, Tim.  Anyone else on the call?

Rosa	Good afternoon.  This is Rosa Gomez with a cold.

Vidal	This is Vidal Medina in Fresno.  

Kristin	 Hi, Vidal.  Anyone else?  

Susan	We did have Debbie Wong from DSA join us. 

Debbie	Good afternoon. 

Kristin	Alright.  So, as was mentioned from our conference call this is our Detectible Warnings Task Force Meeting.  This is meeting number three of five and we’re glad all of you are with us.  

	A couple of housekeeping items before we move on.  It was mentioned that participants use the mute button when you’re not speaking or [audio disruption] participants, please, don’t put the call on hold to get to another call, and I think that’s it for our kind of housekeeping items.  We had group agreements before on how we’re going to work together and it’s been running really smoothly, so thank you everyone for taking turns and everyone keeping comments to two or three minutes, being respectful, keeping electronics silent and asking clarifying questions when needed.  

Chris	Excuse me, this is Chris Downey.  I was on mute before and couldn’t get out of mute to say I was on the call.

Kristin	Great.  Thank you, Chris.  Glad to have you join us.  

Mike	This is Mike Gibens.

Kristin	Hi, Mike.

Mike	Hi. 

Kristin	Do we have anyone else that just hopped on?  Alright, let me preview our agenda.  We are going to do a quick check-in to just touch bases on accessibility of meeting materials and the format that we’re using.  We’re going to continue some of our discussions from our last meeting wrapping up the problematic detectable warning scenarios.  We’ll take a break at some point throughout our time together today around 3:00.  We’ll discuss proposed amendments to code language.  Several of our Task Force members have submitted ideas for group discussions.  Then, we will look at architect and building [ph] official comments that have been submitted, and we’ll discuss next steps and wrap up by four o’clock.  

	Let’s begin with our touch base on accessibility.  Is there any input that folks would like to share regarding the materials that have been sent out, ability to access the blackboard format today?  Is it working well for everybody?  

Steven	This is Steve Twist.  I can’t seem to log on to it.

Susan	Steve, if you go to the link that’s in the agenda that I emailed, I think it’s also in the email that I sent.

Steven	Okay.

Susan	 You also have the link in the meeting invitation.  

Steven	Okay, so I’m looking at a link that’s in an email that I got on the 20th, February 20th and I’m clicking on that right now.  

Kristin	While you are doing that, Steve, I believe Gene wanted to share some input.  Gene go ahead. 

Gene	This is Gene.  I need to talk further outside with Sue but it would help getting some [indiscernible].

Marcia	 Is it possible to get you the speaker closer to Gene?  

Kristin	Absolutely, thank you for that input.  

Gene	Sorry, Marcia.

Marcia	It’s okay.  I want to be able to hear you, Gene.

Kristin	Yes, that’s a good reminder.  Thank you for bringing that up.  Let’s all make sure to speak up when sharing comments.  

Gene	I just don’t have—this is Gene.  Just I’d like to talk to Susan offline about getting new comments as they come in as attachments to an email, because I just don’t have all the skills to get into all the areas in the box.  For my technical level, it’s not the box itself [ph].  

Susan	Okay.  

Kristin	Steve, have you had success or do you need assistance?

Steven	Well, what it does is it’s now [ph] telling me try joining again on May 1st.

Susan	You know what?  Let me go to my desk real quick, Steve, and I will just really quick, shoot you another email.  

Rosa	This is Rosa.  Can this also be sent?  When I get on there it just says BB connect, so I’m not also able to get on.  

Susan	Okay, so Rosa and—

Chris	And send one to me as well.  It’s Chris Downey. 

Susan	Okay.  So, Rosa, Chris, and Steve.

Steven	Correct.  

Susan	 Okay.  

Mike	Might as well send it to me, too, because I’m not able to get on yet either, so— 

Susan	Okay, Mike Gibens as well.  Okay.  You’ll be getting an email here in just a second.  Jessica will send you an email with that link again, so you’ll be able to go ahead and log on.  

Marcia	This is Marcia.  If you’re going to email the comments to Gene in the future, it would be wonderful to be on that email list.  

Susan	Okay.

Marcia	It’s a lot easier than checking the box.

Susan	Okay.  Yes, for anybody, anyone else who would like that, I’ll send out that email anyway.  If you would like that, just let me know or if you want, you know, the group is not that big.  I can just email it to everybody if you would prefer.  

Rosa	This is Rosa.  That sounds good.  Just send it out to the group.  I would prefer that.

Kristin	Okay, I can do that.  We’re laughing here in the room, because Derek—everybody, Derek wants it as well, so even staff.  This is great.  Alright.  Does anybody else need assistance or have input regarding the accessibility before we move on?

Susan	Okay, alright.  So, first up, what we’re going to do is take a look at a photograph that was sent in from Tim McCormick and Tim, I sort of added to some information and I’m hoping that it’s correct, but what I will do is I’m going to pull up this document and have you describe what is the condition, because what this does, I think, this is a really good example of some of the things that we’re looking at for where these detectable warnings are placed.  What we’re looking for again is when we take a look at the placement of these detectable warnings, how do they work for someone with vision impairments and is it really effective.  So, for that Tim, I see that you’re logged on, so I’m going to go ahead and turn this over to you and just let me know when you want me to scroll onto the next photograph, but I’m going to let you go ahead and describe what the situation is.  

Tim	Okay, thanks Sue.  

Susan	 Sure.

Tim	This is a public sidewalk on a street in Manhattan Beach and to the right is a driveway that goes down into the city parking garage for the mall that’s there and they have placed detectable warnings in the public way on the far side and in the public way on the property side extending both across the line where you see the joint.  That’s the joint between the public way and the property line.  They’re extending it all the way across.  This is to warn people walking primarily on the public sidewalk that they’re crossing a drive aisle to a commercial parking garage.  

Susan	I think it’s important to also note that is there a stop sign there?  So, when someone’s coming out of the parking lot—

Tim	Right; there is a stop sign there.  That is correct. 

Susan	 Okay, so as you’re walking down the sidewalk, you’re walking perpendicular to this first strip of detectable warning that is the first edge of the drive aisle into the parking facility and it’s a fairly long strip of detectable warning and then as you continue walking across that drive aisle, on the opposite side, then you run into another strip of detectible warning. 

	Yes, Gene? 

Gene	This is Gene.  Are describing the detectible warnings going from the curb side of the sidewalk as it goes across the sidewalk to the backside of the sidewalk, so basically across the width of the circulation path—

Tim	 Correct.  

Gene	Is that what you’re describing?  Then you have the driveway, and then you have a, parallel to the original one, detectible warning in a continuation of circulation path.  Is that correct? 

Tim	Yes. 

Gene	That’s ideal for me. 

Susan	It looks like it’s all long.  There is no curb ramp.  This is a flush transition from the sidewalk across the drive aisle.  It’s just flush all the way along there.  

Tim	Yes, it probably has a 2% slope from the property line towards the street at that point, it looks like; but I didn’t put a level on this.  This picture was actually submitted by one of the CASP [ph] employees at the City of Manhattan Beach.

Marcia	That would be cross-slope, not a running slope?

Tim	That, yes, I don’t know what the—the running slope, I’m sure is under five.  I don’t know what the cross-slope is—I’m not sure if the cross-slope’s under the 2% or not. 

Marcia	Yes, the point being that there’s no running slope, no detectible thing—

Tim	Between those two.

Marcia     	—the running slope, to indicate a curb or something to indicate a curb ramp. 

Tim 	Correct. 

Susan	Yes.

Marcia 	So, there’s really no other way for somebody who’s blind to know that they’re crossing the entrance into the parking garage unless they hear the traffic.

Tim	Yes, and I’d like to point out that this—that most people—that this is an interesting situation, because it’s primarily sidewalks under city control and this is their garage as well even though it’s provided for the benefit of the mall overhead, but a lot of people right or wrong, don’t believe that chapter 11B standards in California affect the public sidewalk.  I know that’s in the federal description of issues, but I think it would be great to clarify the role of these detectible warnings on the public way within chapter 11B or not, one way or the other. That’s one of the issues of this picture as well.

Marcia	Are you referring to within the public way as places other than curbs and curb ramps or just in general?  

Tim	Well, just in general, there’s a debate on people whether Chapter 11B applies to work in the public way at all. 

Marcia	Okay, is there a debate about what DOT requires?  

Tim	I don’t think.  As far as there being a debate, no.  

Marcia	The DOT—

Tim	I think that the general thought is that it’s up to the local city engineer standards that apply to make sure that they are truly accessible and that they would use something like pro-ag or the equivalent for guide [audio disruption].  

Marcia	Because the DOT section 504 standards for federally assisted, which everybody is, definitely require detectible warnings, so is there—I mean, I don’t think there should be any debate about whether detectible warnings are required at street crossings.  

Tim	No, I don’t think there is.  No, yes, I don’t think—I think that—go ahead.

Marcia	The question is hazardous vehicular areas which is not addressed by the section 504 standards. 

Tim 	Understood.

Kristin	Thank you, Marcia, and this is Kristen.  What I’d like to see is that [indiscernible] actually gets four different perspectives of the same scenario.  So, Tim, can you walk us through all four of them and then, as a group, we can discuss our input about the scenario after we’ve seen the four different perspectives?

Tim	Will do.  Okay.

Kristin	 So, we have the second image up now.

Tim	Okay, and once again, this is coming from the benefit of our plan check engineer CASP in the City of Manhattan Beach.  I have to give Susan Yuzuki credit.  This is a picture of someone providing an accessible route from the public way to, I believe, this is the next picture showing someone that’s actually going to a store.  This looks like—I’m familiar with this area, it might even be going to the market.  

	This is a sidewalk full of detectible warnings or there’s a five-foot striped area that I believe is meant to be the accessible route.  On the left-hand side of the picture and the right-hand side of the picture is detectible warnings.  Someone has believed that that’s the proper location of them in this scenario, but I’m trying—the intent here was to provide an accessible route from the public way to what’s on the downside of this picture, which I believe is a store.  

Susan	So, as you’re proceeding on this walk, let’s say you—because at the one end of the walk, you’re actually at a sidewalk, so you’re at a sidewalk and if you were to take a right turn from the sidewalk and proceed up this path, on your right side would be a curb that’s painted red that’s marked and it says it’s a fire lane, and then, the walk is hatched with blue lines and is says no parking, and then to your left is a continuous, looks like maybe a three foot band of detectible warnings and then that band of detectible warning and this red curb, this whole path is parallel to the drive aisle that it looks like, as we look at the next picture, that it takes you into the parking facility.  It looks as though they’re sharing an accessible route, a circulation path with a fire lane.  Is that correct, Tim?

Tim	That is correct.  It is also, obviously the vehicular route the drive aisle for what’s on the other side of this picture, and I apologize.   It seems like you know what’s on the other side and I’ve forgotten if it’s actually a parking garage.  This is good.

Marcia	So the accessible route is essentially in the street divided from where cars are supposed to drive by a detectible warning.

Tim 	That’s how I think they designed it, what they intended and I think we can all look at this when what they were—

Marcia	Because they say no parking, I assume, that means that cars have no physical barrier separating them from the accessible route.  

Tim	Right.  

Susan	It’s Sue, here, and you believe—

Tim	The no parking, just to be clear, the no parking I think is there because it is a fire lane.  That’s what the no parking has been painted on for.  

Kristin	Would anyone like further clarification on this image?  I see Gene raising a hand.  

Gene	Yes, I’m sorry.  I’m lost.  

Susan	So, first of all.  First I wanted to—I think we probably didn’t make a very good clear distinction between the first picture and the second picture, which may be why you’re lost.  While they’re on the same side, they’re illustrating two different applications of detectible warnings.  The first one is on the public sidewalk delineating the driveway access to the parking garage.  On this one, it’s an interior driveway of where the accessible route is delineated from the drive aisle with a very long strip of detectible warnings that are three feet wide.  That’s a flush transition, so there isn’t anything if you are walking along.  So, if you’re walking on this walkway, you have a red curb to your right.  Oh, go ahead—

Gene	This is Gene.  Could we say the sidewalk goes north-south, just for the sake of discussion, for my orientation and I ask everyone’s patience on this.  Next time, if we do this thing, I’m going to bring their old-fashioned line drawing kit, to let me draw in from this physically.  I’m sorry.  Okay, so sidewalk and it’s going north-south.  Okay and go from there.

Susan	Okay so—

Derek	If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to maybe to give it a shot here and—

Marcia	Yes, so Gene, this is Marcia.  I think I can help.  The accessible route is where you would normally park parallel to the curb if parking was allowed.  It’s in the street, and then it is bordered along its full length by detectible warnings effectively separating it from where cars are supposed to drive.  

Kristin	Thank you Marcia.  Derek did you want to anything to that?  

Derek	Yes, sure.  I’ll try to tie the two pictures together for you, Gene.  Okay, so remember in the first picture, we were traveling along a sidewalk and on to your left was the roadway and on the right was a driveway that went to the right.  Okay, traffic went from the roadway, across the sidewalk and went to the right and prior to the driveway, there was a band of detectible warnings that crossed the sidewalk perpendicularly, and then, after the driveway, there was a band of detectible warnings that crossed the sidewalk perpendicularly.  

Gene			Okay.

Derek	Now, into the second picture, if you were proceeding up that sidewalk from the first picture and turned right into the site, you would have turned right just prior to the first set of detectible warnings that you would have encountered.  Okay?  Now, once you turn right, then you can proceed along what looks like about a four or five-foot wide designated walking area.

Gene	And then, that’s in the parking area?

Derek	Well, that’s [indiscernible] in the drive-aisle.  Okay?  So, what’s appears to have been here was simply a drive aisle exclusively for vehicular use and then altered to provide pedestrian use in that drive aisle as well. 
	Now, the designated walking area portion of that driveway is then separated from the vehicular area by a three-foot-wide long band of detectible warnings.  

Gene	Okay. 

Derek	Okay?  It happens to be that our picture is from the opposite vantage point.  The picture is actually from the interior of the site looking back towards the street that we were first talking about, there, to give you a spatial relationship.  

Gene	So, there’s no traffic, so that drive aisle is divided into two sections basically for automobiles and then left-right detectible warnings and then there’s what a grade—there’s a walkway and then, there’s a red line on the other side? 

Derek	There’s a curb that’s painted red

Gene	Oh, it’s a curb, a raised curb? 

Derek	It really doesn’t have much bearing on the detectable warnings themselves.

Susan 	Yes, and it’s painted red and on top of the curb, it says that it’s the fire lane.  So, that’s why the curb is painted red. 

Gene	Okay, so the detectible warnings that are going there are following where a curb line would be.  It’s separating the two modes of transportation, pedestrian and vehicle?

Derek	Yes. 

Gene	Okay.  Thank you.

Tim	And just to be clear, Gene, it’s—the separation is only marked on the surface.  There’s no barrier separating.  The cars can drive any over any portion of this.  

Gene	It’s all parallel. 

Tim	Correct.

Susan	Okay, we’ll go the next photograph in the—oh, let’s see here—[off mic].

Kristin	We are pulling up image number 3.  There you go.  This is Kristin.  Susan, is this—this still makes sense to hold and discuss at the end?  Okay.

Susan	Yes, because this—Tim, I’ll let you go ahead.  This is—so, Gene, if we were heading in the north-south direction and we’re on this walk and we’re heading north, we’re heading towards the entry of a store.  So, as we’re heading north, to the east is the red painted curb and to the west is the strip of detectible warnings, but as we’re heading north, now this route takes a little bit of a turn, maybe what?  

Ida	Forty-five?

Susan	No, I don’t know if it’s even quite—but it goes off at an angle, so you were walking on the north-south direction, now it takes a bit of a turn and you’re heading in the northwest direction at this angle where you’re now heading towards the entry of a store.  So, you want to go ahead, Tim, and continue with the description?

Tim	Thank you, Sue.  

Susan	Sure.

Tim	Yes, so you did a great job there setting this up.  So, the first slide we came in from the public way, we walked along the drive aisle, which is a straight shot towards the store property, but when we get to the end of that first drive aisle, the store is over to our left at about a 30-degree angle and then there’s another drive aisle that crosses that. 

	Now we come up to that.  We’re looking at the store, we have to go across not quite a perpendicular drive aisle, because the angle is not 90 degrees.  We have to go across now another drive aisle towards the store, and we have the accessible route still marked with the blue striping on the black asphalt, and on each side of it, now that we have a car that can come from either side of our travel path, we have detectible warnings continuing on the left side towards the store.  We have a new group of detectible warnings on the right side of that crosswalk towards the store, and so this is what’s been depicted.  

Susan	Because of that, Gene, if we’re heading in that north direction, and where now this path is taking a bit of an angle and it has a little bit of a turn to it, now on the east side, we lose the red curb and now what we have on the east and the west are two strips of detectible warnings because as Tim said, now not only do we have a drive aisle that was on the west side, now this angled portion is intersected by cars that can go across that intersection, that portion that’s angled.  So, now you have traffic moving to the west and then, as you take the turn, you have traffic that is coming perpendicular to this angled portion that’s going in both directions across this route and it’s all a flush transition.  The only separation that you have on both sides is the detectible warnings.  

	Okay, so we have one more picture to take a look at here. 

Kristin	So, we have the fourth image up.  Tim, take it away.

Tim	Okay.  So, this is the one that connects the previous two and, I apologize, this phone’s ringing.  This connects the previous two so that you can kind of see the whole thing together from the street.  The top part of the picture shows how you walk in from the street.  It’s a straight shot until you get to the angled parking lot and then the angle in the picture again, now starts—this is from the store looking at the way out towards the street and it shows how you would come.  If you’re coming from the street—right, from the store towards the street, you would walk across drive aisle and first, you’re walking in the access aisle for an accessible parking space.  Once you get to the end of that, you’re in a drive aisle although it shows another accessible route, and at some point you begin to have domes on each side until you get all the way to the red curb and you’re just left with the domes on your right side anyway, out towards the street.  

	This is kind of the big picture of everything that the two pictures were parts of.  

Susan	So, Gene, in this picture, now we’re turning ourselves all the way around and now we’re heading south.  So, as we head south, we’re walking along that angled portion, and like Tim said, off to the right there are detectable warnings and then, there is the access aisle and there is the accessible parking space, but there is a portion there where there’s just a flush transition and the only thing that there is just under the surface identification, so there is a portion there that’s maybe 10 feet where you only have the detectible warnings to the west side and there are no detectible warnings to the east until you go beyond the parking space and then, you pick up the [audio disturbance] again where you have detectible warnings on both sides of the walkway and then as you continue, then you’re back into that area where you have that painted red curb and then the detectible warnings again, on one side.  

M	[Audio disruption, off mic]. 

Kristin	This is Kristin.  Would anybody like further clarifications about the descriptions that have been [audio disruption], the four different images?  So, I’m going to assume that this is fairly clear at this point.  Tim, thank you so much for that.  Let’s—great job.  

	Let’s move on to a group discussion and I do see that Jonathan Adler has joined us, so welcome Jonathan and as we start, I do remind you for each person to say their names first and we’ll begin with Derek’s comments and then I will pose a few questions to the group.

Derek	Kristin, this is Derek.  I was just wanting to ask if anybody who’s participating on the phone, would please agree to mute their phone when they’re not speaking to the rest of the group here.  It would really help with the audio clarity and since that’s the primary method of communication [indiscernible]. 

Chris	I’m sorry, this is Chris Downey.  It’s been my fault.  I’ve not had access to a conference room and the first time I muted my phone, I was unable to get off mute, so I was afraid to get into la-la land again, so thanks for bearing with me, but I now have a quiet closed phone room, so disruptions will cease.

Kristin	We understand.  Gene, go ahead.

Gene	Just general comments, I think with screen slide 3, where the drive access aisle that crosses, intersects the walkway and is outlined by the detectible warnings, I see their attempt was to provide some directional cue, but it’s not—a detectible warning shouldn’t be the product.  It should be a different thing.  I can see the detectible warning just as the cross at the intersection occurs, the intersection of the drive access aisle, if that’s the correct term, and the sidewalk that you would have detectible warnings parallel to that aisle drive so that you would be warned that you’re going to be crossing or entering a vehicular area, and so I see where they’re trying to outline using detectible warnings almost like a crosswalk line.  

	The other thing is functionally, most of the products are laid on top of the surface, though we have pavers that could be inset, but I could see what could happen with time with vehicles going over it to pull those right off, just the wheels, and that is the challenge of putting something up like a directional surface there.  That’s my comment.  

	I do like very much and it’s what I proposed the first slide where you do have the detectible warnings on both sides of the driveway so that you get a warning, particularly since it’s a grade and there’s no depressions going down there and it doesn’t sound like—it’s an open area, so it’s not like a non-required garage visual and auditory warning that you have at some multi-storage structures for the exits.  So, that’s just my general comments.  Thank you.

Kristin	Good.  Thank you, Gene.  So, the question that we have for the group is given the scenario and the four different perspectives of it, what issues do you see?  We’d like to know how the set-up is problematic for you as you would attempt to navigate your environment.  Our follow-up question, just so that you can start thinking about it, will be to share what you think would make this scenario better.  

	I’m going to open up the floor for questions and again, please share your names.  First, we’ll begin with Ida.  

Ida	Tim, you said your received these photographs from a CASP at the City of Manhattan Beach?  

Tim	Correct.

Ida	Okay, and so if he gives them to you as a demonstration of detectible warnings that are problematic that the City approved for like—I guess, I’m trying to understand context.  In other words, there’s language in the code that when interpreted may result in this condition and is this one of these conditions where the City didn’t feel that they could guide otherwise, because it is related to code language, or do they feel that this is an appropriate application, or is this one of those conditions where they said, we couldn’t prohibit it, because there’s no language that’s prohibiting it?  Do you see what I’m saying?

Tim	 I do understand.  Without talking to Susan directly, she is a newer employee and there’s been a lot of personnel changes in that City, I suspect the reason—this is my educated guess from knowing her, which I’ve known actually for a long time—that her main point was that the confusion and the misapplication and the inconsistent rules, and she was trying to give examples of different locations where you had a different answer as to what seems to be the same problem.  So, I think for her, it’s an example of the practice.  I think it was required by the City when it was put in.  I don’t think it would be required by the City today.

Ida	Okay.  Thank you.

Tim	Good.

Susan	Marcia, and then I think Steve Twist.

Kristin	Thank you, Susan.  Marcia. 

Marcia	Thank you.  I think that this is an excellent example of the confusion between detectible warnings used for way findings and detectible warnings used at hazardous vehicular areas.  Typically, my understanding is for a hazardous vehicular area, there’s two possibilities.  One is that you would inadvertently stray into a hazardous vehicular area because you’re not trailing the wall, or you’re not trailing away from the street level and you’re at the same level.  The other would be a hazardous vehicular area that you’re crossing, that the walkway actually or the pedestrian route actually crosses. 

	Personally, I think that we need to get rid of that ambiguity by removing any requirements for detectible warnings parallel to a walkway.  So, if you’re walking on a sidewalk, let’s just say, and it happens to be at the same level as the street, I would not put detectible warnings all along the length of that sidewalk. It’s just inviting them to be destroyed by traffic and everything else.  It’s too much.  It’s too much.  It’s way too much.  

	I think we could debate whether you want to retain a requirement for marking a crossing when you’re on a sidewalk, when you’re already in the pedestrian only area and now you’re about to share that pedestrian area with a vehicle by crossing it, but I really look at this and it makes my head hurt, because first off, it’s bad design.  The accessible route shouldn’t go—it shouldn’t be coincident with where the cars are for anybody and they could have separated that by using any kind of a barrier.  They could have put up bollards.  They could have put any number of other things that would keep the cars out of the pedestrian route.  Instead, they paved it with detectible warnings that are all heating and peeling and cracking.  So, again, I think this is an excellent example of what not to do.
	
Kristin	Thank you Marcia.  Next, let’s hear from Steve, and then we will move to Ida. 

Sue			Oh and Chris Downey has his hand up, and Steve.

Susan			Thank you.  Okay. 

Steven	Hi, this is Steve.  Yes, I agree.  This is a horrible design in my opinion.  A couple of questions I have—well, a couple of points.  One thing—right where the—if you look where the detectible warnings, first of all, where they make an angled turn, and where they’ve patchworked these little triangular pieces in there, my guess is that those don’t meet the separation of dome requirements, the domes themselves, like the 2.3 to 2.4 separation because it’s all hacked up right there and patched together.  I think it violates that, and with the drain or whatever, there’s some kind of a drain in picture number 3 or 4, there’s a drain or something in the detectible warnings which also breaks the rule of being continuous.  

	The other thing is the building—I can’t really tell, but the building that this all leads to, is that building landlocked on its own piece of property and there are multiple buildings on this property, or separated by property lines, because if so, if the only access to this building if it’s landlocked by a property line, then the only requirement to get—there is no requirement to get to the public way and to design this.  So, that’s one question about what’s going on here.  

	The other is, I would think all this is a huge maintenance issue.  I don’t think that I agree with that.  I don’t think these were intended to be way finding, but that’s what they’re trying to do with it.  The other is if this property were, in fact, landlocked and I can’t really tell.  I can see it from Google Earth, or something, I could probably tell better, but would it not be possible to put truncated domes along the front of the store like you might you see at Costco or something like that, that just warns you once you’re out there in that drive aisle, it’s all dangerous until you get to the public way.  

	The last comment I have is in picture number 2, I think it was.  Picture number 2, where we’re looking toward the street.  Yes, this picture.  Thank you.  It looks to me like, just by judging distances here, again I can’t tell, but I don’t know if this drive aisle is wide enough for two oncoming traffic without one, like the incoming traffic coming into the property, are they driving on these truncated domes?  Are they staying on the asphalt?  Is that asphalt part between the truncated domes and the right side of the drawing, is that wide enough for two-way vehicular traffic?  One thing that might have been a better solution is to where the blue striped walking area is just put a raised sidewalk there, if they have the width there to meet fire requirements and what not. 

	In conclusion, basically, I agree this is a horrible design.  I would look at this from a bigger picture.  I think it’s a huge maintenance issue.  It think it’s confusing to, although, I don’t rely on truncated domes, but I would think that this would be confusing to those who do.  

Kristin	Thank you Steve.  Next, we’ll here from Chris followed by Ida and then—

Rosa	And Rosa would like to get in the queue. 

Kristin	Great.  Thank you, Rosa, I have you on the list.

Chris	Hi, this is Chris.  As a reminder, I’m blind so I’m responding to comments and descriptions as opposed to looking at the photographs.  So, with that, I have one question for clarification.  The pedestrian route, is that—it’s been described as it’s flush, having a flush connection with the drive aisle and all the crossings and things.  Is there a change in material or is it all asphalt or all concrete either way you go?  

Susan 	There were strips of—so if you’re walking along where the red curb is, there you’re walking on asphalt, and then, there’s a little strip of concrete that’s probably six inches wide and then we have the strip of the detectible warnings that’s about three feet wide, then it looks as though there’s maybe like another six-inch wide strip of concrete and then, when you’re into the drive aisle for the traffic, for the vehicles, then you’re back into asphalt.  So there’s just a little bit of a change in materials there.  

Chris	Okay, so is it safe to then say that the pedestrian way is concrete consistently?  

Susan	No, it’s asphalt consistently.

Chris	No.  Alright.  Asphalt consistently.  Okay, well, I’ll echo comments made of it’s bad design.  It sounds to me like about a total dog’s dinner of mess out there and I’m not sure if it was a retrofit to try to make sense of the nonsense or if it was designed not really understanding these things, but then it’s kind of hard to mandate and legislate good design.  

	It leaves us with these sort of impossible scenarios where, yes I would agree with comments that having the hazardous warning strip parallel with the pedestrian way is confusing because if you were to find that, it would just sort of suggest, oh, I can cross here and so that’s wrong.  That’s not implying that you’re supposed to cross here.  It’s not leading you into the crosswalk.  It’s leading you into a drive aisle without a place to go at the other side.  So, it really gets to be confusing, but failing that, there’s not a sort of established language that I know of through some sort of signal that is codified that tells that story, gives you that information.  

	Even if it had bollards there, that you could walk through, unless it’s incredibly dense, it’s hard for that on itself to imply that that’s not the way to go, that you need to continue in this other direction for the pedestrian way.  

	I do like the clarity of having the hazardous warning strips when you’re actually crossing into a pedestrian way across a drive aisle, but here it’s like you have so many different conditions that I think the whole [ph] reference point is lost, clarity is lost, and I would like to have some clarification in terms of the last comment, in terms of is it only required just at the building.  I’m curious if this is defining the required pedestrian access from public transit into the site to get to the building and curious how that then informs what the proper code action is.  Sorry, I’m leaving it with questions, and a lot confusion and yes, it sounds like a total mess out there.

Ida	I have additional questions for you.  This is Ida.  Do you know—I’m assuming this is a retrofit.  This facility was here prior to between [ph] 1990s and then. 

Tim	 That’s correct.  This is a retrofit. 

Ida	It’s a modernization where they addressed this issue.  Okay, so I think some of the others have touched on this question is this, how do individuals arrive at this site prior to this retrofit?  Do you know?  Is this a place—

Tim	Yes, I do know.  I’m actually familiar with this Vons shopping location.  A couple of things—there have been a lot of questions, Ida, so I’ll try to answer them all.

Ida	Great.

Tim	This is the fire-lane access to the store.  This is the two-way driveway to the store from the main street, Manhattan Beach Boulevard, towards the store.  I’m reminded my son actually was a grocery boxer here once.  So, this is definitely a vehicular way on two accounts for the fire and the cars.  All of the surface markings, all of the detectible warnings, asphalt, the concrete, paper [ph] tiles, they’re all within the vehicular way of a fire lane and the two-way driveway.  It is one of two driveways to the site.  It is a corner lot location.  It’s a smaller parking lot, especially when it’s busy in the summer beach.  

	People that come to the store, generally would come in one of the two driveways—this is the more popular of the two driveways—and will park in the parking lot.  If the parking lot’s full, which it sometimes is, people will park in the street and walk in from the street to go to the store, and if you’re parking down there for any other reason, there’s a lot of pedestrian traffic, particularly in the summer down here.  This is very close to the water, less than a half a mile at most, a quarter of a mile probably and there’s a lot of traffic.  People will walk all the time up and down this driveway.  So, although this is a drive aisle, it is routinely used as a pedestrian way from the public way to the store and back.  

Ida	Tim, so in addressing that question, prior to installing this walk, there was no walk for anyone from the public street, correct?		

Tim	There was nothing designated, but it was routinely used.  

Ida	Okay, so you had individuals walking in both drive aisles among the cars as well?  I mean in the turn?

Tim	Correct.

Ida	Okay.  I just wanted to have a little bit of clarity perspective as to why this was a solution, and I’m assuming it was a retrofit because when we’re talking about bad design sometimes when it’s a modernization, it’s very hard to address good design effectively.  In other words, they’re enforcing a code requirement where perhaps maybe this is the only way it can be enforced, and so I just wanted to have a little bit of clarity on that. 

Tim	Yes, and there is a lot of debate in the confusion about what is the requirement when the only route is through an obvious vehicular way like the drive aisle.  Should it be separated and is it separated?  This one isn’t really separated.  It’s marked as separate but it’s clearly part of the drive aisle and the fire lane.  

Ida	So I have one more question.  Sorry.  Marcia, in this regard in these older facilities, there is a requirement in the ABA standards that says that if it’s only a vehicular way then that’s the exception, but how does the US Access Board see this in this type of application?

Marcia	I have to qualify my answer by saying I no longer work for the board, I retired in June, and I work for United Spinal now.  But I wanted to respond first to Chris’s question about bus stops.  The Access Board position regarding bus stops is you only have a requirement to provide a route to the bus stop if the bus stop is on your site.  If the bus stop is out in the street attached to the sidewalk, which is part of the public way, you only have to get to the public way.  The owner of the property has no responsibility for the bus stop or bus stop access.  So you only have to be able to get to the boundary of the site.  You’re only required to have one accessible route.  If the accessible route for everybody is in the street, then the accessible route can be in the street.  

	It’s bad design.  We hate it.  We don’t like to see people walking in the street, but if that’s the way everybody gets there from the public way, the accessible route can be in the street.  It has to meet all the criteria for an accessible route.  It does not have to be demarcated and it does not have to be separated by detectable warnings or any kind of barrier.  

	Again, what we see here is bad design.  As Chris said, if you could, you wanted to elevate that sidewalk.  If you couldn’t, you wanted to provide some kind of barrier.  But as others have said, this is a retrofit and they probably couldn’t narrow the width of the fire lane.  And since they couldn’t narrow the width of the fire lane and have the people walking in the fire lane, they did what they thought was the responsible thing to do and they wound up with this mess.  

	Under the ADA, you wouldn’t have had to put any markings on here.  You wouldn’t have had to put any detectable warnings.  There just has to be an accessible route, and we trust the wheelchair user to find it.  And it can be in the street if everybody else is in the street.  If everybody else is on a safe sidewalk, then this is, by its very nature, discriminatory to put people with disabilities in the street.

Kristen	Thank you, Marcia.

Marcia	I also wanted to add one point to Chris’s analysis.  Where this route doglegs there’s a detectable warning that if you didn’t make the dogleg—I think it was the previous photograph, if we go back one.  Yes.  If I were walking, if I were trailing that red curb that isn’t in view right now in this photograph, but if I were trailing the red curb, which would have been the smart thing to do as a blind person because I at least know that cars aren’t going to come off the curb.  So if I were trailing that curb, I would run right into the right-hand side of the detectable warning there.  And if I perceived that as a crossing, that’s where I’d probably cross.  

	And to Chris’s point about using detectable warnings to demarcate crossings, if you’re walking along and you don’t detect a detectable warning at all, and all of a sudden you run into one, you’re going to assume, I think, that that’s where you cross.  And if that were the case, if that person actually reoriented and crossed there, they’d miss the store in its entirety.  So it’s really misleading and confusing because there’s detectable warnings trying to do too many things.  

Jonathan	Can I butt in?  

Marcia	Sure.

Susan	Yes, I think you were—

Kristen	We have—it’s wonderful participation.  Almost everybody wants to speak.  So, Jonathan, is it about this in particular because I do have [overlapping voices].

Jonathan	Oh, yes, it is. [Overlapping voices].

Susan	Before we get to Gene, though, we have Rosa.

Kristen	Yes.  So, Jonathan, go ahead. 

Jonathan	Okay, briefly the problem to me stems from the language.  I see at this retrofit, understanding that’s why it’s imperfect design, a lot of it seems to me to have executed exactly what the code tells you to do.   If the pedestrian way is not separated by a curb or railing, you’re required to have detectable warnings, and a lot of the criticism comes from the misinformation that it seems—part of the criticism comes from the misinformation that it seems to convey.  

	Gene spoke about he appreciated it on either side of the driveway where he’s crossing a vehicular way.  And Chris talked about, and Marcia echoed, if you were to have gone across a detectable warning in a given area you think you’re crossing a street but you’re actually not.  And the root of that I think comes from the word adjoins because the requirement is if it crosses or adjoins.  

	In this case, all of these areas where you’re going parallel to a vehicular way, I’d think the user, the designer says well, I guess I am adjoining it, I need to put a railing.  I can’t do that. It would block cars.  A curb, I can’t do that.  I’m left with this directive.  So I think we need to ultimately get to the language of the requirement and see if it actually is saying what we want sites to have.  That’s all.

Kristen	Thank you, Jonathan.  Next we’ll hear—I have Gene down and then Rosa.  

Gene	[Indiscernible] Rosa first. 

Kristen	Rosa, you can go first.

Rosa	Okay, so again I’m not seeing it, but hearing the descriptions, and what I’m really hearing is that while we have the detectable warnings I’m hearing that they’re also being used for way finders.  And I think that’s part of the confusion, that if we were to have the person who’s designing this to be able to, if they’re trying to utilize way finder information, that they’re using a different type of tactile detections.  Whereas, I think it was described that some people like the detectable warnings to go across the sidewalk so that you know that there’s a driveway.  

	For me, I find that that confusing because, especially in unfamiliar areas, my thought is, is this a street?   Is this a place to really, truly cross?   I would hope that there may be language that may distinguish between whether this is a street crossing versus a driveway crossing.  

	I do have good hearing but there are individuals who do have some hearing limitations and I think may not also be able to rely a lot on auditory information.  So if we have tactile information down, I think the tactile information should be a little bit clearer instead of it just giving the same information of warning versus this is a way finder, yet we’re not using the appropriate way finder detections so that the end user is not understanding what the information is being conveyed.  Thank you.  

Kristen	Thank you.  

Gene	I have to echo what Marcia and Chris said about the division.

Chris	I’m sorry, Gene, we can’t hear you.  

Gene	Division, the separation between the exclusive pedestrian walkway and the drive aisle, and like the requirement says, curb, railing, a list of detectable warnings.  There I think a curb or a low wall should have been considered putting there since there’s no reason for the vehicles to go cross over because you’d have a continued solid barrier that would then tell you, you can’t go into this area.  Because with bollards or nothing horizontal that stops you, and it’s documented, hearing it’s a big problem with—and it varies from person to person who’s total blind, there with a cane. 

	I’ve also heard that—and Rosa, she’s knowledgeable more than I would be—as a service animal, that you could veer between bollards.  And your dog, since you can’t pick it up, you either can’t see it or low visioning.  But you could walk between those bollards and your dog, if you don’t know or are confused, your dog is going to be also confused.  

	But I think it’s obvious.  You’ve heard it the last three, including this one three sessions, that there needs to be looked at a task force, another task force down the road for wayfinding, tactile wayfinding, to solve [ph] this solution, the issue, detectable warnings again, like everyone has said, it’s misused.  

	But the thing is a detectable warning, whether it’s a driveway or any place that’s vehicular it condones to be cautious there if it’s not like once for the intersection means something else there.  It’s always just the same thing as a warning.  Be cautious.  Just like you get a series of these drive aisles that are crossing the sidewalk, you wouldn’t want to have them alternate each one.  

	You would just want, right before you hit the series of them, you’d want the detectable warnings going perpendicular across the sidewalk.  And after you’ve finished crossing all those aisles, then you’d have the detectable warnings that again keep you on the circulation path.  And I’m going back to the slide one.  

	And if there were space, and this wasn’t a retrofit going back to again the issue about the wall, the barrier between the hit drive aisle and the walkway, if there had been space that would have been a nice thing making a little strip landscaping right there which would be another indication not to cross over.  Thank you.  Oh and one thing, when we finish these, and if there’s an opportunity and time permits, I have found one situation here in town that I don’t have a picture, but I could describe to it that it’s where I think there’s a problem with detectable warnings.  

Kristen	Thank you, Gene.  Derek? 

Susan	And then after Derek, Chris Downey has his hand up.  

Derek	Great, thanks.  First of all, I want to agree with almost all of the comments that have indicated that this is bad design. It is pretty clearly bad design.  However, it is almost entirely consistent and compliant with the current building code requirements for the placement of detectable warnings at hazardous vehicular areas.  

	Now certainly the walkway that was designated along the entrance driveway would have been better if it had been separated by curbs or other elements, but presumably the full width of that driveway was required for the access of firefighting people.  

	But yes, currently in the code, and this has been in generally the same language that we’ve had for decades now, that the hazardous vehicular areas language with a walk and crosses a vehicular way, and the walking surfaces are not separated by curbs, railings, or other elements between the pedestrian areas and vehicular areas, the boundary of the areas shall be defined by continuous detectable warning complying with—and then there’s some section citations.  

	In this case, it would require a three-foot width of detectable warnings.  So again, by and large this is a code-compliant design.  So it is, in my opinion, an example of bad design.

Kristen	Thank you, Derek.  Next I have Tim, Marcia, followed by Steve and then Chris.  And at that point, I would like us to move on to our next scenario.  So let’s hear from Tim.

Tim	Okay, thank you.  Originally I put up my hand to answer some of the questions that Ida was kind enough to ask in the interim, but I would just like to say that I think the main issue that I hear continually is—well one of the issues to think about here is when we talk about the current code requirements saying that these detectable warnings need to be located at the boundary between the vehicular way and the pedestrian way, it’s not clear to a lot of people which side of the boundary it goes on.  

	And in this case, it’s being located on the vehicular side, and I think it loses its value there.  So when we talk about where they go, I think it’s important that their use is limited to warn someone that on the other side of that detectable warning surface is where the danger begins.  So that’s my thought.

Kristen	Thank you, Tim.  Marcia?

Marcia	Just as a response to the last comment, I don’t think it’s possible, in this particular design, to have an effective warning.  Somehow you want to be able to convey to that person that they are walking down a street or a drive aisle, and I don’t know how you do that.  There’s nothing in the standard at all, in any of the standards, nationally or in California, that gives us a clue how to do that.  

	And in the absence of that kind of—and this is a worst case scenario—this is not good design, not something I don’t think that the owner would have done had they had other options in terms of having anybody in the public walk down their driveway.  It isn’t good design.  

	So I guess what I would say is—Jonathan, I think, nailed it—they are complying with the standard as written.  They’re providing detectable warnings along a hazardous vehicular area, and it’s impossible for anyone to define any vehicular area as not hazardous because there’s no guidance on this point.  

	So my preference would be to drop all of the requirements for hazardous vehicular areas from the standard and retain only the requirements for street crossing.  That includes a lot of the recommendations that were sent out from I guess it was architects or engineers or somebody.  I’ve forgotten the title of the handout, but I think that we’re creating a no-win situation for both people who are blind and for people who need to comply with the rules.  

Kristen	Thank you, Marcia.  Steve?

Steve	Hi.  Yes, everybody’s kind of said what I stuck my hand up to say.  I think that hopefully our job here on this task force would be to look at the code language.   And I agree that section of the code where it says must be on the boundary, the continuous boundary, I think this is somebody that took that part of the code literally and tried to design with that in mind.  So I think maybe that’s something we should look at as a task force is rewording that section of the code.  

Kristen	Thank you.  Next let’s hear from Chris.  

Chris	I had lowered my hand.  My comments have been covered by others.   

Kristen	I’d like to do just a quick temperature check with the group.  We can move on to our next topic or take our break now.  Can I hear if anyone would like to have our break at this time?  A little early.

Susan	It might be a good stopping point for what we’re going to—

Kristen	That’s what I was thinking.  Okay, so alright.  The motion has been seconded.   So let’s go ahead and take a break, and right now it says we are at 2:42 so let’s give ourselves at least an 8-minute break and come back 2:50.  So 10 minutes to 3:00.   Thank you.  Yes?

Break

Kristen	Yes.  Let’s jump back in as a group.  This is Kristen, and thank you, everybody, for letting us take an early break.  Let’s jump back in again.  We have a file of – this was submitted by Jonathan Adler with a number of questions that are needing clarification in the code language.  

	And, Jonathan, with your permission, I will just go ahead and read each one and then prompt the group on how we would like them to provide opinions.  Does that work, Jonathan?

Jonathan	That’s great.  Sure.

Kristen	Okay.  Thank you.  There’s not an image that goes with any of these, it’s simply text that we are reading.  There’s five topical questions for clarification.  

	The first one states “Are detectable warnings required throughout a parking structure wherever a walk crosses or adjoins a vehicular way?”  Our question to the group is what do you think?  Should detectable warnings be required in these instances?  Let’s have everyone, a reminder to share their name first when they respond.

Susan	Or, Kristen, do you think it would be a good idea being these are all sort of [audio disruption].  If we go through all of them and then discuss.  Do you want to do that?

Kristen	Sure.  I’m happy to do that.

Marcia	Can I ask a point of clarification?  

Kristen	Yes.

Marcia	Jonathan is asking are these required, and you’re asking should they be required.  I just want to make sure that we’re all on the same page, because I think there’s two answers for each and every one of these:  are they required, maybe yes; should they be required, maybe no.

Kristen	I absolutely see what you’re getting at.  What it sounds like—and was this Marcia or Rosa?

Marcia	Yes.  I’m sorry.  This is Marcia.

Kristen	Hi, Marcia.  It’s Kristen.  Would it be helpful if after we review all of them each one we ask for our architect team members here to weigh in if they can clarify if something is required or not, and then after that we ask people’s opinions about if that should be the case.  Am I hearing that correctly?

Gene	We can one at a time.

Jonathan	Kristen, this is Jonathan.  I like the idea of just reading them all.  I just went through it kind of methodically.  They’re not really different questions.  It’s one big question – are they required in garages at all, and if so, what is the way that it should be done.  And so there’s really not five or six different – 

Kristen	Yes.

Jonathan	I think we would benefit if you just went through it, and I think there will be one discussion.

Kristen	Fantastic.  Thank you.  Let’s do that.  

	Marcia, we can move back about input with this entire conversation about what the exact requirements are currently versus what people’s opinions are about what they should be.  

Marcia	Good.  Thank you.

Kristen	Yes.  The first one that I had read – and I’ll start again – we’ve got A through E.  A is “Are detectable warnings required throughout a parking structure wherever a walk crosses or adjoins a vehicular way?”  For B, getting into more detail here, it says “If detectable warnings are required throughout a parking structure where a walk crosses or joins a vehicular way, what constitutes a “WALK” in this case?”  And Jonathan had capitalized walk with quotation marks around it.

	Pedestrians generally follow the most direct route to and from their car without following a formal or marked route.  Questions continuing, let’s see for C, it says “Are detectable warnings required only at strategic locations of a parking structure, such as the ground-level pedestrian entrances, and at each floor level where elevators and stairways enter that level?”  

	Moving on to D, “Are detectable warnings in a parking garage required only in relationship to the specific parking spaces that are reserved for persons with disabilities?”  And the final clarifying question for detectable warnings and parking structures, “Are detectable warnings required only if the ground-level pedestrian entrance’s to a parking structure?”  I think the implied follow-up question there would be “Should detectable warnings be required at entrances, or all levels, just the ground floor, why and why not?”

	Those are the various questions that Jonathan had post surrounding the detectable warnings and parking structures.  Would anyone like clarification before we dive in?  Yes, Gene?

Gene	I assume when we say parking structure we’re talking about something that’s a multi-story building parking facility not a parking lot or just a grate.

Kristen	That’s a good question for clarification.

Marcia	I’m sorry.  I didn’t hear it.

Susan	Gene was asking if this question is related to a parking structure with multiple levels as opposed to a surface lot.  

	Jonathan, do you want to go ahead?

Jonathan	Definitely.  Like a multi-story parking structure.

Gene	Thank you.

Kristen	This is Kristen again.  Let’s hear from all of you on your thoughts about detectable warning placement within multi-level parking structures.  Would be curious to ask – I think first Marcia’s request had been to find out what the current code requirements are.  

	Is that correct, Marcia in this instance?

Marcia	Yes.  

Kristen	Yes.  Let me look to our DSA team to see if anyone can—I see Derek flipping through papers.

Susan	And, oh and just after or just to let you know was that Tim and Chris both have raised their hands.

Kristen	Wonderful.  And Gene as well.  Derek, are you able to—let’s have you come close to the microphone.

Derek	This is Derek.  The building code does not distinguish specific requirements for parking areas, whether they be in surface lots or in multi-level parking structures.  However, certainly the conditions that are generally regulated by the code for detectable warnings would apply wherever we have a curb ramp that occurs.  They would apply wherever we have hazardous vehicular areas, and those would be probably the primary general requirements for detectable warnings.

	Other secondary requirements that might apply in parking facilities and structures would maybe include islands or cut-through medians.  While we don’t see it too often, I am aware of some parking structure’s facilities that also have bus stops located within the structure.  So that’s the status of the curb on that question.

Kristen	Marcia, did that help?  Is that what you’re looking for?

Marcia	Yes, and just to nail this down, if you didn’t have any islands, you didn’t have any bus stops, you didn’t have any reflecting polls, traffic crossings, the only requirements would be those for curb ramps within the parking facility and hazardous vehicular areas, correct?

Derek	Yes.  Those are the primary ones.  Yes.

Marcia	So, hazardous vehicular areas is going to be the thing that triggers at crossings that are flush with the driving surface?

Derek	Yes, if the approach is also flush, yes.

Marcia	Okay.  So it’s again, hazardous vehicular areas pretty much that it will be applied in this situation?

Derek	Yes.

Marcia	Okay.  Thank you.

Kristen	Let’s start discussion, and before we begin with Tim, I wanted to remind the group that Ida had mentioned at our last meeting this request that as often as possible those of you that use various clues to navigate your environment, please do share that information.  Help us understand exactly what it is like for you as you’re experiencing and navigating these types of scenarios.  

	Let’s begin with Tim.  Go ahead.

Tim	Okay.  I share the concern that most of the confusion exists for placement of detectable warnings related to hazardous vehicular areas, and there’s I don’t think much agreement about what constitutes a hazardous vehicular area.  For the purposes of a garage, the way I look at it is I’ve tried to tell or warn someone that they’re going to be in harms’ way in front of a car.  So to me once you’re in a vehicular way, it’s too late for any warning, and for that reason, I think the parking garage doesn’t need any.

	Now, when I come into the parking garage I think it does if I create some kind of elevated pass through in the parking garage, which is common at malls, and I might need some, but I think it’s about coming into the parking garage.  And this was the point I was trying to make earlier that this should be a warning before you get to the car, it should be an indication of the limits of a safe zone.  And for that reason, I think that having them at all parking facilities of any kind doesn’t make a good deal of sense.

M	Second.

Kristen	Thank you, Tim.  Next, let’s hear from Chris.

Chris	This is Chris.  I do want to point out while I have the floor here that it sounds like somebody has their phone near their keyboard, and they’re a really good typist, but if you could move your phone from the keyboard or mute it, it would be great.  

	In this issue, I think it sort of depends, thinking of the last comments, it sort of depends on the nature of the space.  Again, if you start creating if they’re pedestrian ways through the garage such that you’re going across a drive aisle and then into what’s effectively a safe zone between cars that might be parked or a way to continue that pedestrian path through it, it’s really helpful as a blind person to know when you’ve crossed that vehicular way and are back into pedestrian zone for that period of time; it could be effectively like an island before you get back out.  It’s kind of nice to know where to stop if you’re waiting trying to find out, if you should cross again, to know that you’re once again right on the threshold of that next drive aisle.  

	It’s kind of hard to have a one size fits all, because there’s so many different configurations, and I really – the core principle to me would be crossing in and out of the vehicular cross.  If there’s not a continuation of a defined pedestrian path, it seems like once you’ve come into the garage, you pass through the doors, you’ve walked in off the street, once you cross into that zone if there’s no demarcation, if there’s no other dedicated sidewalk, everybody’s just meandering around through the garage, I’m not sure what else you can do other than mark it when you enter it.

Kristen	Thank you, Chris.  

	Gene?

Gene	This is Gene.  I agree with Chris.  When you enter the structure and where the part where the dedicated exclusive for pedestrian area ends, the demarcation, and it’s where the parking area and the moving traffic, there needs to be something that delineates and tells you that you have hit this boundary.  In other words, there should be consistency standardization.  If you have a blended transitional walkway that is adjoining there, there needs to be something that delineates where the walkway is left, even if it’s just parallel.  There needs to be something there, whether it’s inside or outside a parking structure.  

	Consistency and standardization is one of the fundamental principles of mobility and orientation travel.  You know if it was a standard, a surface parking lot there, and you’re dropped into the parking area and basically like we were talking last time and it’s just open area, well, like anyone else, you’re out there, like anyone else.  However, if there’s dedicated walkways, they need to be in some way delineated, and that’s where I think a hazardous vehicular way which I agree get rid of the hazardous word, but the architecture people or building officials need to remember detectable warnings is only one option.  There’s other options there, and they should be creative trying to use those.  

	Now, getting back to the parking structure, I think one of Jonathan’s questions was like if you have an elevator – I’ll call it a lobby – but out there where there’s an elevator and a stairway to go up to the other structures, okay that’s landing around it regardless of whether it’s first floor or the tenth-story, if there’s no raised sidewalk there that that area is, it’s just a blended transition, then you need the detectable warnings if you don’t have any other means.  Because you could be – and I know, I’ve sometimes heard arguments that well, “Gee, a blind person’s not going to be in a parking lot.”  Well, you can be maybe at a mall for example, and you’re with somebody who’s sighted and you go different ways and you know where the car’s parked, okay, and you want to go back to the car to drop off packages and things like that, you just have as much of a right as anyone else to know what is that pedestrian area that is a safe area and expect you’re not going to encounter a vehicle moving here.

	You know, these parking structures they’re actually in certain ways more dangerous than the public streets.  They’re inconsistent to travel.  Cars are unexpectedly pulling out.  You don’t know those things there, and so actually that is sometimes people think well “Gee, it’s quiet.  The vehicles, they’re not moving that regularly there, it’s not that dangerous so you don’t need the warning.”  I’m just simply saying we need to have these things to be consistent, the applications, regardless of where it is and it means the same thing.  Thank you.

Kristen	Thank you, Gene.  

	Marcia?

Rosa	And then Rosa would like to get in the queue.

Kristen	Thank you, Rosa.  So I’ve got Marcia next followed by I saw Chris and then Rosa.

Vidal	And Vidal.  

Kristen	Wonderful.  Thank you.

Vidal	Thank you.

Kristen	Go ahead, Marcia.

Marcia	So a comment and a question to the staff.  I don’t think under any building codes you can build an elevator landing in your parking structure where the landing is in the drive aisle anymore.  I know that there are plenty of them that are built that way in the past, but I don’t think you can do that anymore under building codes.  I may be wrong.  It may be that people have learned and it’s best practice not to do that, but it may make some sense to try and understand whether these conditions are likely in new construction today versus a situation where someone is trying to remediate something that’s existing.  Because a lot of the bad stuff we’ve seen have been just that, they’ve not been new designs.  They’ve been somebody trying to make the best out of an existing situation.

	I think in a new parking garage if you have an elevator, I think you have to protect all pedestrians that are waiting at that elevator from vehicular traffic.  Usually that area is either going to be raised or it’s going to be set off by bollards.  If bollards don’t do the trick because they’re too far apart, and they have to be at least three feet apart for an accessible route, then maybe it’s that situation in new construction that we seem to deal with.  Just a thought.

Kristen	Thank you, Marcia.  Great.  Next we’ll hear from Chris followed by Rosa.

Chris	I just wanted to quickly reiterate, and I appreciate what Gene was explaining about the use of parking garages for people that are blind – all sorts of reasons to do that – but also the environment inside a garage being particularly unpredictable and even today more so, but there are all sorts of things that without sight we would rely heavily on sound; the sound of engines, the sound of moving traffic.  

	With electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, you get far less information.  You add in mechanical noises, music from somebody’s car, somebody’s car alarm, there are all sorts of things that the ambient noise might easily overwhelm the little bit of feedback, little bit of a sound you might hear from a hybrid or electric vehicle so that effectively you can’t rely on your hearing, so as you enter the vehicular way in many scenarios you’re effectively deaf/blind stepping out in that vehicular way.  It’s really important if you have a pedestrian route going across and continuing to mark it at both sides any time you’re coming in and out of that space.  That’s it.

Kristen	Thank you, Chris.

	Rosa?

Rosa	Great.  I want to echo what Gene said in regards to making sure that when thinking about how we’re going to design this that there be consistency from one parking lot to another so that the information will be the same, it doesn’t matter what parking lot, I’ll understand what these warning signs are telling me.  I think there is value in having the strips that distinguish between the pedestrian area versus where the vehicle area starts.  For example, if I’m waiting to be picked up in an Uber or something like that, I know that I’ve been in situations where they didn’t have them, and somebody pointed out “Hey, do you know that you’re in the middle of the parking lot area,” and I didn’t realize that.  I thought I was still in a safe zone, so I think there is absolute value to that.

	In addition, I think that there was some discussion before we started having this dialogue about the difference between, that distinction between the pedestrian area and the street area versus crossings.  I think there was clarification to say it wasn’t about identifying crossings.  What I would say is that in these parking lots, if there are crosswalks that there be some type of detection to be able to tell that this is a crosswalk versus this is just a strip to let you know that this a separation between pedestrian and street crossings.

	In terms of the bollards, I think that as mentioned earlier, yes with a guide dog, a guide dog will take you around them.  So if there isn’t something tactile on the ground, I may not know that I have squeezed through them, because the dog has taken me around.  So I think there is value in having the strips.  Thank you.

Kristen	Thank you.  Vidal?

Vidal	Yes.  This is Vidal.  I want to share one of my experiences with parking garages.  When I go, my wife and I, when we go to hotels or big hotels in different cities, there are parking garages attached or maybe set aside from the hotel we’re staying at.  What I do is I do go out of the building on my own.  I have a visual impairment, both peripheral vision in both eyes and very little vision in one eye, but I use a cane.  I do go around the hotel building; that includes the parking garage.  What I’d like about parking garages is, I want to know where the cars come in and exit, because I’m not going in to a parking garage.  

	Now, if my wife parks in there, then I have a sighted guide.  There wouldn’t be any reason for me to go in there, but if I do, it’s always with whoever I’m riding with that decides to park in there.  So that’s where the sighted guide comes in for me, and this is a personal story.  I know everybody has different preferences, but for me, I want to know the—when cars come in and where cars come out.  So those two areas that separate that driveway in and out of the parking garage, I want to know where that’s at.  So the truncated domes are a good indicator of that, especially if there’s a lot of foot traffic, which I run across a lot in different cities.

Kristen	Wonderful.  Thank you, Vidal, we appreciate hearing that experience.  Let’s next hear from Tim, followed by Gene.

Tim	I guess from listening to some of the comments, the concern I have is when we talk about their being some type of designated pedestrian walkway through a parking garage, from my experience they don’t exist.  Maybe if I come out of an elevator and I am on a curb, or I’m on a flush surface with bollards to keep people coming out of the elevator from being hit by a car, that’s one thing, but from my experience in what I see around in the garages, it’s an open field.  You can go anywhere, you could end up walking across a drive aisle, or into a parking space where someone’s backing up.  It doesn’t seem to me that, very often, there actually is any type of designated, a walkway that a car couldn’t strike someone in.

	I’m wondering, what is the general thought because to me that seems to be most of the parking garages.  Is there a need to have any detectable warnings inside in the garage such as that?  I do understand when there is a walkthrough or a designated place for people to walk that is meant to be separated, but I just don’t think that exists very often.  I would say it’s probably less than 10% of the parking garages that I work with, and work on, and see every day.  I’d be curious to see and hear what it takes to create a designated walkway in a parking garage that’s effective for people with vision impairments from those that have them.  

	A bigger question in all of this is, should they be required in parking garages if they’re not important?  Because currently, right now, they’re not.  That’s my thoughts.

Kristen	Thank you.  Gene?

Gene	Tim, I don’t really have a disagreement for what you just said.  I’m not aware of any exclusively set aside area, walkway through a parking structure that takes you Point A to Point B, but if one did exist, like a walkway, maybe from the elevator landing area to, I don’t know, somewhere in there, and if it’s not raised, or some kind of barrage, then that’s where I’m seeing the detectable warnings.  But otherwise, equality, which I would be, you take your risk out there, gee, I’m not promoting that, but that’s the reality, is just that if everyone else is having to go out there, and there’s no walkway, then there’s no need for the detectable warnings to give you some warning or something, maybe a directional surface, put something else there.  

	One of Johnson’s questions was about the accessible parking spots, and the only time I could see the detectable warnings would be if that disabled access parking space abuts right or joins a dedicated walkway, and if that is on the aisle, the head of the aisle, the parking aisle, where the—yes, that the head of it where it butts whether it’s a curb ramp or whether it’s a blended transition right there, detectable warning, because that is a demarcation that you’re entering in the vehicular area.  I consider vehicular areas where cars park and moving traffic, and it’s in front of that vehicle, it’s a walkway there that’s dedicated exclusively for pedestrians, is not raised, then some barrier should be placed there delineating the boundary, whether that’s something that is detectable, whether it’s detectable warnings, or whether something else that, so that you could pick that up if you don’t drift, if there’s no vehicles you don’t drift out into those parking spots right there adjacent.  But if the accessible parking’s out in the middle of the multi-structure, or a simple surface parking area out there, then I don’t see the detectable warnings being needed there because it’s not there as an island for safety.  That’s it.

Kristen	Thank you, Gene.  Susan?

Susan	It’s pretty typical, too, when you go into parking garages, that usually they’ll have an elevator with a set of stairs right by that particular elevator, and then, because of exiting requirements, way over in the opposite corner of the parking garage all they have is a set of stairs, and the only connection that you get to, if you were to walk between that elevator and the set of stairs and the other set of stairs, you’re going to drive aisles where there’s no, you know, just for anybody going through that parking garage, there isn’t a specified area where you walk that’s going to be separated from a car.  I mean, that’s pretty typical in parking garages.

	So then, I guess the question is, like Jonathan said, at that set of stairways, then do you need a border of detectable warnings when you go into that stairwell, and do you need a border of detectable warnings at the other stairwell and around the elevator, and then nothing within that parking area itself?  

Kristin	Gene?

Gene	The answer’s yes.  You need to know, you’re out there, you feel like you’re like in a pinball you’re bouncing off—but if you feel the aisle’s there, and if you find that detectable warnings after you’ve gone there, you know you hit a safe haven there, and that’s the stairways, and it could take you up to the next level or down, something like that, that information should be provided.

Kristen	Thank you.  This is Kristen.  Would anybody else like to add anything that hasn’t been shared yet, final thoughts on detectable warnings within parking structures?  It’s okay if we’ve said it all.  

	With that, we’re going to move on to our next topic.  We have some proposed amendments to the code language submitted by Gene, and we are pulling up that document right now on the blackboard collaborative.

Sue	And my apologies, Gene.  I think this might be one of your prior versions.  I think you’ve made some—

Gene	I made updated ones that are dated March 2nd.  There’s some, theres two that say revised and then the rest there, and they were made more accessible, they strike up and underline. They say beginning new language, end new language, so that somebody that was using screen reading software who can’t pick up strikeouts and underlines, at least be aware of where the changes were.

Sue	Well, I think that what we’re looking at, the document that you provided in its proposed new 11B-247.1.2.8, and 11B-705.1.2.8, and this, again, is in parking facilities, and this is specific to driveways.

Kristen	We can read each of these out.  So the first paragraph here, scenario, parking facility driveways, I’m going to read this.  Where it says, if a pedestrian walk crossed the driveway, or series of adjacent driveways, the boundary between the pedestrian and driveway areas shall be defined by a continuous detectable warning service complying with sections, then it says 11B-705.1.1, and 11B-705.1.2.8.

	Am I correct that, Gene, this is—

Gene	My attempt at scoping language that this would be for scoping for 247.

Kristen	So hearing Gene’s scoping—

Susan	We probably want to read the technical provisions with that, because they sort of go together, so we could read that as well.

Gene	And the revised one has a little change in the wording.

Kristen	Okay.  Is this correct?  I’ll read the one beginning with 11B-705.1.2.8, parking facility driveways.  Detectable warning surfaces at parking facility driveways shall be 36 inches, and then parentheses, that’s 944 millimeters in depth, extending the full width of the pedestrian circulation pathway, less two inches, or 51 millimeters, maximum on each side, placed at the edge of the boundary between the pedestrian and driveway areas on both sides of a driveway.

	There’s also an exception noted here.  The detectable warning surfaces shall only be provided at the two outside boundaries of the area consisting of the series of adjacent driveways.  

	So those are the two proposed, kind of the scope—

Gene	Scope and technical, and the thing we’d also be needing, which is not enforceable, but a figure which actually show this, so the idea is like we earlier were talking about Tim’s first slide of the drive aisle or the driveway that if you’re on the walkway side and you’re going down the public sidewalk just before you hit the driveway you hit detectable warning, and then you go across the single driveway and the detectable warning continue down the circulation pathway.  However, maybe if you have four driveways, one after another, with a little separation of maybe four, five deep between them, rather than outlining each one which would be really confusing, and I’ve seen it.  I can’t recall exactly [indiscernible].  The thing is, you don’t have the detectable warnings just as your approach the first driveway and after you’ve completely gone across all the driveways, then there’d be the other detectable warnings [indiscernible] circulation path, so you would know that this area within the detectable warnings is a vehicular area, and that’s what I’m attempting. It could be better, but that was my attempt.

Kristen	Thank you, Gene, that’s really helpful clarification.  So given the two suggested paragraphs that were just read, as well as the exception, for the group, I would like to know, does anyone have additional feedback regarding these suggestions, and what, in your person experience, reinforces Gene’s suggestion, or points to a different direction?

Sue	Looks like we have Marcia, and who else raised their hand?

Rosa	And then Rosa would like to get in the queue as well.

Sue	Oh, we have Marcia, Jonathan, and Tim and Rosa.

Kristen	Great.  Let’s begin with Marcia.  So, Marcia, you are up.  You might be on mute, so go ahead and—

Marcia	Sorry about that.

Kristen	We can hear you now.

Marcia	Sorry.  I’m a little bit hesitant to deal with a vote up and down, or whatever, of specific text.  I think there are some basis discussions we have to have before we vote on the technical criteria in particular, or before we act on them, because I think that the question of 36 inches versus 24 inches certainly should be on the table if it isn’t.  And so, I’d just like to deal with this in concept, rather than respond to the specific technical criteria or the language used.

Kristin	Marcia, Ida would like to interject here.

Ida	The purpose of this detectable warnings taskforce is to discuss the issues and determine the ideas.  It’s really DSA’s responsibility to address code language.  Thank you, Gene, for providing food for thought, but we will not be voting on appropriate language, or the language that’s written.  The way I see, is that Gene is proposing adding a requirement to, and we’re discussing this requirement at its location.  We will not be parsing language, identifying language, identifying better language.  It’s really more addressing the—it’s a concept of this issue as proposed, more so than it is addressing the language as written.

Marcia	Okay, thank you.

Kristen	The two questions that I’d read out before, it’s really just me trying to prompt the group to basically respond, to get discussion going, if that’s helpful.

Marcia	But that language does matter, and in particular here, the word driveway is, in my view, not sufficiently clear.  There are many definitions of driveways, including legal definitions, and often times it may not capture the scope of what Gene is trying to get at.  So from a conceptual point of view, I understand what Gene’s trying to accomplish.  I’m not sure that driveway is the right kind of wording, because it may eliminate, for example—well, it may add up every single residential driveway in a residential area, which I think would be horrible and completely unnecessary.	 I doubt that Gene intended that, but—

Kristen	Gene was just saying he agrees that would be horrible.

Marcia	Okay.  So we do have to worry about words, and we do have to make it clear what our intent is.  I think we need to work on that.

	The other thing is the series of adjacent driveways.  Adjacency is undefined here, so I think that that creates the need to make a judgment call, and anytime we’re asking people to make a judgment call we’re going to have different outcomes.  And so, I would caution against this series of different driveways unless you want to put a specific measurement, separated by no more than an eight-foot space, or something like that, that makes it clear what you mean by a series, and do they have to be parallel to one another or not.  I mean, there’s a whole bunch of—as somebody who writes regulations for a living, and writes codes and standards for a living, I look at this and I see more questions than answers.  And in terms of the technical requirements, I would like to have some discussion about the technical requirements, and particularly the depth of the detectable warning required, whether it should be three feet or two feet consistent with what is currently in the federal requirements.  That’s it.

Kristen	Thank you, Marcia.  Next let’s hear from Jonathan, followed by Tim and then Rosa.

Jonathan	Thank you.  My reaction to it is, I definitely understand the desire to have warning when you’re going to cross a place where tons of cars were going in and out, notwithstanding the language, if it was changed from driveway to vehicular entrance to a parking facility, etc., and that was ironed out, including the depth of the detectable warning, what I’m concerned about is the chaos that has developed prior to this in the use of detectable warnings, and I can see it in the following scenario.  

	I’m reading this code, and I’m told that the code is not a paint-by-number system, sometimes you have to use a measure of critical thinking, and what’s driving this?  Well, you’re on a sidewalk, you’re not crossing the street, but you’re crossing where lots of cars go in and out.  So what about the entrance to a shopping center, or a shopping mall, or a bakery at five in the morning has its trucks running in and out through its driveway, how does this code not create—how is it implemented to the extent that—I can understand the need for something like this, but how is it implemented in a way that doesn’t create new chaos?  That’s all. 

Kristen	Thank you, Tim.  Rosa?  Oh, I’m sorry, Jonathan, thank you, Jonathan.  Tim, you’re next, then Rosa.

Tim	Okay.  I think when we talked about this in generic terms, I support the idea.  I think it’s important to warn people when they’re coming in harm’s way in front of a driveway.  I think we have to decide which types of vehicular ways are dangerous enough to warrant a hazard, I think a driveway commonly is.   I do share a concern about making sure what kind of driveway it is.  Obviously, a single-family dwelling versus shopping center is not the same level of risk.

	I also think the bigger issue here is that, essentially, every property has a driveway, but most of the driveways and most of the passageway in front of the driveway occurs in the public way.  It’s rare that it’s actually on [indiscernible] it’s very rare it’s not in the public way.  So, notwithstanding when federal money is or isn’t received, this requirement doesn’t exist in the public way, and so, I’m thinking that this might be a very limited application if it’s actually only occurring within the boundaries of the site.  It will also create some kind of disparity when someone does, in fact, have a walkway, and I have seen this on a recent project, that’s 10 or 15 feet back from the sidewalk, and they did put detectable warnings, in this manner, on that walkway that went in front of the driveway.  And then some 15 to 20 feet later, the same exact condition occurs on the sidewalk with no detectable warnings.  

	I think that problem needs to be thought about before implementing.

Kristen	Thank you, Tim.  Ida, did you want to speak now or—

Ida	Rosa can take a turn and then I’ll go.

Kristen	Rosa, you’re next.

Rosa	I think I’ve shared previously that it’s nice having that warning that there is a vehicle way, however, I think that there is some confusion between whether this is a driveway or a street crossing.  Whether that be the 36 inches in depth, I don’t think that that clearly distinguishes between a street, and I don’t recall, I don’t have it in front of me right now, the street crossing with the depth of that.  My thought would be, perhaps that there could be some language, that there be a distinguishing kind of tactile information between a driveway crossing versus a street crossing, so not only maybe it has a certain depth, but it also, the texture is very different.

	I believe that we are talking about public driveways and not necessarily residential, because that, as echoed in the past, that would be too much information and ridiculous.  And then, also, when it says that it would be on the outer driveways, I think that it would be important that that be defined how far apart.  I think I’ve shared with you that I have been in an area where there were multiple detections of driveways, but because I’ve gone over so many of them and they’re somewhat close together, I was really kind of confused if I’m entering or exiting, because I’m not sitting there counting going, okay, enter, exit, enter.  I don’t walk that way and think in that way.  It was a bit confusing to be able to determine whether I’m actually in the middle of the street, or I’ve just landed on top of the dome and I’m in the safe—I know I’m on the domes, I’m in the safe zone, but if I step frontwards or backwards am I not.  So I think that there needs to be some clarification as to how close these driveways need to be with one another.  Thank you.

Kristin	Gene’s just going to respond quickly.

Gene	Rosa, this would be, let’s say you had four driveways running, like Marcia asked, parallel, parallel driveways, whatever the vehicular route, whatever the term is, I don’t know, and I’m willing to be educated on that, but the thing is, that area, those driveways would all be considered a vehicular area, and the boundary of them, just the—you don’t have two strips of detectable warning.  The first one would be as you’re approaching the first driveway, and the second one would be just as you’re finishing crossing the, in this case the fourth one, and then your detectable warnings, and you continue down a circulation pathway, which—

Rosa	That would be fine.  I’ve just seen it where they have it in for multiple, so it’s not just the two outer ones.  So having them on the end one would, I think, create more confusion.

Gene	What’s being asked for?  You and I are both in agreement about the confusion potential if you have them all outlined, absolutely confusion, you’re absolutely right.  But the thing is still, the detectable warning, that’s the whole thing, it’s just a warning, it doesn’t specify whether it’s intersection, or if it’s crossing an alleyway, or anything, it’s just where you got, in this case, the blended transition across driveways, or down, if you had the detectable warning.  That’s all.  Same standard one so you know.  It’s impossible to interpret domes, different patterns, and I mean, that has been looked at, in England, particularly, and it’s found that it doesn’t work.  You have a totally different system for way finding, that’s a different thing, but detectable warnings need to be standardized.

Kristen	Thank you.  Next we’ll hear from Ida, followed by Derek.  We also see that Jonathan and Mike are in the queue.

Ida	Just a couple of questions, is that, say you have four driveways just in this scenario, a driveway can easily be 25 feet in width, it encounters both cars.  So your four driveways, you’re encountering 100 feet.  So, in theory, because if you know the code and you know that this could happen, but once you’ve crossed one, and it the other one is not for 100 feet, how do you know what it is that you’re trying to receive a warning about?  I guess, for me, part of it is the question of when they’re that far apart, does the average user, not necessarily code literate, to know that, oh, this might be that condition in the code, just the actual user understand what it is that you’re trying to give warning about.

	We can address that question, but my second comment is, I think it’s important that maybe we start to realize that the detectable warnings may not be the answer to every single condition, and that like in parking garages there’s certain things like bells that warn of a car coming.  Or I know that they’re no longer required at curb ramps, but different type of surface textures like grooves, when they do a grooved [indiscernible] dirt and stuff, and I get that.  But I’m saying just as alternatives, that if we’re trying to determine where the best placement of detectable warnings are so that they are really providing the necessary cautions, there may be other solutions appropriate to other conditions, like the bells coming out of the parking garage, that may give that warning instead of providing the detectable warning so that you have that.  I’m just throwing it out there.

Kristen	Thank you.  Gene wanted to do a quick—

Susan	We’re getting real tight on time, and we haven’t heard from Mike Gibbons yet, and Jonathan has his hand up as well. I don’t want to cut off Gene, but I think we—

Kristen	Absolutely.  Gene, let’s—

Gene	Ida, your thing about the garage warning, the visual and auditory one, which are for the exit, I have not recently checked it, but the last I had done, there’s no requirement in the building code or federal requirements for that, and I know that issue, Sacramento County, about ten years ago, was looking into that whole thing and we could not find anything.  So, yes, that would help it, but it doesn’t address the driveway going into the place, just as Chris said earlier, with quiet cars there, you’re just warning, and perhaps, I think Marcia, I don’t want to put words in her mouth, was saying, well, how far apart are these, and if there’s maybe, let’s say maybe 25 feet or so between each one, maybe that’s something to consider then.  You [Indiscernible].  It’s just more discussions, but the concept was, if they were in reasonable, close to one another, driveways maybe 25 feet wide, each one just maybe separated by 4 feet, that whole area would be a vehicular area, you would only outline extreme boundaries. That’s it.

Kristen	Thank you for the clarification.  Derek?

Derek	Okay, great.  Now, when detectable warnings were first required under federal law, the California Building Code, shortly thereafter, incorporated them into the building code.  Through the suspension of the requirements for detectable warnings at the federal code or federal standard, to the un-suspension of them, it went back and forth a couple of times, but at that time, there was a great deal of study on the issue of placement of detectable warnings, and just as we’re seeing today in our conversation, the issue of potentially placing detectable warnings along public sidewalks, was discussed pretty extensively. 

	Now, at that time, it was the general opinion, I won’t say consensus, but within the Federal Highway Administration, as well as a number of public works departments, that the placement of the detectable warnings along the public sidewalk would be best limited to, of course, street crossings, but also, in the sense of driveways, only those driveways that were like street crossings.  

	Now, as far as I know, there was never any general agreement of what that meant, but some of the topics that were discussed at the time were the number of vehicles that were passing through that driveway access point, and across the sidewalk.  One of the, I guess, what seemed to be a more broadly agreed upon context was where traffic control was provided, for example, stoplights at the entrance to a large facility like a shopping mall.  

	So at that time, that was kind of the state of the profession.  I’m not really sure if that has changed in the meantime.  Perhaps Marcia has some more recent information on that topic.  But generally, in general, except in those locations, it was strongly discouraged to require detectable warnings at the location where driveways crossed the sidewalk.  And part of it was because of the confusion in the message that was being sent there, due primarily to the inconsistency.  Any construction under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or under the California Building Code, is basically applicable when you have new construction, or where you have existing buildings that are being altered.  

	Quite often, buildings might not be altered for a very, very long period of time.  So the issue of consistency in a context where not everybody brings their facilities up to compliance with the current code at the same time, you’re always going to suffer from a lack of consistency there.  So these were some of the historical discussions on this topic and might be helpful for our discussion here.

Kristen	Thank you, Derek.  Next, Jonathan, please.

Jonathan	Thank you.  I think that a lot of the confusion and chaos often results from a couple of things, designers wanting to cover their as*.  No one wants to say, well, I don’t think that’s hazardous, I then have something happen and say, well, that person said it wasn’t hazardous.  But it also comes from the language of the code, and that’s what I’m hoping to bring your attention to.

	As you make some revisions to the code, it sounds like you may be, it’s the very language that causes following confusions.  Where a walk crosses or adjoins the vehicular way, where earlier, I think some people coined the term, well, if it’s a dedicated walk through a parking facility, but the definition of a walk is an exterior prepared surface for pedestrian use, including pedestrian areas such as classes and courts.  So that could really be just about anywhere in the parking garage.  And when we talk about if a walk crosses or adjoins a vehicular way, that tells me that what Gene’s proposing is already covered, given the current language, because a vehicular way is defined as a route provided for vehicular traffic such as in a street, driveway, or parking facility.  

	So the way it’s really written, all driveways might actually require it.  And even when you go from one corner to the next across the street, you may have detectable warnings at each curb ramp, but the open borders of the crosswalk, they’re merely striped, those all adjoin the vehicular way.  

	And so, I’m asking you to be real specific in clarifying those terms vehicular way and walk, and maybe even get rid of the word adjoins.  That’s it.

Kristen	Thank you, Jonathan.  So, Mike, you’re up, and then Marcia, and then we’re going to talk, I think we might have a couple minutes to just briefly touch on our last topic.  Go ahead, Mike.

Mike	Okay, thank you.  Just listening, I mean, the most positive and the clarifying information discussion that we’ve had today, in my mind, is that we have identified that the current language is problematic and is confusing on a number of levels.  In dealing with it, the current language, it doesn’t clarify the necessary applications to a level necessary to be a legal requirement, and it’s causing confusion on a number of levels.  Identifying a problem is progress, I’m really happy that we’re here, but now that, looking at it, it depends on where we go from here.  My recommendation just looking at this to be would be a start, hopefully just start on looking at just using it as a warning, which a lot of people have identified.  

	So that would be my suggestion, and just to say thank you, I think it has been a worthwhile discussion.

Kristen	Thank you, Mike.  Marcia?

Marcia	Derek asked me to confirm his understanding of what the federal requirement is, and I’m happy to do that very quickly.  As you know, the 2010 ADA standards removed hazardous vehicular areas, as well as the curb ramp requirements, because curb ramps will be addressed in the public right of way guidelines.  So right now, the ADA standards only include requirements for detectable warnings at transit platforms, and also at track crossings.  Those are where you have your current ADA requirements.  Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, Department of Transportation requires detectable warnings at street crossings.  The access words [ph] public right-of-way document cannot be used to regulate detectable warnings on private property, because that rule making is restricted to public right-of-way.  If a current proposal is to require detectable warnings at crossings, and of course, at rail platforms in the public right-of-way, and that’s whether it’s at grade rail crossing, or a transit platform in the public right-of-way.  There are no requirements, and there would have to be proposals to make them, for detectable warnings inside of privately owned parking garage that’s not in the public right-of-way.  There are no requirements for hazardous vehicular areas in the federal rule.

	I have to admit to being the primary advocate for removing the hazardous vehicular area language because it was, in my view, unenforceable, because it was so fraught with problems.  The first problem being that we can’t define what is hazardous in a reliable way so that architecture engineers, and others, can apply it and with any degree of confidence that they’ve applied it correctly.  That means that they have to basically assume everything is hazardous.  The along language, along a hazardous vehicular area, has resulted in people using detectable warnings to separate pedestrians from a vehicular way, which is about the worst thing you can do, because then it does confuse people who become disoriented and are no longer walking parallel, they somehow wind up walking perpendicular, and then they think that that’s where they hesitate and cross, and they might be crossing mid-block, they may be crossing somewhere where nobody’s supposed to cross.

	Again, the federal requirements are pretty minimal, and if the feds want to require detectable warnings on private property again, including the parking lot, they will have to develop a proposal to change the ADA accessibility guidelines in a subsequent proposal to change the 2010 ADA standard.

	I hope that helps.

Kristen	Thank you, Marcia.  We’re in our last couple minutes.  I do see, Chris, you have your hand raised.  Would you like to share some final thoughts [audio disruption]?

Chris	I’ll pass at this point.

Kristen	Thank you, Chris.  Tim, did you have something you wanted to end on?

Tim	I don’t know if it’s to end on.  I just wanted to say, some of the confusion about driveways and detectable warnings actually does come out of the proposed right-of-way guidelines for the public way.  It is not a requirement, as Marcia stated, however, there is an advisory note that recommends that to be used at commercial driveways.  And so, some people—

Marcia	That’s why the Department of Justice doesn’t adopt the advisory.  And it is in the proposal, it may not be in the final.

Tim	Well, I have seen it used by some public agencies.

Marcia	Yes, I know, I know, because they have nothing else.

Tim	I’m not defending it, I’m just illuminating it.

Marcia	No, no, and if you really want to get into this, look at the public comments that the access board received on that section, because they’re available online and they’re very informative.

Mike	Enlightening, yes.

Marcia	Yes.

Kristen	Thank you, everybody.  This has been a very productive discussion.  I would like to give a preview of some of the topics that we will most likely touch on next month.  We will be meeting again here, the same time, or on the phone, 1:30 to 4:00, Wednesday, April 3rd, and we would like to touch on reflecting pools and just have a brief discussion about exactly what qualifies as a reflecting pool.  A couple other topics that we have on our list of possibilities include color variables, discussion around how low or no-vision task force members navigate their environment in suburban developments, and/or rural areas with meandering roads.

	Those are a couple things to start thinking about.  We don’t have specific homework per se, however, we do invite everyone to continue to send in information that you think will help aid the discussion.  If you do have photos, or research documents, or other pertinent information you think would be valuable, please do go ahead, you can send that to Susan Moe.  I think that’s it for today.

	Do we have any final thoughts?

Susan	Actually, Kaylan Dunlap sent in a photograph this morning, and I think it would be one that would be a good one to take a look at next time we get together, because it’s a photograph outside of a, looks like an arena, and there’s a roundabout, and it just looks like another one of those areas where it could be really tricky to traverse that and figure out where you would put those detectable warnings.  So that might be one of the ones that we want to, maybe the reflecting pools, and then that photograph from Kaylan at our next session.  Because it seems like when we look at something like the photograph that Tim provided, that gave a lot of good discussion from that.

Kristen	Thank you.  Ida?

Ida	And I just want to say we appreciate all input.  I do want to stick to the discussions as being much more specific in nature as to a condition, than language, code language.  And the reason is, is because if we’re focused too much on code language, we may miss the bigger picture.  We are still at the stage where we’re gathering the information.  Like even this, this is helpful to say let’s discuss parking facility driveways and in general, and address those issues.  Even though, thank you, Gene, for the language, it’s just that I don’t want to get into a discussion where we’re parsing language as opposed to not really dealing with the issue that we wanted.

Kristen	That was really helpful.  All right.  Well, thank you, everybody.  We look forward to talking again, I believe it’s in about three weeks, so we will talk again April 3rd.  Goodbye.

Moderator	That does conclude our conference for today.  Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Executive TeleConference.  You may now disconnect.