On November 16th, WTS-Boston hosted the virtual November luncheon. The panel included Laura Brelsford, MBTA, Shaya French, Boston Council for Independent Living (BCIL), and Zachary Veaner, MassDOT. The panel was moderated by Heidi Cashman from GeoEngineers.

WTS-Boston President, Marie Sullivan introduced the panel and the moderator and thanked everyone for joining. She also provided a brief overview of the upcoming events, scholarships, awards, corporate sponsorship programs, and mentoring programs.

Cashman started off by asking the panel to provide the audience with a background on the size of each agency’s accessibility goals. The panelists each provided an overview of their accessibility programs ranging from training frontline staff, station/infrastructure modifications to make them more accessible, meeting good compliance and creating an inclusive design culture and feedback mechanisms.

Brelsford stated that the goal of the T is to become a model for accessible transportation; Work with capital planners and engineering teams for station renovations and bus stop modifications; and over 70 elevators built with another 70 in the pipeline. French provided some advocacy examples of how BCIL has helped bring members to board meetings on proposed service cuts and successfully stopped these cuts; BCIL has been involved with the MBTA and do a lot of advisory meetings; and also work on paratransit system – people can get Masshealth to pay for their rides (PT1 program). Veaner is the State Accessibility Engineer at MassDOT and he explained how MassDOT has taken an inventory of our system to make sure it’s all working together to be accessible; MassDOT is taking its Environmental Justice responsibilities seriously and is constantly working on how to help people who aren’t always seen and don’t always have a voice.

Cashman started the panel discussion on common accessibility barriers in Massachusetts. Each panelist presented their agency’s perspective. Veaner provided examples on difficulty with signage, curbs, overgrowth of foliage, detectable warning panels, challenging detour. He showed examples of yellow tape and orange cones in construction zones that were not detectable barrier for riders who are colorblind. Brelsford added that about 61 MBTA stations are inaccessible, several paths of travel were not coincident, emergency egress conditions were inaccessible, snow/ice conditions render stations, pathways inaccessible, proliferation of digital content/advertising screens without audio equivalence and navigating bike lanes adjacent to bus lanes. Shaya French provided insight into para transit and stated that PT1 and the Ride are very similar in the services that they provide but the Ride is under the MBTA and PT1 is under MassHealth and Human Services Transportation. Some barriers are sign-up process is tedious, unreliable services, untrained drivers. The reason this happens is because over 300 companies provide para transit services and is hard to manage and ensure consistent and quality service.

The audience participated by asking some great questions. Some prominent ones were:

• Does MBTA/MassDOT plan on providing accessible signage at bus stations or MassDOT infrastructure?
  • The MBTA conducted a study and user feedback program a decade ago that was used to deploy the current signs with a focus on accessibility. However, this did not include a tactile braille component due to various reasons. The bus stop redesign project that is underway and will be rolling out over the next five years is revisiting this tactile braille indicators.
  • MassDOT has been tackling this issue at bike lanes, pedestrian, and bus lanes. MassDOT has been engaging with organizations such as Accessible Design for the Blind to determine solutions in areas where there is pedestrian – bike conflict and make such products standard on all MassDOT projects going forward.
• What are the Emergency Egress considerations for accessibility?
  • Brelsford stated that the MBTA is aiming to meet the letter/intent of the law when it comes to accessibility not only for new builds but also for stations undergoing renovations and provide accessible emergency egress where possible. At a minimum, safe areas with two-way communication where people can wait for first responders to arrive and provide assistance are being incorporated into the design.

Cashman and the panelists presented an interesting discussion revolving around accessibility which is a very relevant topic. The goal is to have an accessible system by the end of the year 2030. Cashman and Sullivan thanked the panelists and the audience concluding the event.