Minutes to the Eighth Meeting of the
Accessible Transportation Standards Development Committee (T-SDC)

Canadian Standards Association
5060 Spectrum Way
Mississauga, ON
October 3 and 4, 2006

Members Present :

• Al Cormier, Cor Al Services, Chair
• George Ansell, Ministry of Northern Development and Mines
• Valmay Barkey, Ontario Community Support Association
• Spiros Bastas, Royal Taxi
• Jo-Ann Bentley, Canadian Hearing Society
• James Bisson, Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario/City of Mississauga
• Earl Black, Independent Living Resource Centre
• Mark Brose, Transportation Action Now
• Silvan Bruno, GO Transit
• Katrina Carrera, Association des municipalités Francophones de l'Ontario
• David Carroll, Ontario Motor Coach Association and School Bus Association
• Peter Chin, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
• Alex Grant, HAGI Community Services for Independence
• Sharon Hambleton, Ontario Federation of Labour (represented by Duncan MacDonald on October 4 only)
• Blyth Helman, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
• Glenn Johnston, Toronto Transit Commission
• Kim Lambert, Ministry of Transportation (represented by Rob Barnes on October 4 afternoon)
• Lesley Anne MacDonald, Canadian National Institute for the Blind
• Alex Milojevic, Association of Municipalties of Ontario, City of Brampton (represented by Doug Rieger on October 4)
• Tim Nolan, Council of Ontario Universities
• Kelly Palecnzy, Ontario Community Transportation Association
• Lloyd Pollock, Dignity Transportation Incorporated
• Danielle Svec, Life Skills Institute (Bloorview Kids Rehab)
• Vanissa Szeto, Ministry of Education (October 3 only)
• Tanya Wanio, Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (October 4 only)

Absent Members:

• Tony Carnovale, Community Living Ontario
• Susan Enid Mintz, The Kidney Foundation of Canada

Support Unit:

• Kevin Boehmer, Canadian Standards Association
• Marsha Cheddi, Canadian Standards Association
• Mansur Rahim, Accessibility Directorate of Ontario
• Jill Sawchuk, Accessibility Directorate of Ontario
• Bob Sherman, Accessibility Directorate of Ontario (October 4 only)
• Nelly Tion, Accessibility Directorate of Ontario
• Scot Weeres, Accessibility Directorate of Ontario

Consultants:

• David Dilks, Lura Consulting

M8.1 Call to Order
A. Cormier (Chair) called the 8th meeting of the Accessible Transportation Standards Development Committee meeting to order at 9:30 a.m. on October 3, 2006.

M8.2 Housekeeping and Facility Safety
K. Boehmer advised members of facility safety procedures and other housekeeping matters.

M8.3 Meeting Objectives
The Chair detailed objectives of the 8th meeting, including:

• Share sector profile information, including current situations, opportunites and challenges;
• Discuss development of a set of high-level principles to guide the development of more detailed standard requirements;
• Discuss various types of standards requirements and their potential application to the draft Accessible Transportation standard;
• Use outputs of sector profile, principles and standards types discussions in identifying the path forward workplan, including implications for Draft 5 of the Accessible Transportation standard.

The Chair noted that Lura Consulting had been retained to facilitate Sector Profile (A5), Guiding Principles (A6), Standards Types (A7) and Workplan (A8) agenda items. The Chair introduced D. Dilks from Lura Consulting as the Meeting 8 facilitator.

M8.4 Administrative Matters

M8.4.1 Approval of the Meeting 8 Draft Agenda
The Meeting 8 draft agenda was approved as tabled.

M8.4.2 Approval of the Meeting 7 Draft Minutes
K . Boehmer noted that written comments on the draft Meeting 7 minutes had been received from the Ministry of Transportation and that comments had been incorporated into the revised draft minutes circulated in hardcopy. The revised Meeting 7 draft minutes were approved as tabled.

M8.4.3 Membership Review
The Chair noted the following alternates had been designated for Meeting 8:

M8.5 Sector Profile Presentations and Roundtable
D. Dilks invited the following sector representatives to deliver respective "sector profile" presentations:

D. Dilks facilitated discussion between and following sector profile presentations where the following question was posed: Thinking about the presentation you just heard as well as the work we’ve completed on the standard to date, what key issues or implications need to be addressed as part of our efforts to further develop and finalize the standard? Discussion included:

• Relationship between the AODA 2005 and the Ontario Human Rights Code;
• Role and responsibilities of the Accessibility Standards Advisory Council and its relationship to the T-SDC;
• Treatment of minority opinions;
• Public transit (conventional, specialized) characteristics and objectives;
• Gas tax mechanisms;
• Basis of eligibility criteria for specialized transit;
• Existing accessibility initiatives;
• Costs and benefits of accessibility initiatives;
• Barriers to accessible transportation;
• Impact of changing demographics and communities;
• Capacities of small, rural communities;
• Need to balance accessibility and safety;
• Need to recognize funding concerns;
• Need for flexible approaches, including incremental 5-year targets within a 20-year implementation period; and
• Awareness and appreciation of different operating and business environments; specifically between publicly funded (subsidized) municipal transit and government operated bus services (GO and Ontario Northland) and non-subsidized private sector operations.

S. Bastas reminded participants that the taxi industry had presented its sector profile at T-SDC Meeting 5. S. Bastas re-distributed a letter from the Canadian Taxi Association (CTA) detailing industry commitments, concerns and recommendations and urged participants to consider its content.

M8.6 Development of Guiding Principles
D. Dilks facilitated discussion asking participants to identify what the committee wanted guiding principles to achieve. Participants agreed that guiding principles should be developed:

• To underlie the committees strategic vision or mission;
• As an articulation of shared values;
• As an expression of intent, rule, norm or constraint;
• To guide or influence the development of standard requirements; and
• To serve as a basis for integrated decision making.

D. Dilks asked participants if guiding principles should be developed for the standard as a whole, for specific standards sections or both. Participants agreed that "overarching" guiding principles should be developed for the entire standard. Following approval and application of overarching principles, some participants suggested there may be a need for section or clause specific principles.

D. Dilks thanked submitters of proposed guiding principles: G. Ansell, D. Carroll, K. Lambert, L. A. MacDonald, M. Brose and K. Paleczny. D. Dilks noted that the committee Support Unit attempted to synthesize key themes and attributes across submissions for discussion purposes. D. Dilks asked participants to refer to written submissions and the Support Unit analysis in identifying critical themes or topics where guiding principles should be developed. The following themes or topics were identified:

• Safety;
• Accessibility;
• Integration;
• Full Contribution (ie, persons with disabilities to economic and social environments);
• Flexibility, Phase In and Implementation;
• Objective-based Approach;
• Continuous Quality Improvement / Best Practice;
• Information Sharing;
• Eligibility; and
• Equivalent Fares

The committee asked the Editorial Task Group to prepare draft guiding principles for discussion and approval by the committee at Meeting 9 (see Item M8.8 for Editorial Task Group actions).

M8.7 Discussion of Standard Types

K. Boehmer delivered a presentation on types of standard requirements. Characteristics of principle, objective, performance, prescriptive and management system based standards requirements were described noting that many standards contain various types of requirements (eg, an objective-based standard with underlying performance or prescriptive clauses).

D. Dilks facilitated a discussion asking participants to identify the most critical outcomes that the accessible transportation standard needed to achieve. Identified outcomes included that the standard should:

• Guarantee certainty in performance;
• Be flexible allowing for innovation and phased in implementation;
• Reference other technical standards as appropriate (ie, avoid duplication);
• Consider performance-based requirements for service-related clauses and prescriptive requirements for vehicle safety/design;
• Differentiate between public/subsidized and private/for profit systems;
• Ensure clarity in standards language, application and implementation expectations;
• Be affordable and sustainable;
• Reflect the public interest;
• Ensure progress towards AODA 2005 goals;
• Not inadvertently degrade existing services;
• Ensure safety of all users of the system or facility;
• Be unambiguous, measurable and provide for certainty in enforcement;
• Promote dignity and facilitate independence;
• Encourage implementation as quickly as possible;
• Ensure that the level of service to those with or without disabilities be equal;
• Be clear and easy to understand; and
• Encompass the broad range of disabilities.

D. Dilks then asked participants what type of standard requirements would best be suited to achieve desired outcomes. Participants noted that the standard should:

• Be based on overarching guiding principles that guide the development of specific requirements;
• Include requirements types (ie, performance, prescriptive or system) most appropriate to the purpose of specific clauses, for example performance based for service levels or prescriptive for vehicle design;
• Refer, as appropriate, to other codes or standards for prescriptive elements; and
• Be written such that performance, prescriptive or system requirements are clearly measurable.

M8.8 Development of the Workplan

D. Dilks facilitated development of the committee workplan to Meeting 10 as follows:

M8.9 Next Meetings
The committee decided to convene subsequent meetings as follows:

Meeting 9
Date: November 20 - 21, 2006

Place: Canadian Standards Association
5060 Spectrum Way
Mississauga ON L4W 5N6

Time: 9:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (Day 1)
9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. (Day 2)

Meeting 10
Date: January 25 - 26, 2007
Place: To be determined.

Time: 9:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (Day 1)
9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. (Day 2)

M8.10 New Business
No new business was identified.

M8.11 Adjournment
The Chair adjourned the eight meeting of the Accessible Transportation Standards Development Committee at 2:45 p.m. on October 4, 2006.

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