Disability Commission Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

welcome to members of the public my name is andrea the open meeting law requires that i notify the public that this meeting is recorded therefore please be aware that an audio and visual recording of this meeting is being made by boston city tv part of the city of boston office of cable communications and is being broadcast on xfinity channel 26 RCN channel 13 and Fios channel 962, as well as live streamed on YouTube where a recording will live after the event. To open the meeting, I want to make a few notes about how the meeting is run. As I mentioned, it is being recorded and will be posted on YouTube. Closed captioning is available. There it is. Closed captioning is available. You can access it by clicking the CC button at the bottom of your screen. But if you are having trouble accessing it, please chat me, Andrea Patton, for assistance. ASL interpretation is also available. If you would like to have the ability to multi-pin, to have both interpreters pinned on screen, again, please chat me for assistance. Remember to refrain from interrupting the ASL interpreters to allow time to finish translation before speaking. For the agenda, which I will drop in the chat when I'm done speaking, public input is near the end of the meeting. Residents will be given two minutes for question or comment. If you have a question or comment before that time, please feel free to put it in the chat. If there is time, we may be able to answer the question before then at the discretion of the chair. When it comes time to public input, we'll ask you to use the Zoom raise hand function if you wish to speak or to put your request in the chat. And we will send you a request to unmute to give your comment. And for all of us, not just for public input, please identify yourself before speaking to increase access for our blind and low vision attendees. With that, I will hand it over to our chair for the meeting. Sorry, take it away.

Good evening. Happy first day of the call. I'm so happy to have you. My name is Zari Amiralseni and I'm the chair of this great group. I am a woman with short brown hair with a blurred background. I identify myself as a person with a disability. I'm a wheelchair user and I live in South Boston. Olivia, you can open it.

Sure. I'm Olivia Richard. I am a wheelchair user. I live in Brighton. And I am a middle-aged woman with short brown hair and glasses. I'm white as well.

Sorry, we can't hear you, but you don't appear to be muted.

Yeah, no, I'm not muted. Can you hear me? We can now. OK. I call Paulette. I don't know if she heard me.

I can hear you now. OK. My name is Paulette Durrett. I live in the Mattapan section of Boston. I've been a board member for about five years. I'm an African-American woman with gray hair and glasses.

Thank you, Paulette.

Carl? Did you say me? Yes. OK, yes. My name is Carl Richardson. I am a middle-aged Caucasian male with salt and pepper hair. I'm wearing a light blue button-down shirt. And I identify as a deaf-blind person who lives in Brighton. And I also want to give a shout-out to Mrs. Donahue, who I know is listening.

Thank you, Carl. Tara?

Hi, everyone. I'm Tara Southard. I am a wheelchair user, dirty blonde hair with glasses. I'm white, and I live in the JP Roxbury line. Thank you, Tara. Paul?

Hi, my name's Paul Caron. I live in the West End of Boston. I'm a Caucasian male with short, cropped hair. I serve as a mental health advocate for the Disability Commission and also like to keep my eye on any architectural matters within the city so I can help out in that end and proud to be a board member for the past eight years. Thank you.

Thank you, Paul. Richard?

Thank you, Zari. Richard Glefsky. I live in Back Bay. I'm a white male. Let's say I'm a vintage age and a member of the commission for several years now and happy to see everybody.

Thank you, Richard. Jerry?

Yes, hi, Zari. Thank you so much, and sorry for the late arrival, just finishing up. work and things. I am Jerry Boyd. I currently serve as the vice chair of this governing body and very much proud to do so and honored to do so to work with such a distinguished and hard-working Group of advocates and I live in West Rockbury and I am also a white male. I'm a wheelchair power wheelchair user. And I think. I think Richard said it said it well. I guess someone I'm an older older member of the Commission. Thanks.

Thank you, Jerry. Is there anyone else?

I believe we get to everybody. Yeah, I think we got everything. Everyone but you, Kristen. Oh,

Commissioner? Yes. Hi, everybody. I'm Kristen McCosh. I'm the Disability Commissioner and ADA Title II Coordinator for the City of Boston. I am a woman with blonde hair. I use a power wheelchair. And I have an image of City Hall in my background. I also want to give a shout out to Mrs. Donaghy who happens to be my mom.

Shout out to Mrs. Donaghy. I've met her in person. She's a wonderful person. Thank you very much, Commissioner. All right.

Sorry to confirm, we do have a quorum for votes on the minutes or anything else tonight.

Great. Would someone like to propose to pass the minutes?

I propose that we pass the minutes. If you call, I second.

Any questions? All yeas? Say yay or aye.

Yay.

Aye.

Any abstentions? Great. So I believe the minutes are approved for the month of September. All right. So next, We are actually, we have a presentation tonight, Disability Access for Blue Hill Avenue Project. Matthew Peterson and AJ Courtney from Boston Transportation Department are here. Matthew and AJ, if you're here, please feel free to start. Thank you very much.

Hello, my name is Matthew Peterson. I am a man with medium length black curly hair. I'm in an office in City Hall, so there's concrete all around me. My colleague AJ Courtney is not here today. She's unfortunately under the weather, so I'll be giving this presentation today on behalf of the Boston Transportation Department and the MBTA. And I believe Andrea is going to share my slides. I do want to thank you all for having me here and for the opportunity to present to the Advisory Board, to the Disability Commission through my work with the Transportation Department. I just want to say I work very closely with the Disability Commission on all matter of transportation issues, in particular with folks like Sierra Tilton and Sarah Leong around architectural access and making sure that we're following standards and incorporating their guidance into the work that we do. So with that in mind, today we're looking to present to you some of the updates and changes that have been made to the Blue Hill Avenue project since the last time it came before the public in 2024, or rather 2025 with the 2024 design. We've made a lot of changes and revisions. We're currently in the process over this month of reintroducing that to the public. We've had a number of open houses and town halls this month, and we do have one more next week in Grove Hall. So with that, maybe we can go to the next slide, please. And please, at any time, stop me if something's unclear or if I'm speaking too fast. I do sometimes have a tendency to do that, and I'm trying my best to make sure that I'm speaking at a moderate pace. So today, I do want to go through a bit of the overall project background, which some of you may be more or less familiar with the different aspects of this project, go through some of the design updates that have been made over the last year and a half since the last round of design, talk about some of the issues around disability access that we believe we are addressing, as well as open up some particular questions we're looking for feedback on, as well as talk about how the design process will proceed in the coming months and years and look for your guidance and input on how we can best engage both this advisory board, the Disabilities Commission, and the disability community at large. So with that, we can go for another slide. So just kind of going to go into some project background. Next slide. Blue Hill Avenue is a street in Boston that runs from the Neponset River at Mattapan Square north all the way into Roxbury. This project is on a subsection of Blue Hill Avenue running from Warren Street and Grove Hall south to River Street and the Neponset Bridge at the Neponset River in Mattapan. So this project is a complete reconstruction project. And one thing that we always like to start with is just kind of a recognition that Little Avenue is a very important civic, cultural, and commercial corridor for the city of Boston, as well as a principal thoroughfare. There's about 58,000 residents within half a mile of Blue Hill Avenue, more than 300 businesses across a wide range of commercial districts from Roxbury to Mattapan, and more than a dozen schools, many libraries, senior centers, community centers, and additionally, dozens of churches and other places of worship along the avenue from Grove Hall to Mattapan, serving a wide range of faiths and beliefs. So it's a place where a lot of people are coming together as well as going through, and a lot of our work has been to balance tradeoffs around those needs of access as well as those needs of throughput for such a major roadway. Next slide. This roadway has a history. One of the parts of that history is that in the 50s, the streetcars and trolleys that ran on Blue Hill Avenue were removed in order to make more room for vehicular traffic from outside of the city. Starting in 2009, there was an earlier iteration of this project that looked to improve service for the buses on Blue Hill Avenue. In this iteration, starting in 2019, we have worked with the MBTA to try to path forward to both improve the bus service in Blue Hill Avenue, as well as invest more generally in the street overall. At the present moment, we've secured more than $124 million in local, state, and federal funding in Blue Hill Avenue from Mattapan Square to Grove Hall, which combines with other sources of funding to add up to, I believe, almost $160 million. Next slide. There's many issues with the current infrastructure on Blue Hill Avenue today. The sidewalks are in disrepair. Many curb ramps are not accessible, many of them dating to that project in the 50s that added the traffic islands and took up a trolley. The roadway is in poor condition throughout a lot of the corridor. There's many places that are bumpy, many places that are torn up by utility trenches. There's also a lack of street trees along much of the corridor, much of the street, leading to a lot of heat island effects. throughout Blue Hill Avenue. It's a very wide roadway, which leads to a lot of those negative impacts. There's also street lighting that is principally designed for roadway lighting and therefore doesn't have as much lighting directed towards the sidewalks. And so this leads to a lot of discomfort. We know that people have told us that they don't feel safe in all parts of Blue Hill Avenue at night because of that dim lighting. And so that's been a focus of ours as well. There's also a crash requiring EMS response about every three days on average on Blue Hill Avenue. So every three days somebody's having, in some ways, the worst day of their life on Blue Hill Avenue because of the roadway safety. This is in the top 3% of Boston streets for the number of motor vehicle crashes per half mile. um and safety has been a big focus of this project as well crosswalks are long and infrequent which encourages i think more crossing at non-crosswalk locations than we see in other places all of those crosswalks are also very long and sometimes skewed at odd angles one of the worst offenders is the crosswalk in your morning star baptist church in mattapan which is around 110 feet long crossing across around four or five lanes of traffic, depending on how you count it, with no signalized protection across the middle of an intersection. Additionally, throughout the day, more than 50% of Blue Hill Avenue travelers are on buses. It is one of the busiest bus corridors in all of New England. It sees an incredible amount of traffic across 10 different routes that traverse the corridor. Those routes, if you add them all up, carry about 40,000 riders a day, which is about the same as the Blue Line, kind of crisscrossing the corridor. These are the routes that go on and off. It's not just the 28. It's also the 31, which branches off to Forest Hills, the 29, which runs up to Eggleston, the 23, the 22, a number of different routes that service Blue Hill Avenue and come on and off sort of like a braid. On the street itself, though, 20,000 daily bus trips start around just on Blue Hill Avenue. So if you just count the people who are traveling purely on Blue Hill Avenue and not just other riders on those routes whose trips might be outside of Blue Hill, more than 20,000 trips a day are associated with Blue Hill Avenue when somebody is on the bus at some part of the day. And that's comparable to the number of people driving on Blue Hill Avenue each day. Next slide. So I'm going to walk through some of the design updates we've made since the last time this was in front of the public, which is around at this point almost two years ago. Next slide. A big thing is that in the previous iteration of the project, one of the things that we were talking about was principally a bus lane project with some repairs on the side. What we had heard was that that was not sufficient, and we went back and got additional money. And so with that additional money, we are now looking to reconstruct the infrastructure from building face to building face, starting with the sidewalks. And so what that means is around six to seven miles of fully rebuilt new concrete sidewalks We'll be ensuring that the accessible path of travel in all locations is constructed of concrete, ideally with saw-cut joints per specification, with new and improved crosswalks in all locations. Next slide. It includes 200 new street trees, including replanting, for a total of 179 net new trees, which will hopefully, you know, will serve to reduce the heat island effect as well as improve air quality along the corridor, as well as improve drainage. Next slide. This also includes, rather than the previous design had bike lanes on both sides of the street, this includes a bike path on one side of the street running between Woodhaven Street near the Cintos and the railroad in Mattapan all the way north to Franklin Park. This does mean that there won't be bike lanes in the kind of commercial corridors within Mattapan Square and Grove Hall. Next slide. This will also include a full replacement of the entire street lighting system. Roughly 13% of the entire project budget will go towards the street lighting system replacement, bringing it in line with modern codes for highway lighting, roadway lighting, as well as for pedestrian scale lighting with dual pendants illuminating both the roadway and the sidewalk. Next slide. We're actually adding parking compared to the existing condition. So because the bus stops are moving into the center of the roadway, we will be adding more parking spaces than exist today. And all of those, when we do the full layout, will also comply with PROAG requirements for accessible parking spaces and the frequency of those accessible parking spaces on any given block. Next slide. We will fully restore and resurface the roadway and fully reconstruct the roadway and relocate utilities and improve drainage. Next slide. And finally, we will also construct the bus lanes in the middle that benefit those 40,000 riders on the 10 bus routes serving Blue Hill Avenue. And so I think a big thing is that, you know, previously we had a bus lane project, and I think we've really tried to make sure that we are investing in the entire roadway, particularly making sure that we are improving accessibility on all of the elements of that. Next slide. So we want to focus in on disability access. We have other materials that are going to be up on our website for the overall project. We want to focus in on a few elements that we think you might have particular interest in and then have some discussion about that. Next slide. So on sidewalks, we will be maintaining and enhancing an accessible width along all sidewalks throughout the project area. This will include a complete reconstruction of sidewalks with cement concrete for flat, consistent, and more navigable paths for people with different mobility needs and using different kinds of mobility devices. This also includes ensuring that we are, you know, given that it's a full reconstruction, we have an opportunity to relocate utility boxes, light poles, street lights, so that when we have a corner, we don't have everything kind of crammed into that same area that people need to wait to cross the street. So this will be an opportunity to fix kind of problem points and choke points within the accessible path of travel along Blue Hill Avenue. Next slide. That includes replacing where we have existing brick sidewalks with accessible concrete sidewalks. So in Mattapan Square, where the existing brick sidewalks are often a source of problems for trip hazards, I myself have tripped on these sidewalks while visiting the square as part of my work on this project. It is something that within the accessible path of travel, we'll be replacing that with cement concrete. There may be brick detailing or decoration, but anywhere that someone is intended to walk or move will be concrete, making sure that we have a continuous accessible path along Blue Hill Avenue from end to end of this project area.

Next slide.

The bike path, which I know is going to be a source of some discussion, consists of a two-way bike path along the west side of Blue Hill Avenue between Woodhaven Street and Franklin Park. This basically consists of taking the space currently in the roadway for painted bike lanes and consolidating it onto one side of the street. For reference, Woodhaven Street is around where Simcoe's is, or the rail at the Fairmont Line bridge under Blue Hill Avenue is in Mattapan. And this will run all the way up along Franklin Park up towards Seaver Street. This path will be plowed during winter. And so this is also something where We see this as a potential benefit where there will be, at least on one side of the street but accessible via crosswalks, a guaranteed clear path all winter long because it will be plowed like a bike lane in the event that the sidewalks are not completely cleared along the street. One thing that we're very keen to continue development working on and something that is absolutely not set in stone at this point is the design details of this path, including and especially pedestrian crossings of this path and how those interact with signals, how those interact with different kinds of speed control devices. One thing I do want to say is that the path is separated from the rest of the sidewalk by the tree pits and the furnishing zone. So it's something where the order of operations is you have the travel lanes, parking lane, a buffer zone, bike path, tree pits and furnishing zone. and then the sidewalk. And this allows for a, we are also happy to talk about what kinds of delineation might also be best to incorporate within that furnishings owner at the edge of the bike path to make sure that whether it's great separation, whether it is a tactile delineator, whether it is another kind of feature, we're very keen to work to make sure that we get that right. And that is absolutely something that is still up for design and that's gonna be another focus of our design over the coming months and years. Next slide. Station platforms. So I do want to say one big thing is that a lot of our station, all the station platforms on this have been informed by the review of the Columbus Avenue bus platforms that was led by the Institute for Human-Centered Design in collaboration with the Commission of People with Disabilities and the MBTA Systemwide Accessibility Group. And so a lot of that led towards a different approach to some of the design of some of the elements of the station platforms, including a wider width. The Columbus Avenue bus platforms vary from seven feet to nine and a half feet. These platforms will have a more consistent, I believe, 10 to 11 foot width, allowing for a much more spacious area on the boarding platform, as well as a wider accessible path of travel and more unobstructed, both a more unobstructed pedestrian and mobility device boarding areas and level landing areas, as well as more amenities such as seating, along with companion spaces and other kinds of amenities. There will be canopies for shade and shelter, similar to any of the newer green line stations that have been constructed, including benches under the canopy, as well as seating areas under the canopy for wheelchair users or other kinds of mobility device users. They'll have real-time arrival screens as well as audio announcements for arrivals, both automatic upon arrival as well as on a timed basis. and push button activated for accessibility. There will be front door landing areas and rear door clear zones for both berths. Some of these stops will have spaces for multiple buses to stop at a time. And those will have, both places on the platform will have level landing areas and clear areas at both doors. Or all three doors, because some of these are going to be sized for the three door articulated buses. They're also going to have emergency call boxes, crash barriers between the travel lanes of the platform to ensure protection of passengers waiting, lighting, detectable warning panels along the platform edge, as well as a second emergency egress, or in the case of this one, two entry points at all platforms. So while some platforms will have two signalized points of ingress, allowing for ingress from the platform or egress from two points. There are some places where there will be a single point of ingress, but there will be a secondary point of egress for emergency situations or for situations where someone needs to leave, but for some reason the other entrance is obstructed. Next slide. So... We have here a few slides that are places where I think we are explicitly asking for your feedback. I think I also welcome your feedback in other areas as well. But these are some of the areas that we definitely want to hear input on and are looking for guidance. So next slide. What I'm going to do is I'm going to quickly go through these and then open it up so that I can just kind of say those things and then people can point back to any of them if they would like. One of them is around accessible wayfinding. One thing that came out of some of the review of the Columbus Avenue design was a concern around knowing when you have to cross to an island to board the bus versus when you wait at the curb and how that can be communicated both through auditory messaging and through any kinds of tactile or other kinds of wave landing. So that's something I think we're going to be looking. There's a few things that we've heard, whether that's an auditory announcement saying, you know, walk sign is on to cross to center bus platform or having the name of the bus stop on there saying which direction the buses are going at that platform. We've also heard from the MBTA, from their group, from their side around some ideas around post-mounted or ground-mounted wayfinding devices. I think we're looking to understand from folks what kinds of tactile or auditory wayfinding messages or systems would be most useful. Next slide. For traffic signal operations, I think we're interested in understanding what kinds of things might be more or less preferable in terms of different kinds of crossing speed considerations and assumptions. For signal phasing, there's some places where we want to understand priorities around one crossing the entire street at once versus having crossings come up more frequently. And we're also investigating signals with pedestrian crossings that are called by the arriving buses. Carl? You're muted. I can wait till the end. OK. Next slide. Regarding the bike path crossing design, we know from the PET Blue study that the Commission on People with Disabilities executed, did I believe within the last couple of years, that there's a lot of issues that come into play when you have pedestrians, particularly people with mobility or sensory differences crossing a bike lane. And so I think we want to make sure that if we are since we are introducing this bike facility as a path that is going to be closer to the sidewalk. Right. That's something that we want to make sure that we're designing in a way that is safe and in a way that works well for everyone using it. I think we also expect this path to receive a lot of use in wintertime by people who are maybe trying to just get around and avoid some houses still on the sidewalks. But we want to make sure that we're designing this in a thoughtful way. And we'd love to hear from you about what kinds of features would be most useful at the dedicated pedestrian crossings of the bike lanes, as well as what kinds of delineation between the bike lane and the sidewalk areas is most helpful. Whether that's just pure grade separation or whether there's other elements that would be helpful in addition. Next slide. In terms of station design elements, this one is quite general, but I think really just wanting to make sure what other additional considerations in addition to the ones that we mentioned before that we should potentially keep in mind as stations are designed. You know, in some ways there's a, it's a, The stations are quite simple in that we're trying to provide space for a bus, so we're trying to essentially create a bus stop in the roadway, but I think making sure that we are thinking about all the different kinds of amenities or other kinds of features that might be desirable, I think we're interested in understanding those considerations as well. Next slide. I think that's it. So that is all of my materials. If there, we can open it up to questions, but thank you again for the time and the ability to present to this group.

Thank you, Matt. This was very thorough and we really appreciate it. I believe Carl had his hand up. Carl, you want to ask your question?

Yeah. So first of all, I took part in the IHCD study. I will say that I am blind and hard of hearing, so I have a dual sensory loss. So I will tell you up front that I hate bus stops in the middle of the road for a number of reasons. One, from an orientation and mobility perspective, you have to know they're there. How do you know they're there? If you're looking for a bus, if they're in the middle of the street. Two, you mentioned a minute ago, to cross the street, I have to cross five zones. As a blind person, that scares the crap out of me. Five different zones for me to figure out. And I'm concerned about sharing a crossing with a bike lane, because while you may signalize the signal for the APSs for automobiles to stop, and you can hear traffic moving. You don't hear bike riders moving. often don't look at people crossing. So I'm just telling you as a blind person who has spoken to a number of other blind individuals, we don't, I know it's going to happen, but we don't love the idea of bus stops in the middle of the street and wish they were on the street by the sidewalk because they would be easier. But since they're not, you've taken all those factors into consideration.

Yeah, I think that is something that we're absolutely looking to take into consideration. I think we are looking to work very closely with the outputs of that review of the Columbus Avenue bus lanes to mitigate as many of the concerns as possible. I would like to say for any one of these bus platforms, The crossing to the bus platform won't be crossing five lanes. It'll be crossing, I believe, at most two to get to the lanes. But there are multiple zones between there, between the sidewalk to the bike lane and then to the platform itself. But we are looking to mitigate some of the concerns that we've heard about from the Columbus Avenue bus lanes based on that study.

And every crossing to the bus stop is going to have an APF?

Correct, yes.

Matthew, will they be the newest generation that say the name? They're not just a chirp, right? Are they tactile, viral, et cetera?

So all of these will have tactile features and will say the name of the stop. They will say the name of the road that you're crossing to get to it. I think we're very interested to understand what is the right kind of message to put on that that is the most useful. What is the right kind of information to put on the vehicle like as tactile wayfinding on posts or poles near or adjacent to those crossings, there will be no unsignalized crossings to the bus stops, and there will be no unsignalized crossings of Blue Hill Avenue.

And when we get to the island where the buses are, let's say it's an island that has multiple bus routes, how is the blind person going to know exactly where to stand to catch which bus?

That is something that I think we're going to work through with SWA, because it's a similar problem that they encounter at some of their busways, where they do have multiple berths for multiple routes serving a given spot.

And I know, I can't tell you how many buses I've missed. We come to that, and I don't necessarily hear the bus announcement, because I'm out of here. So...

Yeah, I think that's something where the answer could be that, you know, pickups only occur at the front of the stop, and maybe the secondary births are more for letting people off. That's something that hasn't been decided yet, and I think that's something that we will look to make sure is considered as we figure out how that works with some of these multi-birth stops.

Thank you. I don't want to take any more of your time. Thank you.

Thank you. I believe, Richard, you're next. Go ahead.

Thank you, Sarah. First of all, Matthew, incredibly comprehensive presentation. Thank you. One thing that's unclear to me is where this is in the process of things. I'm sure all of us know that this is an incredibly important thoroughfare in the city. So I'm curious where it stands and how long this is going to take. And as someone who's significantly hearing impaired, one of my concerns is that not every bike rider is terribly sensitive to pedestrians. and i don't know what you may be thinking of doing in terms of those with auditory challenges being able to be most able to navigate the street because it's not like a bicycle rider has a horn that even I can hear. Where I live in Back Bay, it's a real problem. The bicycle is going down the wrong sides of the street, cutting in front of cars. It's very hazardous. And Boo Avenue, which I know somewhat well, it's a pretty busy street. and so I worry about safety issues too.

So I do think that one of the things that we are looking to, that I think is very good feedback, and I think that is something that we've heard before. There are a couple options we have for how to improve that particular interaction. I think one thing is that at some places, not in Boston, but there are other places where there are lights that detect an oncoming bicycle and can activate some kind of flashing light at crossings. Because we are going to be signalizing all of the crossings, there will be equipment already installed at more of the crossings along the corridor. So even though it's not necessarily a signal, we can also have things that tell you as someone crossing the bike path that there is a bicycle coming from one direction or the other. So that's one thing that we can do to provide more feedback to someone with auditory and auditory disability to be able to see something that they may not be able to hear. I think in terms of feedback to bicyclists, I think we are very interested in investigating different kinds of, whether it's rumble strips or other kinds of geometric features that can seek to enforce physically and geometrically some of the constraints that we'd like them to, whether that's through narrowing of the bike facility near crossings so that people do have to slow down, just because it's a little bit of a choke point, and also a shorter distance for somebody crossing the facility to cross. whether that's through things like bumps or rumble strips or some kinds of things that kind of give a much more clear signal to someone who's moving along and a signal that is clearer the faster they are going, which I think is something that we're looking to do. Ultimately, the goal that we're going to try to achieve is compliance with the yielding rule, which is that people moving along the bike path must yield to pedestrians crossing. And that's something that, as you probably know, we haven't gotten perfectly right in many of our designs that we have throughout the city. There are some places where I think we've gotten it better than others. And I do think we're looking to really try to make sure that this is something where we're getting it as good as possible. But that's something. I think I got... most of your second question, but I apologize if there was an earlier part. Oh, where we are in the process. So a big part of this process right now is that we have gone through, we're in the year seven of this round of this project, and a big part of where we are now is that we have completed kind of what we call the 30% design, or kind of essentially the surface concept. And so what I think, if you look at this design, what you should see as most fixed is kind of the operating concept of the roadway. Buses in the middle. We've figured out where we're putting the different turn access points and the traffic points. We've figured out kind of the number of stops and that has been, we've had a lot of engagement over the last few years around should the stop go here or should the stop go there? Should the cross go here or should the cross go there? How does the traffic work? So we've had a lot of engagement around that. What I think is still very much to be determined is a lot of basically everything outside of the travel lanes. the design of the streetscape, the details around the furnishing zones and street furnishing areas, intersection designs in detail. So there's a lot of things that have not yet been determined, and those are going to continue to be designed over the rest of this year and through the entirety of 2027. And we're going to be continuing engagement both with your group as well as other groups throughout the city in order to get those details right. the earliest possible that this project could enter construction would be 2028. And I fully expect that date to slip into the future. But that is the earliest possible based on our current timelines from the MBTA, who does hold the contract for this project, the earliest possible that construction could start.

There's an old adage, something like, life happens while you're making plans. Is there anything that this body can do to urge somebody to move this project more expeditiously?

I don't know if that's for me to answer.

That's a conversation we can have after probably But thank you very much, Richard and Matt. Jerry, you have your hand up.

Thank you, Jerry. And thank you, Matthew. I echo my colleague's sentiments. This was a tremendous presentation. You gave us a lot of information. And you gave us a lot of opportunities for future engagement. Along those lines, my question is along those lines, how best would you like us to give you feedback? I'm sure you're not expecting all of our feedback this evening, and I'm sure you wouldn't be capable, that wouldn't be fair for us to inundate, you know, you would ideas now or whatnot. So how best would you like our feedback? Or I don't know if you're the one that could say that, but how best would you like us to give you the feedback or give you to go back to our constituencies and gather feedback and give it to you? How best can we do that?

Yeah, I would say I certainly don't expect the door is not closing on when I want your feedback. It is not all in this meeting. It is not all this week. It is not all this month or even all this year. I would say that in the near term, what would be helpful is for the elements that we've that I've presented. And if you have any other questions, I put my email in the chat and I would suggest that you can also coordinate with Andrea or other folks with the commission to reach me and to get that feedback to me i'm happy to take feedback and writing i'm also happy to meet with folks individually or or a phone call or whatever would be most convenient for folks or any other kind of communication so we are happy to receive that feedback on an ongoing basis as it is relevant for you and as you think of it. And if there are any other additional questions, definitely please ask them to us. Additionally, I think we also hope to be back before this body again for other issues with updates. And if you guys are asking us for, I'm taking some notes. I will also look to the notes that are produced by the commission and by this board. I'm taking notes. I will also look to be able to, like, the next time I come back, or ideally before that, be responsive to those or to any other questions or requests that I receive in the interim. So the answer is, by any means necessary, I'm happy to receive your feedback. Great.

And I would love, you know, I would love, you know, as this project moves along, I would love for us to to be able to maybe tour aspects of it, give you practical feedback. Hopefully we can make that happen as well. Because I know for me to give the most practical feedback I can, I need to really see it, see what you're planning, try different things. I wasn't able to participate in the walkthrough of Columbus Ave. I would have loved to have been able to do that, but I would hope that there's some avenue to have the disability community participate that way as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we'll definitely continue to work with the commission and figure out what the right way and best way and most productive way is to work with people on that. I'm very interested in doing that. I think especially around design questions, around bike lane crossings, and around station platform access, and around what kinds of signalization, geometric features, and just the arrangement of those things at street corners. I think we're going to try to work to get into the details of that and then bring some of those back to you to talk about it because I think that that's really going to be where things that may seem insignificant to a designer or to myself or to someone else who just isn't thinking about it may make the biggest difference for somebody who's trying to access their basic needs of mobility to work. So I personally care a lot about getting this right. And I do commit to coming back before this body and coming back in whatever way with whatever information you all want to see. Because I do really care about making sure that we're meeting the needs of people to get around. Ultimately, this project is about mobility and accessibility. While I think we're not going to get everything completely right or perfect, I think that we aim to at least improve things in many places, mitigate challenges in other places, and provide ultimately a much improved and accessible public realm for the whole corridor. Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I believe I saw Paul's hand up earlier. Paul, do you still have a question?

No, it was already answered. Thank you. I just want to say thank you to Matthew for doing a great job.

Thank you. I have one question for you, Matt. Will every temporary detour be accessible to wheelchair users and clearly communicated to people who are blind or no vision?

Is that for during construction? I think that is something that we are looking to guarantee. One of the big things about this project, and it's come up a lot in our community conversations, is around the process of construction management. We expect the construction along this corridor, the total time that any construction is active anywhere, to be around two to three years, around three to four construction seasons, depending. It's obviously optimistic and best case scenario, but that's kind of what is currently projected. That doesn't mean that every single street is going to be dug up completely for two whole years. It means that things may be phased, moving up and down the corridor, moving in and out in the road. One benefit of this project is that because there is the existing median within the middle of the roadway, we're able to demolish that first, and then that gives us extra space to work with so that we're able to provide for parking, for detours, for anything that needs to be happening within the roadway, rather than having something where, oh, we got to go down to no parking for like two weeks or something, right? Ideally, we're hoping, and this is something we're working very closely with to make sure that we work with businesses and residents and members of the disability community that we are putting instructions, instruction bidding documents. That's a really important part of it, to ensure that the contractors are given very clear instructions about what is and is not acceptable. One of the other things that we're going to be establishing for this project is a dedicated, someone whose full-time job is just being a project liaison, for the project itself so that whether you are a small business, whether you're someone who moves along Blue Hill Avenue, whether you're a bus rider, you know, and ideally there's also going to be a field office, so you know who to call and that ideally they have a direct channel both to the contractor as well as to the contract owners at the MBTA and to the contract permitters at the city to ensure that if there is a problem it can be resolved expeditiously. This is something the city and state are working very closely and have been talking a lot about how we can ensure that there's much better coordination than there sometimes is between all of our various efforts on stuff like this.

This is Andrea. I would just add, Zari and everyone, if there are construction detours that you see between now and, you know, 2028, we've got some time, that are good. Especially take pictures, send them to Matthew. The more we can compile very obvious examples for contractors about what is acceptable and what is good. Right, we have more pictures of bad than we have of good right now when we do these trainings. Yeah, send us that information now and we can help make sure that at the start of the project we have very clear rules for contractors to hold them accountable to throughout the project. If I can offer you up for that, Matthew.

Yeah, no, I mean, certainly we're very happy to receive that feedback. I think, again, that I think is a great example of the kind of, also, that goes also for design elements. If you see good things, either here or in another place, or you learn about them from somewhere, or someone sends you something that worked well for them somewhere else in another city, another country, please send it to us, let us know. If you see something also similar, I mean, we also, we are reviewing the PEDBLU study and the IHCD study. But if there are other things that you see around the city that you think are especially bad, and you really want to make sure we avoid that, that you're worried about that possibly occurring on this project, please send those to us as well, and we will try to incorporate that as we go through the rest of the design process.

I don't see any other questions. Are there any other questions from anyone? Okay, thank you so much Matt. We really appreciate your time and your commitment to this work and we look forward to having you back and hopefully with a lot of great updates and once we gather more feedback from our members and community, we'll make sure that they'll send them your way. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. And again, my email is in the chat, and you can reach out to Andrea or anyone else at the Commission to get in touch with me. So thank you all.

All right. Great. Thank you very much, everyone. So next is my report. No, actually, I apologize. Let me see. Yes, my chair's report. So actually, I don't really have much to report this month. The only thing that I had was something that I believe Commissioner is going to cover, which is around civic duty and voting for November, which is really a priority for all of us. And I also wanted to cover some information around a outage around Green Line. So I know that there was a green light service that is gonna be suspended across the several sections. From September 26th to October 4th, the city states that shuttle buses will be accessible and accessible van service will be provided between Kenmore and North Station. Symphony Station will remain closed through May 20th. 29, for accessibility improvement. And that's about all I have to report. So next is Commissioner's report.

Thank you, Zari. Hello, everybody. Thank you all for joining us tonight. I will give you my report now. One thing I want to mention, I didn't put it in my slides because it's not really our field of work, but wondering if everybody heard about the ride changing policy and allowing people to bring bags. I thought maybe our friends who are on the RTAG may want to talk about that later if they have the info, but just wanted to let people know. Okay, before we get into my report. All righty, so first of all, I wanted to give some updates from the City of Boston. We are continuing to do open streets, including open Newbury Street. There are two neighborhood open streets left, Sunday, October 4th, and Sunday, October 18th. The fourth is in Austin-Brighton, and the 18th is in Roslindale. And I wanted to welcome any board members who are interested to join us. We'll have an outreach table. You're welcome to come sit with us to talk about the commission talk about your work, and just interact with the community. Newberry Street is open one more Sunday, October 11th, and then they are planning to do one additional Sunday in December. And this isn't as much of an outreach event as the Neighborhood Open Streets are. At Neighborhood Open Streets, there's a lot of tabling from city departments and other organizations. Newberry Open Streets is basically a car-free boulevard so people can walk and shop and just enjoy the space downtown. It's a great experience if you've never done it. It's really nice to be able to use all the travel lanes and the whole street as a pedestrian walkway. So you have one more time to experience it in the fall and then possibly in December. Mayor Wu is continuing to hold neighborhood coffee hours. There are two more scheduled right now. One is on Friday, September 25th. It's Friday in South End at 10 a.m. and one is in Alston-Wrighton on next Wednesday, September 30th at 10 a.m. It's a chance to meet the mayor in person, to bring up any concerns, just say hi, and get to meet other city staff to talk about issues that are important to the disability community. And we'll go to the next slide. So I do have some department updates. As Zari mentioned, We are really focused on helping people with disabilities exercise their civic duties and make sure they take advantage of all the ways that they can impact the local government. So every year we hold our civic engagement day for people with disabilities. Last year we switched to a virtual information session rather than a live event because we want to make it as easy as possible for people to attend. So it's going to be next Wednesday, September 30th from 6 to 7.30 p.m. on Zoom. It's one of our four annual large community events. People who attend can learn about voting, boards and commissions, testifying hearings, all the things that you can do with local government to have an impact on policies and programs and really the way the city is run. Confirmed departments who are attending will be able to see toward budgeting. They are presented at the board, as many of you may remember. Planning department has also giving a presentation to the board, city council, elections, and arts and cultures, arts and culture. We're also looking for the office of neighborhood services to attend so people can get to meet their neighborhood liaison and learn about giving input on things that happen in the neighborhood. The file was emailed to you along with the board materials, so please share it widely with your neighbors. Our next event coming up in October is for National Disability Awareness Month. A lot of you may be familiar with this. It's a national initiative celebrating October in recognition of people with disabilities and employment. So for the last many years, we've been doing a series of four webinars on financial empowerment. This year, we're going to pivot to doing one live webinar, and that is our Pathways to Employment in the City of Boston. It really breaks down barriers for people with disabilities who'd like to get a job with the city. So we have people from human resources departments come to talk about what types of jobs they have open, what the requirements are, talking about residency requirements. People in the webinar can ask questions. So it's a way to get in front of human resources staff and learn about working for the city. We're also going to push out our pre-recorded webinars from previous years. We have done one on financial empowerment, like banking learning about different lending and saving products, the triple A's of housing, which is finding affordable, accessible, and available housing, and a webinar on workers' rights. And then after all of these webinars, we are going to hold a live Q&A session where people can join the Pathways Act or watch the recordings, and that will be the first meeting of them. And that's just a time for anybody in the disability community to come back and ask us questions and follow up if they want to know more about any of the webinars. A flyer on this will be sent out next week after Civic Engagement Day. We want to try to keep people, make sure they're not confused about which events are when, because it's a busy season. So please help us spread the word about these webinars once again. We haven't sent that out yet. We sent out the Civic Engagement flyer. Okay, next slide. So two more updates, elections and accessible voting. We know that there's a general election coming up in November, November 3rd, and the city of Boston has just appointed a new executive director of the election department, Kerry Jordan. We've worked with Kerry for a long time. He worked in DO-IT, Department of Innovation and Technology. He worked with the city council. So I think he's gonna be a really good partner when it comes to looking at accessible voting equipment, because he's really good at technology and he understands access. We've been partners with him for a month. So as I said, the general election is the third. Options for accessible voting include early voting, go-find-mail, AutoMark. And we will also be, I'll have more of my report next month about voting, but I just want to let people know that this year, there are a number of ballot questions. I think I heard So it's really important to do some research before you go to the polls or else you'll be there for a long time trying to read all the questions and figure out how you want to vote. So more information on that. But as many of you probably know, the Secretary of State held a series of vendor fairs on the assistive equipment to get input from the disability community. Several city of Boston staff and some of our advisory board members attended the fair at Perkins School in Washington. Thank you very much for those of you who were able to attend. And we're still working with the Secretary of State's office to host an event there in the city of Boston. But we've been asked to wait until the November election is over so we can really focus on this. Because right now, all the resources of the state are focused on the election. All the cities' priorities are geared towards that, and states. So we don't want to have any distraction. So we figure right after the November election, which is just over a month away now, we will send the advisory board's letter to the Secretary of State, and we will follow up on trying to get a vendor fair scheduled in the city. One other update I have from our department is on autonomous vehicles. So the city is in the early stages of looking at the benefits and challenges of autonomous vehicles, and that's across the board. That's how it's going to impact everything in the city, from traffic to pedestrian safety to deliveries to the labor market. People who drive now have to do this. So it's a really big picture issue. And a lot of it won't be decided by the city, as Cal knows. A lot of this will be decided at the state level. But Mayor Wu did start up a working group of stakeholders from the communities that will be impacted. So as I mentioned, labor, older adults, and people with disabilities. So these working groups will be meeting and producing a report of draft recommendations to Mayor Wu. And we're at the very beginning stages of this. There's no autonomous vehicles that are deployed in the city. We're not looking to have them deployed anytime soon. And in fact, they couldn't be deployed until this movement in the state level. But we are looking to give input early, because we don't want it to be a situation like Uber and Lyft, where the live shares were already up and running without any thought of accessibility. So Carl has agreed to join the work group, along with somebody from BCIL, somebody from And we will work closely together and we will report back. And I know that there was a letter of support from the advisory board to the mayor about autonomous vehicles that will also be sent to the mayor. All right, next slide. And I think this is my last slide. And again, I think this is a great way to wrap up my report tonight because The presentation from that was extremely thorough, like you all said, and I so appreciate you paying attention and asking such really intelligent questions because it's seven o'clock almost on a Wednesday night and I know you all work and you have families, so really, really appreciate all the work that you do. I put in some of our enabling legislation really more for our new board members. I know not everybody's here tonight, but just to give a history of the commission, my office was established in 1970. And this kind of is a little bit confusing. It's the conversations we were having with you, Richard, at the beginning when you were appointed, like differences between the commission office and the commission board. So it's kind of all, it's a little bit confusing for me when it's 1970. But then in 2009, the city of Boston adopted MGL Chapter 40, Section 8J, which establishes the commission that you also have. And then we have advisory board bylaws, which were last updated in 2020. So feel free to click on those links and leave them over. And if you have any questions, if you want to do any work on the bylaws, you know, that's up to you as a board. You can always bring that to the executive committee. We'd be happy to support that. And then I just wanted to break down a little bit of like how I see your work. And after I read the MGL section and the bylaws, I really think it's about 50-50 of advising that's really the main role of the aga commissions to give input to the administration at board meetings in the events of community meetings and then the other half of the award should focus on providing feedback on disability issues um you know to well actually that's the same thing sorry i was going to say about 50 percent of what should be giving input and then the other 50 percent should be sharing the input uh sharing information with the communities so something like google have um that we just talked about You were asking like, how can we get input? Well, one big way that you can help get input is to send out the slides to your networks. If you have email lists, please share this information widely because we want all the feedback we can get. And the issues that you raised may be things that the city never thought of. So if we can broaden this information to get more input, the city will just have that much more information to work with in order to increase access. So I just wanted to mention this because It can really improve the process. If we can improve the process, it will increase your income. And I know you write letters, but I really think that a way to share, if you share information, that's a great way to increase the voice of people with disabilities in the city. Because you really are the eyes, ears, and voice of people with disabilities in Boston. So I want you to take advantage of that as best you can. So I was going to ask board members if they're interested in maybe identifying two or three groups that you can share information with on a regular basis. It could be groups that you already belong to. I mentioned PowerTech earlier. Zari, I know you do some groups at Mass General. Kyle, I know you're on a bunch of committees. I don't know everybody's by heart, but I do know that you're all very connected in different groups. So feel free to follow up with us by email and let us know if you'd like to do that or we can talk about it now. And then also let us know if you have any free time to work on issues or a passion club. We can always plug you into the monthly... Disability Commission meetings. They're on Wednesdays at a meeting, I believe, for the meetings. And we can always talk to you about other community meetings that you can attend or help to get people to go to a couple we sent out a few weeks ago about Boyd Stadium and things like that. So again, I just want to make sure that everybody knows that they have this opportunity to give input directly to the administration. it's kind of a rare thing in cities that we have such access to the mayor and her administration because a lot of things don't go up but we do so we really want to hear your voice and listen to what we have to say so i am going to end my report here but before we go to the next agenda item i do want to pass the mic to my chief of staff andrew

Thank you, Commissioner. Yes, while there is not a Chief of Staff report to the board, Commissioner is giving me a slide so that I can let you all know that this will be my last advisory board meeting as the Chief of Staff for the Disabilities Commission. I have accepted the offer to join the Boston Centers for Youth and Family as their new Chief of Staff. I will transition in early October before our October board meeting. I'm still with the city, still very much passionate about disability access. Maybe calling on all of you to give me advice about your local BCYF center. But yes, this will be my last meeting and I will miss working with all of you on a monthly basis more than I can say.

Yeah, we can't thank Andrea enough. She's really the heart and soul of our office in so many ways, and the technical person who runs these meetings and many other meetings. So it's bittersweet for me and for my staff, but obviously wish Andrea all the best in her next career journey. So I will stop talking now and take questions if anybody has any.

This is Carl.

Go ahead, Carl.

I just want to say as a person who's been on the board since 2009, if you can believe it, that Andrea is one of the better chiefs of staff that we have. And I think she's done an amazing job and she will be surely missed, but I know she will not be gone because she'll be just serving another department in the city of Boston where access will remain front and forward. And I just want to let her know that we're all willing to work with her in her new role and to thank her for her hard work over the past few years.

Thank you, Carl. I want to second that and just say thank you so much, Andrea, for all your support of helping me learn all the roadmap to being a chair. And I still rely on you heavily. each time, so I wish you just a great success. I am sure you'll do wonderful things for the community that you're going to be working with, and I am sure and I hope that we have that opportunity to work with you on different projects, but I don't want to take too much time. Richard, do you have your hand up?

I just want to third that, and also Andrea has said to you that if there's anything that we can coordinate with the Baker Center in your new role, just let me know and we can work on it.

Andrea already has a list of projects that we're working on with BCUIF, so we don't want to hold her down too much, but we will follow up soon.

Thank you. I just want to first of all say thank you, Commissioner, for a great report. There seems to be a lot going on, and we should be gearing up for the voting season. I am so excited to participate, although I registered for at-home voting, so I don't know if I'll be going physically somewhere to vote, but I still look forward to participating, especially as an immigrant being in this country for over 40 years, I really value that right to vote. So I hope you all take advantage of that and participate. I'm just wondering if there is, you mentioned that you would like us to take the information that you provide in these meetings back to our communities. And I'm just wondering, are there ways that you would recommend for us to disseminate the information? For example, MGH, MGB has a Facebook, which goes to the outside world. Are there ways for us to engage in such a way that we can make sure it relates to our specific communities? And how can we do it? in a way that makes sense? And then do you want us to also encourage people to attend these meetings? Because I know that we want to make sure that Boston is well represented in these meetings. So any suggestions that you have would be appreciated.

Yeah, we would love to increase participation in these meetings. That's one of the easiest things you can do. Just send out the invitation. We'll send it to you. You can follow it on to your contacts. And one thing that might be an easy suggestion if you're interested, since you are all on this board, you know, appointed by the mayor, like I said, it's a very esteemed position, you could take the opportunity at some of your other groups to give a monthly update on what this board's doing, what this commission's doing. Like, sorry, if you have a PRG meeting every month or a dairy, like, out-tag meeting, you could just give a five-minute report on the Boston Disability Commission activities. or a five-minute update on events that are happening in the city. That's a super easy way to do it. Olivia, if you're on any BHA councils, you know, we'd love to get the word out that way. But I think, sorry, maybe we can brainstorm at the executive committee meetings about ways we can do that. Because, yeah, getting people to come to these meetings would be huge because they get to give import to right to the city. And then we hear people complain about things, which is valid. But instead of just complaining, give your input and then, you know, fix it. So, yeah, let's follow up with the executive committee. I don't want to take too much time.

Olivia? Oh, hey, sorry. This is Olivia. Andrea, you're going to be missed. And... you know november 3rd we'll all be busy with our voting and november 4th i say we send a message to the secretary of state andrew won't be here but i will be sure to prioritize that thank you

Zahra, you got really quiet again. We're having trouble hearing you. It's like your microphone moved, but it didn't.

Yes, I'm sorry. Is this better? Yes. Okay. I'll just sit very close to my screen. Thank you. You might see my face in front of you, but sorry about that. So next we have architectural access report by Patricia Mendez. Patricia? Thank you, Zari. Hello, everyone.

My name is Patricia Mendez. I'm the Director of Architectural Access for the Commission for Persons with Disabilities. I have short dark hair and I'm wearing glasses. Andrea will be able to share my slides. I have a very short architectural access report. It's pretty much one item. So I'm going to talk about the symbol for, it's international symbol for accessibility. As I mentioned before in my previous reports, I am part of the subcommittee that is working on the rewrite for the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board regulation. And we are going to be discussing the International Symbol for Accessibility. And I'm going to show you the actual picture on the next slide. But what I wanted to share is that there is a comment period that has been extended until October 27 or 28 of 2026. So that's just one more month. So there's an opportunity for this advisory board to send a comment letter directly to the architectural access board on your your thoughts and your opinion on the international symbol for accessibility um and here is an email to submit your comments it's aabvariance at math.gov um next slide please Okay, here in this slide, I'm showing side by side two versions of the accessibility symbol. The one on the left is the current official international symbol for accessibility and The one on the right is another version that sometimes is called the accessible icon or the dynamic icon. So the subcommittee is considering whether to use both or using one of them. Next slide, please. Okay, so here's a list on how board members can get involved. First, discuss with PICTURUM you support and try to reach a consensus as a board. Next, just vote on which PICTURUM the Disability Commission advisory board recommends. Also, you can share your recommendation with the AA both individually and as a board. Also, the advice board wrote a letter in 2014 to support the International Symbol for Accessibility, so the one on the left in the previous slide. And another way to be involved is to listen to virtual public monthly meetings of the AABE subcommittee. Also, you can offer public testimony and review open meeting notes posted on the AAB website. And lastly, to let you know that the next meeting is on Wednesday, October 28th from 10 a.m. to p.m. And you can join by phone at 1-857-327-9245. Phone conference ID, 345-627-8049. And the pound symbol. And also there's a Microsoft Teams link in this slide. I think that's it for my presentation. I'm happy to answer questions.

This is Carl. So, Patricia, I have some questions. concerns about uniformity. One, my question is what is the federal government currently using, the current one that the state uses, I imagine, right? And two, do we know if any of the other states within the United States have adopted the new international local?

I think there's a few states that accept both, but I could find out more and let you know what I find out. I don't, hi, this is. Go ahead, Commissioner.

I was just gonna say that I know that the RMV, the Register of Motor Vehicles, recently switched to the dynamic symbol. They did. On the placards now it has that symbol. I don't know if the whole state is using it, like DCAMP and all those places. I don't know if any of my staff knows. But it's definitely something we can look into, Carl, before the next meeting. I'm just curious. Yeah. And I do also have a copy of the letter from 2014, if anyone was interested. viewing it i can send it out but um you know feel free to think about it you could think about it until next month's meeting but um there is the deadline of october what's the date of our next meeting do we know the next board meeting yeah uh october 21st it's before the next aab rewrite okay so people wanted to Think about it. You could always call for a vote next month or discuss it.

Patricia, one quick question. I noticed there was a bit of a color difference between the two images. Is color contrast also part of that evaluation? Because it just seems a little bit that the second one, the newer one, It seems a little bit blurry to me, and maybe that's just the way it looks on the screen, but I just wondered about that.

No, the color is not part of the discussion. It's just a configuration. It's probably just the bad quality of the picture. I apologize. That's okay. I just wondered.

This is Andrea. I would imagine that color contrast would need to meet federal standards as the contrast, but what the type of blue is, probably there's some variation there.

Makes sense. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Patricia. I appreciate your... My pleasure. All right. So next is... So tonight, I want to introduce a new part of our meeting, the board members spotlight. This will give us an opportunity to learn more about each other, including the experiences, perspectives, and commitment that each member brings to the advisory board. I'm pleased to introduce, well, I don't have to introduce, everybody knows, Tonight, Jerry is going to be our first featured board member. Jerry, thank you so much for agreeing to begin this tradition. We look forward to hearing more about you, your connection to the disability community, and the issues that are most important to all of us, and you. Thank you so much. Jerry, I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you, Zari. Thank you for asking me to kick things off. This is something that we've done at various points throughout my tenure on the advisory board, but we just wanted to, Zari suggested that we just kind of highlight it again as a way to get each one of us engaged and a way for each one of us to highlight the important work that we're all doing and the experience that we bring to the board. There's a reason why we were appointed by the mayor and that's because we all have We all have particular strengths and talents, so this is just a way to highlight that for each one of us. But I won't take too much time. A friend of mine likes to say, and I like to say, you know, I think it's very apt, that if you're a person with a disability, you're kind of, you know, born into advocacy because you have to advocate for yourself. And, you know, sometimes you have to advocate for yourself and your family and to navigate the world as a person with a disability. But where I honed a lot of my advocacy skills and continue to hone a lot of my advocacy skills and do a lot of my advocacy work is through my connection with PCIL, Boston Center for Independent Living, which is one of the oldest independent living centers in the country. It started in the early 70s, and it continues to do tremendous, tremendous advocacy work on behalf of folks with disabilities. And I started my... my affiliation with them very early on when I was in high school as a consumer. And I can still, I still am a consumer of services there as they handle my PCA services, personal care attendant services. And I'm proud to serve now as a board member along with Zari. So I've gone from being a volunteer there in high school and college, to being an employee. to now being a board member and you know that just goes to show the what the independent living movement can do you can you can gain a lot of skills and and a lot of experience that way and you can and you can give back to the disability community that way but I've also been a very proud proud public servant for most of my work life has been in customer service and public service. I've worked for the state of Massachusetts. I've worked for And now I work for the federal government for the Social Security Administration, and I'm very proud of that work. So again, I guess not that I necessarily planned that, but my disability advocacy work has fit into my different careers and my career of giving back. And one way that I continue my advocacy work other than just on the PCIO board and through this body is as the commissioner mentioned earlier through the riders transportation access group, I'm proud to serve it on the executive committee of that body and was one of the original members of the, of the RTAG group that started in 2019. And we're a group of hard fought advocates of work for accessible public transportation for people with disabilities and seniors. the advocacy involves regular monthly meetings with both the MBTA's Office of Transportation Access, which runs the ride, and system-wide accessibility, which handles the buses and trains and does some work with the commuter rail as well to make it more accessible. And I've always been, one of my guiding principles in my advocacy work has always been nothing about us without us. You know, I didn't coin that phrase and the organizations that I've been involved in, you know, didn't coin that phrase, but I think it's very important. So I think these monthly meetings, at minimum monthly meetings, you know, with folks at the T, really, really is important and it really lets them hear directly from advocates with disabilities on what needs to what needs to improve. And we work in partnership with them now to improve access to public transportation in the T for folks with disabilities. So I'm very proud of my work with them. And that's always evolving and changing. So those are just some of the things that informs my work with this body. and why I do the work that I do. And my hope and my focus for the coming year will be, it was very apropos that the Commissioner Ansari bring up the polling, because I think that's very, very important. As I used to say as chair, particularly around election time, you know, vote as if your life depends on it, because it does. And in this particular environment, you know, people with disabilities are losing important services. So it's vitally important that we vote and that we gain access to to to vote and that we're able to vote as easily as as our non disabled peers, so I look forward to continuing to work with the elections department. You know, to make sure that that voting the voting machines work and voting is is. the city of Boston becomes a leader in terms of voting technology for its constituents with disabilities. So I look forward to doing that. And also, Andrea got me in touch with the operations department for the city who's overseeing the White Stadium transportation project. And so I look forward to working working on that continuing over the next year or so until White Stadium is ready to host soccer games with the women's professional soccer team, the Boston Legacy. So those are just a couple of things that I look forward to continuing my work on. And so I will either take questions or give the floor back to Zari, but I appreciate the opportunity to work with all of you, as I said in my introduction, and that will never change. The work continues. So thank you.

Thank you so much, Jerry, for your willingness to be the first in our spotlight series. And if any of you are interested in doing it for the next meeting, please let me know. We would love to make sure that Our community learns about our members, our advisory board, our interests, and what you're actively involved in. Jerry, you've been a leader in so many different areas, and you continue the advocacy. Just, it's amazing. I mean, I really appreciate you. And I appreciate your time. So does anybody have any questions?

I appreciate that. Thank you. And again, if one other thing, one other thing that's very important is that access to remote meetings, because if we didn't have access to remote meetings, you know, with a full-time work schedule, there's no way, you know, I would be able to be as involved in the community as I am. So that's another thing that this body needs to and this board needs to continue to work for is you know continued access to remote meetings and our ability to participate in in municipal government as well thank you now we shall so anything they want to bring up so if any of you have anything else that

you would like to bring up, please feel free to let us know. Olivia?

Yeah, this is Olivia. I got to use our wallet cards for the first time. I was at a restaurant, ironically across from City Hall, who didn't have the captions on. And in a way to nudge things is to bump and nudge. And I left this with the tip. And hopefully they took the hint and turned the captions on. And seeing the friend I had dinner with again on Saturday. So hopefully we can... See if they turn them on.

Olivia, I've got to say, I love your approach. Leaving a tip with education. So great idea, and I hope you can all learn from that and use these cards. So appreciate you sharing that with us.

Yeah, contact the Disability Commission. They'll send you a stack.

Perfect. Perfect. Thank you so much. Paul, do you have a question?

No, I just wanted to bring up some highlights, like Olivia was doing. Oh, OK. Yeah, go ahead. So one, on Monday, Governor Healey signed a new bill, or a new law, a bill into law called the Archaic Language Bill, which will remove words that have negative connotations from the disability community in the past from all state legislation, state laws, legislation, and asked the agencies to do the thing, such as the dreaded R word, handicap, and things like that. And they were a number of people. in the room with her from the community, Mara Sullivan from ARC and her children who are all part of the community, and a number of people with hidden disabilities in the room. It was a nice event, and that happened on Monday. The other thing is, in October, the State House is going to have a couple of events I just want to bring attention to. Deaf-Blind Awareness Day is on October 8th. And then on the 23rd is White Cane Awareness Day, which is a big, huge event where a lot of people from the blind and low vision community in support of that community promote the concept of the white cane and promote the laws around the white cane. So that's all. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Olivia, do you have a question?

Sorry, I don't know why my hand was just off.

That's okay. That's okay. Anyone else have anything else they want to give a shout out to or bring up? Leslie.

Yeah, sorry. I wasn't sure if this is the opportunity to do this. I might have missed the opportunity, but this is Wes Ireland. I'm one of the board members here and I I'm signing with one hand because I just had surgery on my shoulder, so I can't really move that shoulder. Anyway, I actually have a comment, but I'm not sure if it should be part of new business or old business.

I would say just bring it up with the flow.

All right. So I just put the comment actually in the chat. So if you want to take a read of what I wrote. So this is an issue. I wanted to flag this issue, this accessibility issue about Summer Street and also A Street. So this past winter, I was pushing my toddler and a backup to a backup daycare. And I realized that, I didn't realize until I got there, it was basically above A Street with no obvious accessibility, no way to get down from A Street. So I ended up having to go into Five Iron Golf and ask them to use their elevator to get out. And so... I didn't realize that I was gonna have to, it was really no accessible easy way out without the elevators. I had to use that elevator, there's no street elevator. Could we maybe look at elevators, ramps or other types of accessible public connections between Summer Street and A Street and those surrounding streets?

Yeah, thanks Wes for bringing this up. Our office has actually been involved in this for well over five years. I don't know if you know the development on Summer Street. It's called the Summer Street Steps. It's a big grand staircase that they designed open to probably maybe five years ago.

If you have time, you're familiar with it.

Okay. So when my architectural access staff reviewed those plans, they did have an exterior elevator. And then the plans went through the process. And when my staff looked again at the final plans, the elevator was missing. So... We jumped right on that because we didn't approve of not having an elevator. So we did a lot of work with the developers who owned that parcel. They also owned another parcel right next to it. I think it's parcel P. And so we worked with them to insist that they make an elevator right next to the Summit Street steps. Right now there is a public elevator in the next building, but it's a little ways down the street. And the sign is very small. I do have to contact them to see if they can make the sign larger and more robust. But so anyway, we came to an agreement with them that they would, when they built the building at Apostle P right next to the steps, that they would put an elevator right there that you enter from outside and then go down. And they were going to call it the Congress Street Corridor. So you'd have the Summer Street steps and then the Congress Street Corridor, which would be an elevator. However, the pandemic happened and the economy crashed. So they never built the building. So right now the access that the city agreed to accept is in the building a few doors down. And I will turn it over to Andrew and Patricia if they have anything to add. It is very complicated. It's a complicated landscape anyway, because like you said, the street is above, one street is above the other because of the elevation. So it's always been a challenge, but we were addressing it. We've been addressing it for years. And we're not happy about the situation.

And yes, and also I, I do know, again, this is Wes. You know, I think the level differences I think, you know, was really surprising. If you look, I mean, like, if you're thinking about it's really important to maybe give some kind of presentation to the people or something. It's important to raise awareness about this issue because, you know, I think it's important to raise awareness about what's been going on in that area. Yeah, especially with like plowing with snow.

Thanks, Wes.

I think Andrea also put something in the chat. 400 Summer Street is the address of the building and Summer Street site that the commissioner is referring to.

And I've actually taken that elevator myself, and it's not as poor of an experience as I was worried it would be. It was actually fine. The doors were open, although I don't know what hours they're open. I don't know if it's supposed to be 24 hours. I can find out more information if you have to, but... It was very, it was an open lobby with the elevator coming down. So nobody questioned me being in there. There was no security. So it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.

Great. Okay. Does anybody have anything else they want to say before we move forward with the remainder of the agenda?

Olivia? Sorry to jump in twice. This is Olivia. One thing that I forgot to mention is the Housing Authority rolled out among its developments the implementation of the new door entry system called Butterfly MX. It is infinitely more accessible to the residents while being totally inaccessible to blind people who are visiting. So if you don't have the app on your phone and you're not registered with the office, using the box, like if you're visiting another development, is appalling. We pointed this out to the administrator of the BHA. We basically brought her down and showed her. And she's going to probably end up circling back to you, Commissioner, to see if there's any other remediation but uh yeah that was an oopsie oversight on the housing authorities part thank you for bringing that up with you what was it called again butterfly mx it's a system used across the city uh with with good success It's just the system the Housing Authority went with requires 24-hour human attention for blind access.

Yeah, I think Commissioner said she's going to follow up. Thank you for bringing it up. All right. We're almost near the end. Are there any old business other than what we've already discussed? Okay, no old business. Any new business? I don't see any hands up. Public input? Does anybody have any questions for us? Andrea, do you see anyone? Because I'm not sure if I can see.

This is Andrea. There was a question from the public earlier when we were discussing the architectural access report. If you'd like to recognize that, I can read it aloud. Yes, please. Has there been any conversation around changing the conversation about the wheelchair as the symbol of disabilities are more than just wheelchairs? As a designer for human health and an instructor for the Boston Architectural College, we have this discussion a lot. So, Patricia, that was offered during your report. I don't know if you want to talk about the AAB specifically, or Commissioner, if you want to reply more generally.

Yeah, I can jump in. Thank you for the question. It hasn't really come up in our work because we, you know, as the ADA Title II coordinator for the city of Boston, my office really focuses on local government, accessibility to the streets, sidewalks, facilities, things like that. So we don't really get into design elements like that. We just go by whatever the code requires. But I have heard that there are discussions in the community. I am a wheelchair user. And I understand that the symbol does not represent everybody. The thing that I appreciate about the symbol is that everybody with a disability knows it's a symbol at least. So I feel like it's kind of moved away from just the wheelchair. People understand it means accessibility. But I understand your point as well. The thing I worry about is what symbol would represent everybody. And this is already so long established. It's just very instant. That's what I appreciate about it. But just to answer the question, I have not been in those discussions, but I have heard disability community, you know, in Boston has had these discussions.

Yeah, with that discussion, even at the hospital, and I think there is, like you said, Commissioner, there is no perfect solution that would, you know, embody every disability as much as this one because of historical background. But yeah, this is a discussion.

You muted, sorry.

I'm talking to myself. Does anybody else have any questions before we adjourn? No, I don't see any hands up. So would anybody like to make a motion to end our meeting tonight?

I'm going to let somebody else do it this time.

Oh, there you go. Would anybody else like to make a motion? Olivia?

I motion to adjourn.

This is Paul. I second.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. I think all the ayes have it. Have a great evening, everyone.

Thank you, everybody.

Have a good night. See you next month.

Thank you, Zari.

Thank you.