Re: [transit-developers] Digest for transit-developers@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic

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Charles Belov

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Apr 15, 2019, 3:23:48 PM4/15/19
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Hi Guillame,
 
See the responses below to your responses:

 
>> - There are stops which are technically legally accessible from an ADA standpoint but which we don't recommend that people needing ADA access use because they present physical challenges.
>This seems to me like a problem that shouldn’t really be solved. If SFMTA thinks that wheelchair users should go to these stops, mark those as accessible. If you don’t want wheelchair users to go there, mark those as inaccessible (even if it’s possible but difficult).
 
> I don’t think adding a third value will fix this problem because it’s not information that’s actionnable for  consumers.

Actually, under ADA law, we *have* to say the stop is accessible, so saying it is not accessible just because we'd rather ADA customers not use the stop is not a legal option for us. But we specifically want to discourage ADA customers from using these selected stops. So it is in fact actionable by the customer, because they have to decide whether to follow our recommendation or insist on using the stop. We hope that most ADA customers will follow our recommendation but we are required by law to make the stop available to those customers who choose otherwise. I am not an attorney and this is not legal advice.

Withholding the information that the stops present accessibility challenges is a disservice to [the hopefully majority of] ADA customers who would prefer to follow our recommendation and avoid the stop.

Alternatively, there could be a footnote field added to the stop file (or all files, for that matter). However, that would preclude future programmatic use for trip planning purposes, e.g., a check box reading "This stop is legally accessible but presents accessibility challenges. Check this box to plan a trip using the nearest alternate accessible stop without such challenges." (Probably not the ideal wording; just an example.)

>> - There is a stop that is accessible to accessible streetcar trips but not to accessible bus trips. This means that accessible trips to this accessible stop cannot provide accessibility.
 
>> - There are several stops that are accessible to accessible bus trips but not to accessible streetcar trips.
 
>This can be fixed by having two stops in the gtfs with the exact same attributes except for
accessibility. One stop can be used for streetcar and the other for bus or vice-versa.

That is indeed an option, and one that others in our agency have raised. The issues then become:

- Recognizing that they are the same stop so that when we provide predictions on one route we can offer predictions for alternative routes serving the same stop.

- As the two stops will have the same lat/long, this impacts the ability to click/tap/select one stop or the other on a map. That said, mapmakers can provide a way to disambiguate multiple stop icons occupying the same stop, but unless the bus and rail stop icons use different graphics, it will be hard for a customer to choose the desired icon. (And some computer users, like myself, are icon-challenged.)

 
>> - Pertinent to the previous two items, we occasionally have unscheduled replacements of one or more streetcar trips with bus trips. These are not reflected in the GTFS file.
> For real time updates, this was proposed a year ago but was dropped by lack of agencies support https://github.com/google/transit/pull/87.

Alas and alack.
 
> Hope this helps,
 
And hope this helps as well.
 

>Guillaume Campagna
>CTO, Transit
>transit.app
>On Apr 12, 2019, 19:55 -0400, Charles_Belov_SFMTA <charle...@gmail.com>, wrote:

On Sun, Apr 14, 2019 at 6:49 PM <transit-d...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Guillaume Campagna <guillaume...@gmail.com>: Apr 13 09:54PM -0400

Hi Charles,
 
See the responses below :
 
> - There are stops which are technically legally accessible from an ADA standpoint but which we don't recommend that people needing ADA access use because they present physical challenges.
This seems to me like a problem that shouldn’t really be solved. If SFMTA thinks that wheelchair users should go to these stops, mark those as accessible. If you don’t want wheelchair users to go there, mark those as inaccessible (even if it’s possible but difficult).
 
I don’t think adding a third value will fix this problem because it’s not information that’s actionnable for  consumers.
 
> - There is a stop that is accessible to accessible streetcar trips but not to accessible bus trips. This means that accessible trips to this accessible stop cannot provide accessibility.
 
> - There are several stops that are accessible to accessible bus trips but not to accessible streetcar trips.
 
This can be fixed by having two stops in the gtfs with the exact same attributes except for
accessibility. One stop can be used for streetcar and the other for bus or vice-versa.
 
> - Pertinent to the previous two items, we occasionally have unscheduled replacements of one or more streetcar trips with bus trips. These are not reflected in the GTFS file.
For real time updates, this was proposed a year ago but was dropped by lack of agencies support https://github.com/google/transit/pull/87.
 
Hope this helps,
 
 

Guillaume Campagna
CTO, Transit
transit.app
On Apr 12, 2019, 19:55 -0400, Charles_Belov_SFMTA <charle...@gmail.com>, wrote:
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