 Board. And now we could start. Okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Maureen Pollack. I'm one of the staff planners here with the town of Amherst. And so welcome today to today's listening session. The town of Amherst seeks to understand how our community can best serve older adults and in for people with dementia as the town seeks to become an age and dementia friendly community. The town is working with Becky Bish, who's here today from Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, who's assisting us with this project, as well as working group members to provide oversight and to host our various listening sessions such as today. Each month, we've been holding these listening sessions to gather input from older adults, caregivers and others who are aging here in Amherst. Today's listening session is on transportation, buildings and outdoor spaces. And if you haven't already, if you want to, you can go to the chat feature here on zoom and type in your name. And you could type in we invite you to type in what is your main transportation challenge that you face in Amherst. So you could type that into the chat, if you so wish. We'll have some discussion points in today's session. So you could also discuss those at those times too. So with that, I hand it over to Becky. Thanks, Maureen. And welcome, everyone. I'm just gonna put my presentation up. So this is the third of five listening sessions that we're doing with the agent dementia friendly Amherst project. And the focus today is on transportation, buildings and outdoor spaces. So I'm going to do a brief presentation about the project and sort of some things to think about in terms of transportation, buildings and outdoor spaces for older adults. And then we have a few other people who are going to be talking about transportation, Amherst assets and Amherst. So we have a couple of people here from PVTA. We have a gopher Maureen from the Department of Public Works. And Maureen is going to talk about the ADA transition plan. And then sorry to put you on the spot, Liz, I have the volunteer driver program with the Amherst neighbors offers. And then it looks like we don't have a lot of people. So we'll see about, you know, whether we have a group discussion or breakout rooms, we may just keep it a group discussion since it's not a really big group. So why are we here? Why plan for an aging population? So the number of people over the age of 65 is projected to outnumber children under 18 by 2035 nationwide. And that's because people are living longer and having fewer children. So it's something to think about. It's it's soon to become a majority of the population in many communities. And it's estimated that one in three people over the age of 85 will have some form of dementia at the end of their lives. So as people live longer, there's higher higher probability of having some kind of dementia. And Alzheimer's is the highest statistical probability of the type of dementia. We're talking today about transportation, buildings and outdoor spaces. This is a model developed by the Massachusetts Healthy Aging Collaborative that just shows that agent dementia friendly communities really involve all sectors of the community and both the built environment. So that's what we're talking about today, as well as social environment, public safety, and health and community services. Some statistics or data from the American Community Survey, the total population of Amherst is about 40,000, and 13% or about 5200 people are over the age of 60. And then some older data from the Mass Healthy Aging Collaborative, almost 26% of people over 65 live alone in Amherst, about 12% over 65 have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's or related dementias. 16% have a diagnosis of deafness or hearing impairment. 4.2% with self-reported vision impairment and 10.3% with self-reported mobility impairments. When we think about transportation, we're thinking both services and transportation infrastructure. So you want to have safe and affordable modes of both private and public transportation, supported transportation for people with disabilities, and then infrastructure for walking and biking because many older people still want to walk and want to walk to do their errands. So sidewalks that are in good conditions and road crossings that allow time for slower walkers or people in wheelchairs and well timed signals and signs that are clear and easy to read. So this is an image I got from the UMass Durantology Center did a presentation on transportation. There's sort of a continuum of needs and services and it's not necessarily age based, but the older you get, the more likelihood you'll have some kind of mobility impairment. So it starts with being independent and having your own vehicle or being able to walk to public transit, to taking a taxi, which would be curb to curb, to paratransit services, so door to door services, and then eventually needing more help getting through the door. So it's really looking into where you start needing to have more supportive transportation services. In Amherst, and we'll hear a little bit more from PBTA later, you have the fixed route buses, 12 routes with discounts for people 60 and older. You have dial ride ban service for people over 60 with PBTA, door to door paratransit bans for people with disabilities, then taxis or ride share services, such as Uber and Lyft, I'm not sure how how prevalent that is in Amherst. And then ban services provided by some assisted living facilities and the Amherst neighbors volunteer driver program. For transportation infrastructure, we're mainly looking at walk ability. So a walkable community is one that has compact mixed use development. So destinations that can be reached by foot. You have sidewalks, street trees and frontage zones along the sidewalks, narrower traffic lanes and shorter road for I should or road crossings and more room for bikes and sidewalks. Safe and well lit pedestrian crossings, paths and trails and especially ones that you can walk to, buffered shoulders and in some cases shared roadways. So where there's less traffic, it's shared by all users. Some elements of a walkable street for denser areas, you have a mixed use area that might have benches as well as we saw a lot of restaurants offering outside seating. A rural area might have more of a buffer between the sidewalk and the street. And on the right is an image of a less walkable street where you know, there's not really places to walk to the there's big big box stores that are far away from the street. And there's no buffer between the traffic and pedestrians. So pedestrian crossings, you want to have them visible and well lit. So the crossings themselves are brightly painted. Generally the zebra pattern. There's a number of different types of warning signs for drivers. So you have the flashing beacon at the lower right, you have pedestrian activated stop signs and just the pedestrian crossing signs and with street lighting. Some traffic calming elements. This image on the lower right is just shows that the higher the traffic speed, the more probability there is for fatalities if the pedestrian gets hit by a car. So a safer street would be one where traffic is really slowed down. So you might have narrower traffic lanes that you can create with pedestrian islands and wider shoulders, speed humps or raised crosswalks. And I know Amherst has some of those. And then these these pictures show the walkability really varies by location in Amherst. So this is a website called walkscore.com. And you can put in your address and see what the walk score is at that location. So on the left is a walk score for down Amity Street. And that's got a walk square of 80s out of 100. But then if you type in Amherst Center, it looks at the whole area. And it shows that, you know, in the green area is really more walkable. And as the farther that you get out is a little bit less walkable. And basically, they're measuring what services or amenities there are to walk to and not necessarily the sidewalk condition. For the agent dementia family Amherst survey, we asked people what the primary ways were that people meet their transportation needs in Amherst. And most people still drive themselves about 90%. But almost 25% said they walk. And almost 11% said they use bikes or e-bikes. A fairly good number has friends or family members who drive them. And about 10% said they use the PVTA bus. We then broke that down by age and the different age groups on the survey. Over 80% of people up to the age of up into their 80s said they still drive and even 60% of people over 90. And this just shows that 20 to 30% in each age category walks. And there were fewer respondents over 90. So it's a little bit skewed. But a lot of people still walk for transportation and prefer to walk. And I won't go into all the other details with these. But as you can see, as you know, people get older, a little bit fewer people drive to meet their transportation needs. We also asked if people if their locations where people don't feel safe in the community. And by and large, the most most responses were from people who said they didn't feel safe walking. So we we tally the different streets that where people said they didn't feel safe walking. And so we'll provide those to the town just to look at you know, whether those fit into their the plans for upgrading sidewalks or crosswalks. There were a few places where people said they didn't feel safe bicycling. And a couple where they didn't feel safe getting to bus stops. So those are some things to pay attention to. When we talk about buildings and outdoor spaces, those are important for places to gather. So both inside and out and outside places became especially important during the pandemic. A lot of people socializing outside buildings are accessible and have parking for people with wheelchairs. Parks have benches and smooth pathways for people with wheelchairs or walkers. There's access to handicapped accessible restrooms and key locations and parks and sidewalks are safe and well lit. This picture shows the improvements at the Banks Community Center, where there was a new ADA ramp and and lighting and benches and a bike rack that were recently installed. And then universal design is a concept where new buildings are designed to be usable by all people of all abilities without the need for adaptation. So that just means that from the beginning, you're designing like no step entries for people in wheelchairs. So you don't have to go back and put in a wheelchair ramp. It's already accessible for everyone. And it's and that's a lot more in a much more inclusive way to design a building. This is a checklist that Age Drone Boston put together for age for age and dementia friendly businesses. And I put this up because it shows a number of things to think about when designing for people with dementia. So looking at lighting. So it's bright and uniformed to reduce glare. Glass doors should be clearly marked. There's seating. So avoid putting it near windows or with where there's a glare. And then just having background music or much or having sort of quiet quiet places resting areas. And floors are non stiff, non shiny for safety. And then some other things are color contrast. So bathrooms have installed color contrast toilet seats and handrails, furnishings contrast with walls for easy easy visibility, quiet seating areas, larger bathrooms to allow for people with caregivers. And some examples of what some other communities have done for age friendly outdoor spaces. Hamilton Ontario created a guide an age friendly guide to trails where they ranked design features, so surface and slope amenities, so restrooms and benches, and then maintenance and aesthetics and traffic intersections. So ease of getting to the trails by walking. And then AARP has also put together a really great guide for creating parts in public spaces for people of all ages. And some other things to think about are making sure we have activities for people of all ages and in all seasons, designing parks for all so creating comfortable places and providing amenities such as restrooms and pedestrian paths, often parks with a walking loop or or walking trails that are marked with distances are something that people like to see. And then just putting pedestrians first so allowing people to be able to walk to parks without feeling that they're unsafe. This is just an example of a sign that's not age friendly that I found at a trailhead. It's it's high, it's unreadable, pipe is very small, and there's a big glare. So just something to think about when when designing signage, you know, is it is it readable and is it accessible for people of all ages? So that's it for my presentation. I'm happy to take questions. And just end the show here. So any questions right off or if not, we'll go on to the other presenters. See any questions. So next we have some folks here from PVTA. So Ben and Leland, do you guys have a presentation? Yeah, hi. My name is Benjamin St. Amon. I work here at PVTA along with Leland Zach. I am the safety and compliance coordinator. So I have some oversight over our paratransit vehicles, and our fixed route vehicles. And Leland is the travel trainer. So he will assist those who are looking to learn how to ride the bus. And I'll put my contact information in the chat if any of you would like to get a hold of me. So thank you, Leland. So I have a little presentation here. If I'm able to share my screen, Becky, let me see if I can do that. Looks like I can. If you can. Okay, that's right. Looks like it's okay. Should be able to see that. Okay, so so some of the options that we have as was already as we're already mentioned earlier. We have our fixed route bus service, of course, everyone can take. There is an option for the senior for seniors anyone 60 years of age and older to obtain a senior fair ID, reduced fair ID pay half price. As long as you show that ID costs $3 and it can be purchased at the Holyoke Transportation Center or can be purchased at Union Station, of course. But also we do have various outreach events which are often coordinated with your local council on aging. Leland and I were just at one recently and up there at the Amherst Senior Center. And we took the photos right there. And you don't have to pay anything. And we mail do the cards shortly afterwards. So there's always that option as well. So if that's something that you have a number of folks who are interested, that can be arranged. And then of course we have the paratransit bus services. Those are the vans that offer the door to door service. For those who we have the ADA for those who are disabled. Of course, all these vehicles have wheelchair lifts. So even if you're using a dial ride, even if use the dial ride service, there is still a wheelchair lift. Now the ADA application, you must apply directly at PVTA before you can book an ADA trip. Excuse me. Now, just because you are disabled or just because you have a handicap placard, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're automatically approved for the service. The disability must prevent you from being able to use the regular vehicles, the regular fixed route buses, in order to have the application. And that takes up to 21 days from the date of receipt to process once we have everything we need. And then there's the dial ride service. There's no application required. Anyone 60 years of age older can use. And with either of these options, you would have to call at least one day in advance to book your trip. So next up, I just want to talk about how you can obtain schedule information. Of course, you can go direct to our website, PVTA.com. But also, there is the transit app, which is the official app that PVTA uses for all of our bus services, which is available at transit app.com. So once you go to the main website, PVTA.com, this is what you're presented with. You just click right on schedules and maps. And then you'll bring you to this next page. Now you can click on the individual schedules and view them, or you can use what I like to use, which is the interactive system map. So once you click on that, you're presented with the entire system. That's going to show you all of our routes. Now obviously, in Amherst, we have quite a number of routes specifically. And I just wanted to talk about a couple of them. There's plenty to explore there. But for example, the B 43, this would be this one is fairly useful. You have stops at Smith College, Hamster Mall, UMass, Haggis Mall area and Amherst College. So plenty of course stops along the way there. But those are some of the major ones. Then we have the route 30. This one starts at Puff or yes, I believe starts at Pufftown Village Apartments. Then it goes to the UMass Graduate Research Center mass UMass Fine Arts Center, Post Office, Colonial Village Apartments Valley Medical Center and Old Belcher Town Road. Those are some of the points on that route. Route 31. This is gonna this goes as far north of Sunderland Center, Amherst Grove Apartments, Townhouse Apartments, Sobson UMass, the Amherst Post Office and the Boulder Apartments. Then we have the Puffer Pond. We call this the Shopper Shuttle. This one is quite useful if you're looking to get around town locally. Just kind of this is the map that you'll see if you were to download the map from the website. Or view you can see it's all around various locations right in within Amherst. You have the, of course, Mill Hollow Puffers Pond, the Survival Center, Riverside Park Plaza Plaza Cushman Center, Topman Gym, Stops and UMass, Amherst Post Office, CVS and Big Y and the Hadley Stop and Shop. So if you need to get your groceries done or mail something at the post office, lots of options there. And then this is the Route 45 which heads all the way down to Belcher Town Center. So a couple of different options here. Route 46, that one goes up to the Waitley Park and Ride in South Deerfield Center and also Sunderland Center Amherst Grove Apartments, Cliffside Apartments. So you can get up into, if you're going to need to go travel up into Franklin County, there's a connection, connection there from us to you would have to coordinate that of course with whoever. I believe it's the Franklin RTA. And then of course, these are some of the southern routes headed down headed south out of Amherst. So lots of different options on the fixed route. And of course, like I had mentioned before, if you are interested in using the Dial-A-Ride services for seniors or the ADA applying for ADA, you can highly recommend using those services as well. So and Leela, if you could just maybe explain a little bit about the travel training and kind of what's involved with that. Sure. So my program is the travel training program. And I teach people with disabilities, seniors, really anyone who needs assistance using the fixed route service. So I actually come out to your house and we can start there or your apartment or we can start at the Council of Aging wherever you need to wherever you're starting from. And I take you out on the bus and we go over everything every single step. So that means how to find your bus stop, how to use the transit apps like transit or Google Maps, how to use the bus tracker, how to get on the bus, how to pay for the bus, how to find your landmark destination where you need to go. We even go over some things like a safe street crossing, stranger awareness for people who need some more assistance with that. So if that's something anybody is interested in, feel free to give me a call or an email. It's a free service. All that you have to pay for is your bus fare. And we work towards your independence. So like I said, I start by your side showing you every step of the process. And the whole goal is for your independence. So if you're not, if you if you're, say, currently relying on the van service, or if you're relying on friends or family to give you a ride, and those are things you no longer wish to do, maybe you're giving up driving, and you just need that extra support in using the fixed route bus service. That's why I'm here. I'd also like to add that all of the buses in the Amherst area are actually free. They are fare free for everybody. The only one you would have to pay for is the B 43 that gets you from Amherst and Northampton. And with that bus, it's our fare is 150. As seniors with your senior ID, you could get on that bus for 75 cents. So that's really the only fare you would have to worry about. All right, great. Thank you so much. And I think that's it for our presentation. I don't know if we're doing questions now or questions later. Becky wasn't sure about that. We hold it to or yeah, why don't we hold the questions to all the presenters? That's okay. Okay, great. Elise, did you I can wait. I have what I can wait. Okay. So next we have Guilford from the Department of Public Works. So yeah, there you go for you're muted. There you are. Hi, we don't have much of a presentation. We just wanted to talk a little bit about how we prioritize sidewalk work in Amherst. Right now, we're prioritizing sidewalks in the downtown area and going out towards schools. So any of those sidewalks for the ones we're working at this time, we are choosing to work on the easier ones first and to repair the ones we already have. So what that means is one that's easy to meet ADA requirements, not have to do a lot of interesting back switches or grading or something like that. Those are the ones we kind of concentrate on first. And we move in the general area of the schools and the downtown first. This is what we're doing right now. So that's our general program. Now, be happy to take questions when you're ready to do questions. Okay. Maureen, do you want to talk about the ADA transition plan? Hi, everyone. My name is Maureen Pollack. And I'm, as I said before, I'm one of the staff planners with the town. I'm also the staff liaison to the Disability Access Advisor Committee, aka the DAAC. There's a few members present here today, including Elise, hi, Elise. And I think Saren is, Ruth is here. And so is Saren. So thank you to the three of you for attending. And so in 2020, the town of Amherst updated its ADA self evaluation and transition plan with the assistance from the planning department and inspection services. And with the consultant with consultation from a consultant group, they're called Disability Access Consultants LLC, and from the DAAC members. And so this project was granted, grant funded through the Community Development Block Grant, CDBG funding. And to give you a little snapshot of what a self evaluation transition plan means, and why why the town needed to update it. You know, it's a requirement under federal law for the town to update this plan under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. So the town under so under that act, the town is required to complete a self evaluation for the town's public facilities, programs, services, activities and events. And it aims to determine whether like our buildings, for instance, are ADA compliant, and identify any sort of accessibility barriers, like physical barriers, like doors on opening properly or a ramp, where there should be a ramp, maybe there isn't a ramp, things of that nature, the elevators working is our proper signage. That's just like giving you a few examples. And then the plan also identifies how those barriers can be corrected. So in a way, it's like a master plan of, you know, it's it's saying, or it's it shows you what it looks like now of like, what are the current conditions. And then it's been saying, where do you go from here? And how do you make those improvements? And so this plan provides a current benchmark and updated framework for implementation for accessory accessibility efforts by the town. The last time it was updated, I believe it was in 2005. So you know, since 2005 to 2020, there's been, you know, a lot, a lot of improvements made and we want to make sure that they're up to code with accessibility, state and federal laws. And so the goal for the town is is that is that the potential physical and programmatic barriers for accessibility for persons with disabilities are removed. The town self evaluation and transition plan serves as a roadmap to assist the town with ongoing compliance. And since this plan has been finalized, and it is listed on the town website, and we can put it in the chat. So you can get a PDF copy of it is at the town. So since it's been finalized, the town has made efforts to make ADA improvements. And these are just a few just that quickly came to my mind. So we have created an annual capital budget line item budget devoted for ADA improvements for our public facilities. So that's really good. And then we have of the the various ADA barriers and identified in the self evaluation and transition plan, the town has corrected a variety of those barriers, such as we've replaced various crosswalks and curb ramps in downtown on Amity Street and on, let's see here on East and North Pleasant Street. We recently, DPW recently just repaved, redid the Amity Street sidewalk and crosswalks. And the inspection services and facilities department repaired the stairs and constructed a new ADA ramp outside of the bank center. There was a slide in Becky's presentation that showed some photos of that. So those stairs were in crumbling condition. And there wasn't a nice smooth ADA pathway leading from one entrance to the other. And so there, if you had to go to the backside of the bank center, you had to go all the way around. And now the ramp the ADA ramp provides a much shorter distance for someone trying to connect from like the Clark House, for instance, that wants to go over to the bank center or to move on over to like main street. We we've recently actually, in our facilities department just recently finished, I think a couple of weeks ago, fix some ADA non compliancy issues at the main door to the bank center. There was the automatic door opener wasn't broke in the last year. And so that's been corrected. And there were some sloping issues in front of that door. So those items have been addressed. The town recently just ordered listening devices for all meeting rooms in the bank center. And I believe that was a recommendation from the council on aging, as well as, you know, a variety of older adults in town. And it was identified in the plan as something that was a priority. And so the town has secured money for putting in listening devices in the bank center. So now we just need to do like a RFP to order them and stuff. So those should be coming in in the next next year. And we've made some updates to the town website to make it more ADA friendly. There's some interactive tools that can increase the the font size and change make the the color of the text and the background have contrasting colors. There's this widget that you can find on on each of the pages of the of the wipes website, it's located at the bottom right. There's an icon that's in blue, and it's like a little stick figure of a person. If you click on that, it opens up to this accessibility tool widget. And it does a variety of different ADA friendly improvements to as you're utilizing the town website. And we're currently working to audit all town audible signals at our crosswalks. So like say if you're at the main street, main street and main and what self pleasant street, for instance, intersection and you want to cross the street, you press the button and it says wait, wait, and then when it's time to cross, I think it says, I kind of forget what it says, maybe it says, you can cross. So that's an example of an audible signal. So some of them work and some of them don't, some of them are, you know, loud enough, some of them are not. So the town has secured money to have someone, an expert go in and take a look at, make sure that they're working properly and to record if, you know, do they need, if the ones aren't working properly, do they need to be repaired or do they need to be replaced? So that's something that the town's working on this year. And those are just some of the projects that came to mind that have resulted that have been identified in the plan and that the town has making efforts to make improvements. And you know, this plan is a living document, which is routinely reviewed by town staff for continued implementation. And it looks at all sorts of facilities such as parking lots, buildings, conservation trails, recreation parks and stuff like that. So any facility that's open to the public has been evaluated for its ADA compliancy. And again, I'll put a link to the PDF and it is found on the town website as well. So thank you. That's all I got. Thanks, Maureen. And then Liz, do you want to say a little bit about the Amherst Neighbors Driver Program? Sure, I'm happy to. So we have been up and going with our, I just, there's just one thing I want to get. Anyway, we, yes, we have been up and going with our volunteer drivers for about a year. And the main thing is that people, we get, I have to just say, in terms of identifying a need of all the volunteer services that we provide, this is the fastest growing. And it's, I think the biggest demand is volunteer drivers. So many people who are joining Amherst Neighbors because we are a membership organization, which is free. People become members and then they have access to the full range of volunteer services that we provide. And rides are a big thing. And for many, for, I think a particular subset is we have people who are, who have experienced a recent health change and have been independent prior and come to us and come to us when they've kind of hit a bump in the road and they've had at least a temporary change in their health. And so they are looking for a little extra help in the way of transportation. We have about 20 volunteers who provide rides. And we've done, I think, between 130 and 150 rides since we started. And it is, it is growing quickly. One of the things we also try to encourage people to do is rely on all the other sources of transportation that they've had prior to meeting us. Because we know that we cannot meet the entire demand. And we also encourage people to become familiar with the PVTA. And especially with the dial ride. So anyway, and I have questions about that later when we get to asking questions. So that is kind of how we work. We do require that people are vaccinated for the COVID vaccine in order to receive transportation and that as are our volunteers. And that everybody wears a mask in the car. So that is how we work. And it is the demand is just going up very, very fast. So far, we've been able to mostly meet what people are asking for. We have to be very clear, though, that we are not a last minute ride service. We're a plan ahead ride service. So that's how it's going. It's very exciting. We have new people who are becoming volunteers who say they want to, that they want to drive. The one thing I'll say is our volunteers are willing to really go locally. We weren't sure what we would find when we started. And that means we're really don't get volunteers who said they want to drive to Springfield or Greenfield to say nothing of Worcester or Boston. That just is not what we can do. So that's kind of our big limit is how far people are how far people can are providing rides. So that's it. Thanks, Liz. Sure. So we can provide questions or we have time for questions. And then we can let's see, we'll probably just keep it as a group discussion since we don't have a lot of people. So I see a couple hands already. Chris. Oh, I had a question for, I guess it's Leland or Ben. And that is, does the B 43 take cash on the bus or do you have to have some kind of special prepaid ticket to get on? How does that work? You can use cash or coins. So yeah, dollar bills or coins or you can buy a bus pass ahead of time. Please keep in mind that if you are paying with cash, it's exact change. No pennies. You can certainly pay over. So if your fare is the senior half price fair at 75 cents, you could put a dollar in but you're not going to get your quarter back. So please keep that in mind. But we do also have once you're on the bus, you can get a day pass if you so needed. We also have month passes available at our service centers such as Union Station, Springfield, and Holyoke Transportation Center in Holyoke. And those are 30 day passes available. Also at Big Y to Big Y locations have them. Elise. Alright, I have a couple. One, I have a couple transportation questions. One is as a legally blind person with a guide dog. I have used the ADA paratransit before the pandemic, like, you know, 2018, 90, you know, and I haven't used it since then. Does one need to reapply for that on a, you know, from time to time? Or am I, would I still be listed? I don't know if that's the right question for this thing. What's your, what's your last name? If you don't mind my asking? Link. Yeah, I was just wondering what one does when they haven't used it for a while. We were reviewing to see if people were still actively using the services. Typically, if you're approved, there is a it is it's not an indefinite amount of time. So let's let me just double check on the status of yours. Yeah, I can tell you right now. Yeah. So I want to take up precious time. Link is the last name. Yep. So if I look at Yeah, so it looks like your, your application ended. And it was from April 2016 to or yeah, from April 2016, April 2021. So there's to be a five year, a five year for the unconditional you had an unconditional meaning you could use. It was you could use the service no matter, you know, some people have conditions meaning it depends on the weather. It depends on the time of day that that kind of determines if they're going to need to use AD or not. So you would have to reapply. Okay. And the other question I have, and this is why I've used the PV, the paratrend, I use it when I can when I have to get somewhere that's not on the bus line. And the other times I've relied on it is when in wintertime when the sidewalks are not clear of snow and the bus stops are not clear of snow often I have seen people nearly fall and I've nearly fallen trying to climb over an ice bank to get on a PBTA bus and it's New England folks. I don't think that's acceptable. So I'm wondering what's being done about that. That's that's my question. Is anything going to be happening with that? I don't think it's safe. I think, you know, for somebody to go grocery shopping, they need to be able to I have to be able to buy toilet paper. You know, I don't want to climb over a snow bank and break my neck. And unfortunately, I've seen that in multiple cities and towns. Generally, the how the con not really a contract but how it's set up is the city is responsible for clearing snow in front of shelters and around bus stops. They pass the buck. Springfield, I believe. They pass the buck. They say it's PBTA with the bus stops. Then PBTA says it's I've gotten a run around. And I think it's a safety issue. A huge safety issue. We've heard that in a lot of communities. Guilford, what is the policy in Amherst for snow clearing on sidewalks as the city do some of them or is it businesses that have to do them? The policy in Amherst is the property owner adjacent to the sidewalk must clear it. And so that means even it's a bus stop, they're responsible. But we do not clear any of the any of the bus stops that PBTA has in town. And we often call them to say they need to do something about it. And how does it work along route nine where for bus stops and getting access to the bus stops? It doesn't work on route nine. Hadley takes no responsibility and neither do the businesses. Neither does Amherst. Well, yeah, but since most of route nine is in Hadley, I mean, it's true. Nobody does anything. Yeah. I wish I had an answer for all of you on that. I I can this is something I can definitely pass along to our director of operations. And if there is a specific occurrence where this happens, you could I would recommend contacting our customer service to at least mention it. If it's one of the stops that is one of the contractor's responsibilities, because our bus our buses, we contract our bus service because of the laws and messages that we can't operate our own buses, we can just we have to oversight of them. But if it's one that they are responsible for, then then we can make them aware and have them take care of it. Obviously, if the stops are like, for example, if the stops have been vandalized, or if they've been, if there's trash, that is our responsibility. But as far as the snow inclement weather, I'm not 100% versed on that. And that's something that I would I would have to pass along to the operations director. I did just look at our policy. And I have it here. It's in writing that yes, the property owners are responsible for any adjacent shelters or bus stops. The only exception is city owns property in Springfield, as well as our locations such as transit, fulfilling in Musfield and Holy Oak Transportation Center in Holyoke. Those are where PVTA is responsible. But for Amherst purposes, Hadley, it goes to the property owner for where that for those bus stops or shelters are. What about the post office in Amherst? Who does that one? Who's responsible? That would probably be that would have to be whoever owns, you know, the private, the post office themselves. They, you know, if they're removing their own snow on their property, then that would be that would be their responsibility. Okay, thank you for clarifying because because nobody seems to be clear on that. So that that sounds like something that should be in the plan. And that comes up in pretty much every community that I work with. And there are some some examples of communities that are addressing this through various programs. So we'll definitely look at that. Saren. Yes, I have a question about the access to the tickets. I was trying to schedule a ride for the Amherst neighbors, which got canceled due to weather. But that was the first time I was going to use the PVT event service. And they want exact change. And that sometimes is pretty difficult. And I said, could I give a $5 one, or a give $10 and just charge the two rides with the same money? They said no, they cannot do that. And so it's kind of difficult because you don't know the exact change amount. So is there a way that these booklets could be offered at banks community center, so and announced to all the users in the area. So it will be they it's they're located in the center of town. And it will be quite accessible easily accessible for many of us, or maybe the drivers in the vans might offer that those booklets. That was one of my issues. The second one is, you just said about an ID. You offered PVT IDs to people at banks. And if these can be announced further, I am sure more people will visit the site at that time and get these PVT ID cards easily. I can jump in real quick, Sarah, and say that that that is advertised in the senior spirit newsletter that we have a monthly outreach clinic with the PVT that's on the second Tuesday of every month. And the senior center also sells the paratransit tickets. So you can stop by the senior center now. We already have booklets on site. And if you want to buy one, you can just make arrangements. Right now I'm the one who's distributing tickets. But typically when we have an admin assistant, that person can also sell you a ticket. So yeah, those are already happening already in the newsletter. I encourage everyone to please read the senior spirit. I put a lot of love into that monthly newsletter. And we have a lot of great programs that you, you might be thinking, Oh, I wish they had that and we do. So about PVTA, when you ask these questions to the PVTA representative, if they can guide you, you can have access to the booklets in your town's senior center or that kind of a thing. And the only thing is I have to either mail a check to them. And I don't really know what how much each booklet is. I mean, it wasn't very informative of what I can do. But I missed the site in the senior newsletter. Okay, well, you could definitely the next time you're in the area, stop by, I can walk you through the process. And you can leave that day with a ticket. That's very good. Thank you. Liz, I see you up next. Yes, thank you. I just have a question and I'm really happy that people from the PVTA are here. And I apologize, I don't want to take up a lot of your time, but I just want to see kind of how the dial a ride is working for people. And if there's things that would be helpful for us to be conveying to our members about using it. I mean, my understanding is you can call the day as as early as the day before. But if there's things that you could that you could just let us know to let our members know. Okay, so the dial ride has been pretty successful. It it accounts for a fair amount of our of our total ridership on the paratransit service. I have a actually had some information on this that I had just pulled up recently dial a ride. Let's see, loading. So the percentage of dial ride, it accounts for almost as much as 25% on average of all of our date, except for Sundays, because it's not offered on Sundays, but on average for our daily ridership. So dial a ride is a pretty, pretty large percent of our ridership. We've actually started in some areas, expanding the hours to dial a ride, because, because it's actually been a it's been a good service that's, that's been worth, it's been worth expanding. What we can say is that we now have higher staffing levels of drivers, it took some time to get more drivers, but now we're able to we're able to take on more trips. And so previously, I might have said, if there's anything to tell your riders is that, you know, there may, there may be times of times of the day where the ADA riders have to take a precedent because we have to transport the ADA riders. But I would still say to have some flexibility in your schedule, because, again, if someone needs to get to a life sustaining, you know, dialysis, for example, and you have just a shot, not just, but you have a shopping trip, you know, we have to take, there has to be some precedent for the ADA riders over the dial a ride rider. So still maintain that flexibility. But for the most part, things have increased as far as our driver availability now. And so we are we are seeing an increase in the percentage of those using dial a ride. So it's been a good service. I mean, it's been a it's been a it's been a successful service. And it's something that we're going to continue to to push and continue to offer. Now it is offered in Amherst. But some of the surrounding towns, we don't we don't have dial ride service. And so like, for example, if you're taking that, but the bus up into Waitley, we don't we don't offer dial ride, you know, up in Deerfield, because that's not one of the we don't we don't offer a regular fixed route services there. So just that one small stop that we do. So there are some limits, of course. And again, dial ride is not available on the week on Sunday, for sure. And every community has different hours for the availability of dial ride. So just those are a few things to keep in mind. And so is it available Saturday in Amherst? I would have to just double check. They said yes to me when I asked that question. Yeah, I believe it's just on let's see Amherst. Yeah. Hmm. I might be looking at something older, but it says not on Saturdays for for the current hours that we had recently. OK. So the but the website is updated more more often than that. We'll take a look at it. And I'm just curious how much do other riders get canceled because of the need to fulfill a ride for for people who fall under the ADA? Well, no one should be getting canceled, but they may get it may be denied. They may have a denial of service or they may have a denial is called. But we we as the numbers have been in and all in all service, whether it's ADA or dial ride, it's been in the single digits now the last couple of months. So it's it's certainly. And a denial is anytime you're offered a so let's say someone has a noon, they have a noon pickup time. Well, if you're offered one thirty, that's considered a denial because it's outside of an hour of your original requested time. So that doesn't mean that they're not getting a ride at all, but that means they may have to get a ride much later or earlier than they originally anticipated. So that's something to keep in mind. As far as I know, we are there's not it's not been a large number of denials in general. And they would be told that at the time of call or after they've had an arrangement, there would be a change. That would be when they called if there was going to be a if there's going to be a denial. OK, great. Thank you. You're welcome. That's really helpful. Rosemary. Yes, my question is whether or not there's any evening service with dialer ride or if any rider services anywhere available for older people. So for and my and the other thing I wanted to mention is that I understand somebody asked the question about the drivers selling booklets, but it was my understanding that drivers are never handle money. Is that correct? As far as I know, for the paratrans of Vans, yes, they they can, as far as I hold on a second, let me just double check that they can collect cash. Paratrans of drivers. Yeah, yeah, I thought so. There's there's just a very few shuttles that can't that are not even anywhere near Amherst. They're they're different towns. So that's but yeah, for the most these are all yeah, they're all able to process cash on those. And the the dialer ride hours I have. Are eight to four thirty. OK, I'm going to double check that, though. Liz, does Amherst's neighbors do evening rides? Interestingly enough, we don't get that request. So if we got the request, we would put it out. OK. And then and then we would find out. Yeah, I wouldn't have told you before that we don't go to Springfield or Greenfield and we just don't get takers. So in the same way, I would hopefully get takers in the evening, but it really hasn't been a request. Well, fortunately, some of our public city buses run, you know, that late. So they're they're running evening hours, some of them nine ten o'clock at night. So there is that service. Yes. Yeah. And it does look like that currently it's still eight to four thirty p.m. for the dialer ride for Amherst. Thank you. Thanks. Ruth. Yeah, I just want to say my my husband has a number of times has taken the rides that are available through the senior center and the service has been very, very reliable. They do give you a window the time they're going to pick you up and when they're going to bring you home. And so it's a little large on both sides, but that's not an issue. But they come when they say they're going to come. And they bring you back when they say they're going to bring you back. So it's been a very dependable, reliable service. So I just wanted to put that in there. So that that's for the senior center or through Amherst neighbors? Through the senior center, through the senior center. OK, so, Hayley, you guys do volunteer ride service also. They had, I think my understanding is that during the pandemic that was suspended and then so a huge thank you to the PVTA because they we are in the process of acquiring one of their retired vans. And at which point, once we have that in place, because we need a van that has a wheelchair lift, we'll be able to resume our Med Ride program. So very excited about that. And thank you again to the PVTA. Great. Great to hear that. That's great. Sue. Hi, thank you. To everyone for being here and for educating us. I think it's terrific to see, you know, new ramps and new curb cuts and things of that sort. One of my concerns, however, is that there are many people with disabilities that are invisible and there are many people with heart and lung. Difficulties and we don't have a place to sit at many of the bus stops. And we also don't have benches at regular intervals if people are trying to walk around downtown to run their errands. And I think if we're going to plan an age friendly community, we really need to have places for people to stop and catch their breath or stop and wait until their heart rate goes back down. But just having ramps and just having curb cuts is not the answer for a lot of people who struggle to get around. Thank you. How about public restrooms? Is that an issue? Are there public restrooms in the downtown? And or no. If the library is open and their restrooms pretty pathetic. Oh, it's terrible. I mean, when we find to get a new library, that will help. But the reality is that restrooms are definitely an issue. So when I when I saw the presentation about how there should be handicapped, accessible restrooms, you know, I refrained from choking and laughing because they're not. But, you know, a major problem for Amherst and this is not the fault of any of the folks on this call who work for the town is that we don't budget. Maintain our physical plant very well and haven't for decades. And it looks to me like that will become even worse in the near future, given inflation and many demands in town for other uses for funds. And so I think it behooves those of us who live in Amherst and vote in Amherst and care about these issues to start speaking up to the town council. And specifically, are you talking about sidewalks, buildings? What's the main? What do you think are the main? All of the above, not to mention pavements of streets, which were not not on the agenda right now, you know, but. Benches, anything, restrooms, although restrooms are a problem because they can get trashed by people when, you know, they're in an unfair place where there isn't someone keeping an eye on it. So but anyway, my political comment. Thanks. Oh, you're concerned. That's a that's a that's a countrywide concern right now. There's less than 10 percent of public restrooms available for the population. It's it's something everywhere. In fact, what it was brought up to the mayor of New York in the 90s, he said, well, there's a Starbucks in every corner. And so they it doesn't make any sense to have, you know, private equities supplement them. But that is something that's everywhere. And I I agree that's something that should be looked at. Yes, there's such a thing as restroom desert. Liz. Yeah. Yeah. Getting back to what Sue raised about benches being interspersed, I think that I totally agree with that. And I just don't know what has been the thinking of the town in terms of putting in more benches for that particular goal in mind. Maureen or Chris, as this I can say, I can say this is Chris. That Maureen is actually an amazing person because she's constantly looking for money and she finds money in different places. And the money can pay for things and it can pay for benches. But we do need to coordinate. And if we get a bench through a grant, then DPW is called upon to put in the bench. So they may have another work plan in mind and it may not include putting in benches. So it takes coordination and it takes looking for money. And as someone recently said, it's hard to find money in the town budget itself. So we're constantly, you know, going around looking for grants. But we try to do our best. And we do think about putting in benches when we have the money. And I wanted to answer a question that Tracy Zafian asked about public restrooms. There is a public restroom in Town Hall. There are public restrooms in Town Hall that are open when Town Hall is open and they're available or accessible via elevator. OK. Thanks. This. Oh, I'm done. OK. Sorry. Rosemary Rosemary and then at least up your muted resume. I just have a comment about public restrooms. I wonder if the town has ever looked at what some cities have with these. These restrooms that stand on the corner and our self cleaning, for instance, in San Francisco, they're very popular and very successful. And they that's something that is self standing and it could be put somewhere in the obvious place downtown. And yeah, because Town Hall is not always open. And what about on weekends? I think the issue of public restrooms downtown is a huge issue. That's it. Thanks. I haven't heard of those. Is that like it's like a port of potty or is it a sort of a better. Well, they're Chris. Have you ever seen those? They're self enclosed. I wish I could have a picture of one. I try and send it. But they're self enclosed. I would say they stand about six feet, maybe eight feet long and four feet wide and they're green. And you have to I think they there is a cost. It's 25 cents or 50 cents, probably more now. And you put a coin in and the door opens and after you leave, the entire thing is flushed and so it's clean in between. I think some people were concerned about them because they could be a place where someone could go and do drugs. But that's an issue. Yeah, that I don't know how how big a problem that is. I believe that Guilford has a response to respond, maybe. Yeah, the ones you're the ones you're talking about are called Portland lose and they have them in Boston. Right. They run about $180,000 a piece. We've looked at them. People have thought they'd be kind of nice, but we they haven't moved beyond that. Oh, thanks. Elise, I'm just going quickly, going back to the sidewalk issue. I heard from a source. Well, I heard from somebody who found out that is it true that the budget for sidewalks has gone down for fixing sidewalks? And there are some sidewalks that stop without any warning and you can't go any further. I tried to get to the middle school for a rehearsal and I couldn't do it. I missed the rehearsal. I'm just wondering whether the budget for, you know, is that really going to go down the budget to fix sidewalks? I don't know. Guilford, you have a response. So the town the last five years has given capital money for sidewalk improvements. And it's kind of been it's kind of been just for big projects. So that would cover those type of things. Like I said, we're only concentrating on repairing what's there. Generally, overall, the maintenance budget for roads and sidewalks like potholes are just filling a little bad section. That budget has gone down. Oh, OK. Potholes and stuff on the street, you know. Well, what about kids who have to walk to school? Potholes and sidewalks fall in that world, too. OK. Just checking. All right. Thank you. Tori. Hi. I was going to ask about those bathrooms, but they're very expensive. I've never heard of them before. Do they come in accessible bathrooms? Those I mean the town won't purchase them anyway. But I'm curious. Do they come in? They're probably accessible. They are. And so could the town instead purchase some porta potties and maintain them? These they're cheaper, I think, than what you were talking about. Well, right now, the town's looking at putting in a bathroom at the north end of town and one possibly at the south end of town. I think the north end will go in first, probably in the Kendrick Park area. And it'll be it'll be. We've talked about prefab units. We've also talked about a custom design now, the. Planning, inspection services department, they've designed something for a bathroom. So we have that. That's really where we're heading right now. It's actually cheaper to build a facility, even though you have to clean it every day. It is cheaper to do that. Well, it would be nicer in the winter. I guess I have a question for for Guilford and I know. So I know the town has a complete streets policy, but doesn't have a complete streets prioritization plan. Is that on your radar at all? Because that would would make you eligible for some funding? We have a policy. We have a priority plan, but it's our plan. We have not done it in the way MassDOT wants it done. And we have not submitted to MassDOT. OK, well, that's that's something that town could do to access them. It's up to $400,000 of funding wouldn't cover everything, but it might cover projects. Anyone else have questions or comments? I also wanted to mention that MassMobility is a really great resource out of MassDOT that will look at all of the town's transportation services and look at what the gaps might be. And it sounds like, you know, with Amherst neighbors ride service becoming increasingly popular, that might not be sustainable. But, you know, some communities get into micro transit, which is sort of a ride service that you can contract out. So it's something to think about, you know, going forward to to fill those gaps. Chris, you have your hand up. I had a question for Liz about Amherst neighbors. Is there a provision or I guess maybe I should ask it the other way. Do people's private automobile insurance plans cover them for when they're transporting their people like Amherst neighbors talks about? How does that get handled? That would be the first thing is somebody's private insurance would cover it. But if the claim goes above that, we have our own insurance that would then cover the difference. Okay, thanks. Good question. Tori. Hi. The ride share, is there anyone with an accessible vehicle for the ride share program? Which ride share program? Well, the neighbors or? That's a good question. I don't know that we know it's, we have volunteers use their own cars. So, so I think it's safe to say no. I just wondered. Yeah, no, that's a good question. And again, just to say that the senior center will be getting a van that is capable of taking someone in a wheelchair. You know, we're just waiting for the handoff to come. So. What hours will that be available Haley? You know, kind of working at it. We have some funding to play around with where we can pay for a driver but we'll most likely do during the day, daytime hours and then perhaps as like a on-demand as needed service. So if anyone's interested in driving, you know, also please tell your friends that, you know, we would like to get some folks recruited for that as well. You don't need a special license for this van. You can, any driver's license will do. How many seats are in the van? It's an eight seat van unless there are people in a wheelchair. We can take two folks in wheelchairs and still take six other passengers. Wow. Alisa. Yeah, thanks. Now I'm confused about the one, the senior center is getting, it sounds like fairly soon, assuming a driver's can be found. But that's different than the thing that Becky, you were referring to. I think it meant a couple of minutes ago about some towns contracting with some kind of service because it seems to me that given how spread out Amherst is and how most of us want to age in place and we couldn't afford to move to downtown even if we wanted to, that expecting fixed routes to take care of transportation when people can't drive themselves for whether forever or temporarily, it's just not gonna work. So some kind of increase to the number of things that are available for people to call up and reserve a ride sounds like a practical way to go forward to me. I mean, the volunteers are great but it shouldn't be the only thing. And the PBTA service sounds good but pretty heavily used. So more of that kind of service would be a good thing to find a way to have. Especially at night. Yes. A lot of seniors, a lot of people don't wanna drive at night or can't. Yep. Yeah. And if you wanna go to a concert or participate as a musician in a concert or anything like that. Does Amherst have any private taxis or is Uber and Lyft available? People have tried to have taxi services but I don't think any of them have survived very long. I believe Uber is available. Or both of Equible. Assuming you have a cell phone, a smartphone and all that. It's a pain. Okay. I did check with Celebrity Cab in Northampton once when I was, because they have a service with their senior center and it's a subsidized service for people to get around but Celebrity won't come to Amherst. They feel like they're just, they just have too much business already. Yeah, that's what they do. You might come on an occasion but they wouldn't do a contract with us. Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's something Northampton did during the pandemic when they didn't have band service. They contracted with the taxi service. And I think they were able to use their PVGA funds or transit funds to do that. So yeah, if you have a taxi service that will do it. Chris. For Amherst neighbors where individual private people are driving others, is there an expectation that they will help the person that they're driving to get out of the van or out of the car and into wherever they're going or is it just you arrive and the person gets into the car by him or herself and then gets out of the car by him or herself? Is it just transportation or is it also help? It is mostly people need to be able to get in and out of a vehicle themselves. Now we've had somebody who is a wheelchair. She uses a wheelchair. So she would wheel herself to the car but was able to get herself in and out of the car and the volunteer could put the wheelchair in the car. And somebody may lend an arm but will not kind of bear the weight of doing it a full transfer in and out of the car. So it's more a light assist. Yeah. The volunteers are primarily older people themselves and really not in a position to be lifting passengers nor have they been trained in how to do it most safely. So. Yeah. Okay. That's a really good question. I'm glad you asked that, Chris. Sure. I got it. We talked about Uber services, Lyft services. For example, somebody like me if I need to go to visit a friend or go to see a movie or something with friends at night. And like everybody can try to use Uber but I cannot because they don't have any accessible vehicles. They just use the cars people have in their homes. Could there be like a stock of vans that could be used with Uber drivers when needed? Like the PVTA is going to place one in the town. Could there be several of those and available for in cases like there is a request coming from a person who needs to use one of these vehicles? I mean, because when you think of the community and opening this community to more elderly people living there comfortably, transportation is a big need. And especially at night when there really is nothing after six o'clock, I was told by PVTA spokesperson. Well, because Uber is a independent for-profit company that would be totally up to them to have their own type of service, nothing would surprise me if they start offering something like that. But there are various, I don't know if it would be considered under medical transportation but there are other providers that do medical transportation. They may have hours that are outside of the, that are outside of what PVTA offers but that may only fall into actual for medical transportation needs, going to an appointment or something like that. Unfortunately, I don't think there would be any way for us to contract with a third party to let them use a van like that. I mean, other than the councils on aging that we already do have contracts with and we do let them use certain, they do have vans in our contract with us but outside of that, I don't know if that's feasible. But it's not a bad idea. Tracy. Yeah, so I just have a comment on that. I mean, I think that the MBTA, right, that they've tried for a few years, they've had an agreement with Uber and Lyft, for example, in terms of surveying and paratransit needs on off peak times where they have been working directly with Uber and Lyft to, and giving, I think they give riders vouchers and things just because Ryder and Lyft are able to provide a higher level of service than the MBTA paratransit services would be able to provide it off peak times and that seems to have worked really well. And that program, it's been piloted, I don't know what the current status of is but it's been around for a few years. So it would be great if the PBTA could look at something similar. Yes, thank you for bringing that up. I can send you information. There's some, MassDOT has been funding the pilot project. So I can send you that information. Could you also send that information to the DAC, please? Sure. Great. Access advisory committee. So we're almost just about at four o'clock. I just wanna show we've changed the date of the next hearing. We're not our next forum. We're not going to have a forum in August. So we've moved the next one, which is the fourth listening session, health and community services and public safety. That one will now be on September 24th. So it's a Monday, same time, 2.30 to four. We haven't yet decided if we're gonna do a Zoom registration or a Zoom link like this one. So stay tuned and look at the Engage Amherst website on the Agent Dimension Family Amherst. And then in October, we're gonna have a forum that's gonna be provided in Spanish for Spanish speakers and that will sort of go over all the topics. Becky? Yes. On my calendar, it says, maybe I'm looking at this wrong. It says Monday is the 26th. Oh, okay. Well, it's the 26th then. Sorry about that. I will change that. No, that's right. Thank you. And luckily we haven't printed these flyers yet or anything. So yeah, that's always an issue. All right, well thank you. We'll fix that. That's it. So thank you all for coming and for your great questions. And I think that definitely gives us some food for thought and to make some recommendations in that action plan. So after these next two forums and we're sort of starting to work on the community assessment and action plan report. And then that will have a number of actions for the town to take in the next five years or so or priority actions for the town to look into. And so we'll be working on that. And I'm sure there will be a copy for folks to provide comments on. This is wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, this is good.