37.59 Differences in accessibility completion date requirements.
Where different completion dates for accessible stations are established
under this Part for a station or portions of a station (e.g., extensions
of different periods of time for a station which serves both rapid and commuter
rail systems), accessibility to the following elements of the station shall
be achieved by the earlier of the completion dates involved:
(a) Common elements of the station;
(b) Portions of the facility directly serving the rail system with the earlier
completion date; and
(c) An accessible path from common elements of the station to portions of
the facility directly serving the rail system with the earlier completion
date.
Portions of the same station may have different accessibility
completion date requirements, both as the result of different statutory time
frames for different kinds of stations and individual decisions made on requests
for extension. The principle at work in responding to such situations
is that if part of a station may be made accessible after another part, the
"late" part of the work should not get in the way of people's use of modifications
resulting from the "early" part.
For example, the commuter part of a station may have to be made accessible
by July 1993 (e.g., there is no need to install an elevator, and platform
accessibility can be achieved by use of a relatively inexpensive mini-high
platform). The Amtrak portion of the same station, by statute, is required
to be accessible as soon as practicable, but no later than July 2010.
If there is a common entrance to the station, that commuter rail passengers
and Amtrak passengers both use, or a common ticket counter, it would have
to be accessible by July 1993. If there were a waiting room used by Amtrak
passengers but not commuter passengers (who typically stand and wait on the
platform at this station), it would not have to be accessible by July 1993,
but if the path from the common entrance to the commuter platform went through
the waiting room, the path would have to be an accessible path by July 1993.