Advocacy is one of the proudest legacies of the CCB. For decades, most recently under the leadership of Jeff Thom, our members have been in the forefront of advocacy for civil rights, economic empowerment, quality services, information access, education, and more. Just this year, we won two tremendous victories. Led by Jeff and Sylvia Reese, by the members of our Golden State Guide Dog Users (GSGDHI) affiliate, and with the help of many members, we secured legislation enhancing protections for our guide dogs (and all service dogs) against attack. And on the education front, we eliminated restrictions on O&M instructors' work in schools and we expanded opportunities for inclusion in students' individualized education plans (IEP's) of key training for blind and low vision students beyond the standard curriculum. Beyond these, we joined effectively with other groups in bringing about the creation of the state's new Master Plan on Aging.
At the same time, we have continued working with dedicated public interest attorneys to secure and advance our rights through the courts. Most recently, from audio-description in movie theaters to accessible healthcare information, CCB has pressed forward to support and articulate the aspirations of our members.
In light of these achievements and the history that precedes them, most of us are generally familiar with the role of the legislature in passing laws and with the potential of the courts in interpreting and enforcing them. But in addition to the legislative and judicial branches of government, there is another branch of government where some of the most far-reaching decisions are being made. Though it has no official name, we call this the administrative branch. It consists of two types of agencies, state agencies under the direction of the governor such as the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR) or the Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS), and independent state agencies such as the Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
These agencies, often in obscurity, do the work of interpreting, applying and enforcing the laws we get enacted. For many reasons, executive branch and administrative agencies, boards and commissions have come to play a growing role in our lives. As issues become more and more complex, the legislature must delegate more and more responsibility for the details of implementation and for fine-tuning to the agencies charged with oversight and enforcement of each law. Then too, because no one benefits from further crowding of our overburdened courts, many statutes and state Supreme Court decisions require that disputes be resolved or decisions be made administratively.
Although less well-known than our legislative and judicial work, CCB can also claim key successes in the administrative arena over the years. Most important, going back for almost a generation, has been the work of Eugene Lozano in connection with standards for architectural accessibility. Some may think such issues are of concern only to people with physical disabilities, but such matters as curb-cuts, textured edges, color contrasts or accessible elevators also come within the domain of architectural and physical access.
On behalf of CCB, I had a recent experience illustrating current-day realities and emerging patterns in the administrative sphere. The subject was one of surpassing importance and intense interest to us: autonomous vehicles (AV's).
State law vests authority over the testing, licensing, design, safety, and yes accessibility, of AV's mainly in two state agencies, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Broadly speaking, DMV is responsible for addressing and approving vehicle design, engineering and related considerations including safety, while the PUC is also jointly responsible for safety, but safety more in terms of where and how the vehicles are deployed and operated than, let's say, how well the brakes work.
No one should think the issue is any longer whether we will or will not have AV's. That horseless carriage is long out of the barn. AV's are here and coming. That being so, the key decisions facing society are: for what purpose, for what users, where, when and with what oversight and expectations.
To begin answering these questions, CPUC has authorized experiments. They and DMV have authorized AV use on a limited basis. Several companies are currently licensed to operate these vehicles on the streets, some without passengers, and two with passengers. Of course, where they can operate is also limited by the infrastructure and various other considerations.
In this state the experiments with carrying passengers have not included the general public. As part of their desire to advance toward greater utilization, the AV companies have sought approval to charge for rides. In this way, judging from their testimony before the Commission at its October 22nd workshop, these companies hope to test public acceptance and derive some revenue, as well as to gather further data for the commission on a variety of operational issues.
From the Commission's standpoint, the decision whether to grant authorization for this next phase of the AV experiment appears to depend largely on whether the data collected by the licensed companies during the current phase support this expansion of their operations, and whether the next phase is likely to yield further data of value. Numerous interest groups, including representatives of transportation companies, local business associations, governmental and disability organizations spoke, focusing on the quality of the data thus far gathered, on what those data reveal and how they can be used, on the issues that they believe any next phase should consider, and on what they want the commission to require.
Much of the current data are technical in nature, involving operational features, distances traveled, incidents of various kinds, and a host of other technical and operational parameters. Existing data contain little or no information about customer response, let alone about the experience of customers with disabilities. Since the vehicle models used in the pilot phase and planned for the near future do not allow for wheelchair access, it seems likely that data from the next phase will likewise be absent for at least one major disability constituency.
While wholeheartedly joining in the demand for wheelchair accessibility, we are hopeful that data pertaining to our experience will not also be absent. Accordingly, the Council submitted written comments and gave in-person testimony at the October 22 workshop. CCB had originally been contacted by one of the AV companies seeking our support for an unrelated expansion of their authority to carry commercial goods. It is very common for industry groups to seek the support of disability organizations whose members, they believe, will benefit from the goods or services they wish to offer or from the regulatory changes they seek to bring about.
In our written comments and our oral testimony at the workshop, as well as in the ensuing discussion among attendees, commission members and commission staff which the relatively informal nature of the workshop permitted, I made clear that accessibility was our bottom line. We were gratified to learn at the workshop that the Commission considers accessibility to be an integral component of its jurisdiction over safety, but we were concerned that neither the companies nor the commission, though sincere in their commitment, fully understood the meaning of accessibility for people with no or limited vision.
Thus I emphasized what accessibility means for us and what must be done and documented to make sure that AV's, whenever and however they come into our communities and our lives, afford us equality of access and freedom of movement that is identical to what users without disabilities can expect. Specifically, I explained that the ability to command the vehicle and to interact with it while "driving" is important but not the entirety of the matter.
Discussion of accessibility seems often to focus on what would happen once people were in the vehicle, on the "driving" itself. But before getting swept away by the miracle of blind people's being able to "drive," we need to know: how are people to locate the vehicle when it arrives to pick them up; how people will activate it (tell it to start) once they are settled and belted in; whether the vehicle has stopped because it has reached your destination or because there is a traffic jam on the freeway, or exactly where it has stopped once the journey is completed.
Several companies have talked about how AV's will come right to the passenger's location, but what happens in a dense urban environment if there is no available space at the curb, or if the nearest curbside access is a block away across a six-lane thoroughfare, or is in a parking lot where hundreds of vehicles stand row upon row in close proximity? Questions such as these, questions going to what we call the infrastructure of accessibility and to the experience of interacting with the AV technology, must be answered, and these are questions that any new phase must address.
Whether the commission will demand those answers remains to be seen. But one thing is sure. It is only through long-term involvement in and close attention to the regulatory process as it unfolds that our interests can be safeguarded. Here, where the key early decisions that are being made now will likely provide the template for future regulation and deployment of this game-changing technology, such attention and participation are even more than ever necessary.
This summary has been offered for three reasons. First, it is intended to update you on what CCB is doing to advance your interests and ensure our access to this burgeoning transportation revolution. Second, it is intended as an illustration of how the administrative/regulatory process works. Third and most important, I hope to interest our members in further involving themselves in this emerging dimension of advocacy and lawmaking, in advocacy for proper rules and regulations to implement laws that have been passed and court decisions that have been made.
There is virtually no law, no technology, no issue that does not involve executive branch/administrative agency action at one key point or another. Whether in defining terms, writing rules, resolving conflicts, granting permissions and licenses, setting fees, addressing privacy, establishing eligibility or certification criteria, creating notice or consent requirements, requiring accessibility, setting forth reporting requirements, creating or approving annual plans, exercising discretion, and in so much more, the low-level, often all but invisible decisions that agencies make on a daily basis influence our lives in countless ways.
Our milestone legislative successes of 2019 exemplify this point and reveal the importance of the administrative process to their ultimate impact. The governor's signature on a bill is not the end of the story but in some sense only the beginning. Enforcement of our hard-won guide dog protections will depend largely on the willingness of local officials to respond. Availability of the ECC services now included in students' IEP's will depend, in the first instance on the rules the state Education Department crafts to implement the new law, and in the long-run on the policies local school districts choose to adopt. Where as here the law gives school districts discretion to include the "extended core curriculum" (ECC) in blind and low vision students' IEP's, advocacy on the local level (including educating local decision makers on why this training is so important) may prove decisive.
Whatever your area of interest from guide dogs to accessible websites, from individualized education plans to accessible information about services and benefits, from accessible pedestrian signals (APS) to building codes, from public transit stop announcements to door-to-door paratransit service there is an issue, complete with its own administrative settings, that is right for you, sometimes more than one, whether federal, state or local, whether through commenting on proposed regulations, filing complaints, initiating petitions or serving on Boards or Commissions (governing Boards if possible, advisory if not), and to just showing up to make your voice heard in a setting where you can play an important role and very possibly make a real difference.
In a time when powerlessness has become an anesthetizing mantra, it would be foolish to romanticize what one individual or one small organization can do. But our experience, as individuals working together for shared goals, vividly demonstrates that civic activism remains a viable and eminently rewarding enterprise. Waging the battle on so many fronts may be exhausting, but it also gives each of us a chance to apply our people skills, pursue our interests in the ways, in the places and on the subjects that matter to us most. Name an issue and we'll find you a forum where it is up for grabs!
