Plus I don't even think Fairmount's and Readville's low platforms are 8 inches above the railhead to begin with like all of Caltrain's stops are, so the onboard bridge plates from the low-level doors probably wouldn't reach down to an acceptable ADA interface to begin with. The mini-high is still the only 100% accessible way to enter. The T might not even be legally allowed to use the expensive-ass low-level folding bridge plates that these things come factory-installed with.
Phil Eng:
The original cars that were being conceived would have been ADA compliant, but they also would not have been fully compliant in every car, meaning if you had mobility needs, if you had families with strollers or, or carts, you would have had to gone to one unit and not any car in the fleet. [...] I asked the team to go back. I asked the team to take a look at design modifications that would ensure that when this rolling stock is delivered, it meets our standards, it meets the accessibility needs. Those changes did add time for design and build, and those changes also would require then some review by FRA and approvals by FRA.
That's going to pile on even more cost, because the door heights and bridge plate interface was the be-all/end-all Caltrain cost bloater. Stadler struggled like hell to get an ADA-compliant bridge plate slope that would even interface with an 8-inch platform, let alone a ground-level platform that would increase the slope beyond ADA tolerances. Caltrain even has a special "mini" mini-high build program going on so the bridge plate interface with these cars' lower-level doors can be truly level boarding, instead of on a maximum-allowed slope. Most "low" platforms in Europe where the unmodified versions of these things run are still much taller than American low platforms.Looking back over the Board meeting from last week, I don't think this is the case. Full quote below, but it sounds like the T requested the door heights get fixed even if it means needing additional FRA approvals. That also explains the jump in timelines (which make the argument for BEMUs even worse but that's another rabbit hole).