Disability Technology & News

Federal Disability Rules

Federal disability rules require many redos
Andrea Kelly
March 5, 2007
Source: Arizona Daily Star

Fabian Tanori, left, and Jerome Camacho break up a concrete slab at North Columbus Boulevard and East Fifth Street before a new sidewalk ramp is built according to the standards of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Such work is necessary for the city of Tucson to keep its federal funding for street work.

Did you know? President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans With Disabilities Act into law on July 26, 1990, saying, “Along with the precious privilege of being an American comes a sacred duty to ensure that every other American’s rights are also guaranteed.” The U.S. Justice Department provides information about the ADA, its requirements and how to file a complaint through a toll-free phone line: 1-800-514-0301. Source: ADA Web site

Tucson is spending $2 million installing new sidewalk ramps to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act and ensure the city’s continued eligibility for federal road funding, a lifeblood for streets here.

If the new curb ramps don’t meet ADA standards by 2009, the city could lose that funding.

All road projects that involve more than maintenance — including repaving, widening or any other major work — require sidewalks and sidewalk ramps, or curb cuts, to meet ADA standards.

The city installed ramps when it completed road projects such as the milling and repaving of North Columbus Boulevard, and several other projects in the past 10 years. But those ramps weren’t precisely what the act requires, said Steve Pageau, deputy director of the Tucson Department of Transportation.

“It hasn’t been clear in the past what was required,” he said.

Pageau said the city thought it was complying with the requirements by adding ramps, but when the city government was audited for ADA compliance in 2005, several deficiencies came to light, including the ramps.

In the initial audit, more than 1,200 items were cited for noncompliance, said Liana Perez, director of the city’s Office of Equal Opportunity Programs.

In addition to sidewalk ramps, the U.S. Justice Department found problems with public-building entrances, furniture placement in some public buildings, and overall emergency preparedness, Perez said.

The audit also found noncompliance of many polling places, which prompted the city to consider an all-mail City Council election for next November.

The new sidewalk ramps feature “truncated domes,” or nubs that stick up to provide a more distinct texture for the visually impaired, and traction for other users. They also follow specific standards for the angle of the slope, Pageau said.

“Anyplace we spent federal money, we have had to put these in, and they weren’t meeting standards,” Pageau said.

The city reached a settlement with the Justice Department in 2005, agreeing to make several changes to bring public buildings, sidewalk ramps and other deficiencies into compliance.

The $2 million for this project is being apportioned through four years of ramp replacements. Each year, about 100 ramps are being replaced, using $500,000 of the city’s Highway User Revenue Funds, Pageau said.

“The guys at TDOT are really bending over backward to address sidewalk accessibility,” said Rob Blizzard, the chair of the transportation subcommittee of the city’s Commission on Disability Issues.

He has used a powered mobility device, or motorized wheelchair, for four years, and he used a manual wheelchair for a few years before that.

“The city has become more aware not only because of the Department of Justice audit but because the disabled community is mobilizing,” Blizzard said.

Blizzard said that before the ADA mandates, a lot of the curb cuts were done according to the city code, and the city intended them to be functional, but not all ended up that way.

Tucson may not be alone in its task.

Before the Americans With Disabilities Act went into effect, curb ramps were not built to any standard, said Ed Myers, litigation director for the Arizona Center for Disability Law.

When the ADA was enacted in 1990, many cities interpreted it to mean they simply needed to add curb cuts, or that existing ones were enough, he said.

Many times that resulted in curb ramps that were too steep or too narrow, or that didn’t adequately alert a visually impaired person by means of a distinct surface texture. Tucson added scored lines in its concrete ramps to allow a person using a cane to feel a difference in surface, signaling the approach of a ramp.

But the act set specific definitions for the slope of a curb ramp. The angle must be no greater than a 1-to-20 ratio of height to distance.

For Blizzard, the angle of the curb-cut ramps is most important. After that, width and surfacing also are important, he said. The priority list would vary depending on a person’s disability.

The act could be confusing because it could have been interpreted by jurisdictions as “we have ramps; we’re OK,” Myers said. “I’ve seen other cities think that way, too,” he said.

Most cities find out they are out of compliance because of an audit or because complaints are filed, he said.

“This isn’t just an issue with disabilities,” Myers said. The ramps are appreciated by children, parents who use strollers, the elderly and others, he said. “It affects a lot of people.”

Bill Olson lives near South Swan Road, where he’s seen several recent ramp replacements. He said he likes the idea of having ramps at intersections so the disabled can safely commute and so children can ride bicycles. But he doesn’t understand why the old ramps weren’t good enough.

It seems to him that the money could have been better spent by adding sidewalks in areas that don’t have any, so people in wheelchairs wouldn’t have to maneuver in bike lanes and could travel safely on sidewalks.

“I would think we would be much better off with sidewalks,” Olson said. “That area along Columbus, if I was in a motorized wheelchair, I would go to the street rather than go to the unimproved property.”

Blizzard knows what that’s like. He can recount several situations in which he has used his motorized wheelchair in the bike and bus lanes of streets where there was no sidewalk.

That brings up even more legal issues. The state vehicle code says that people who use wheelchairs, even motorized ones, are considered pedestrians, so they shouldn’t be in the bike lane, Blizzard said.

He also added that the voter-approved Regional Transportation Plan includes funding for some of the sidewalk improvements that Olson seeks, and that will increase accessibility for everyone in the community.

Olson said the law should give cities the option of fixing the ramps or adding sidewalks.

Pageau said the city would also like to use the money on other improvements, but it can’t afford to lose federal funding, which is “pretty much what we live on” for street work.

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