Light at the end of the tunnel: conflict currently exists in accessibility guidelines, but...

A lot has changed and a lot has remained the same since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) became law. Thousands of existing "places of public accommodation," ranging from dentist offices to shopping malls, hotels and office buildings, have been made more accessible to people with disabilities.

But perhaps the greatest success for ADA has been in raising public awareness about the needs and requirements of the disabled. While attitudes about ADA vary from enthusiastic acceptance to steadfast resistance, members of the building community are highly motivated to understand its requirements. By law, architects and specifiers, as well as the building owners themselves, are responsible for ensuring that a particular building, or area of a building, meets accessibility, requirements. Failure to do so many result in costly and time-consuming lawsuits.

In seminars given around the country I have noticed a great deal of interest from hardware specifiers, architects and owners about the specifics of building accessibility - what the law, requires, what compliance will cost, what strategies will succeed. No matter what their discipline people are interested in knowing what works. But getting a definitive answer to that question has been extremely difficult.

Part of the problem is in the deliberately vague wording of the law and the highly subjective compliance criteria. Even the most sophisticated will have some trouble applying broad terms like "good faith effort," "undue burden" and "readily, achievable" to their accessibility, plans.

Equally frustrating has been the lack of a single, universal and easily understood set of technical criteria for accessibility, compliance. Certain requirements found in ANSI AI 17.1 conflict with those found in the ADA Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG) issued by the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board. To make matters worse, some of the ADAAG technical requirements have not worked in actual experiences in the field, and others fail to take into account new technologies that can provide simpler, more cost-effective solutions to accessibility problems.

But there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Advisory, committees for both ANSI AI 17.1 and ADAAG have embarked on a multi-year project to coordinate the two standards. The 22 organizations involved are wrestling with such fundamental issues as jurisdictional disputes between state federal and local guidelines and inconsistencies between building codes and standards.

According to John Salmen, AIA, the two committees are separate but there is formal and informal crossover between them. Salmen is a good example of that crossover since he represents the American Institute of Architects on the ADAAG review committee, and the American Hotel and

Motel Association on the ANSI review committee. Active in disability design issues for more than 20 years, Salmen practices in Rockville, MD and is editor of the Universal Design Newsletter, a quarterly publication that tracks ADA developments for facility operators, designers and manufacturers.

In fact, this review and revision process will be among the most important new developments to occur in building accessibility since the passage of the original ADA. "The greatest problem we have faced from a technical point of view is that we do not have one standard," Salmen observes. The committees hope to resolve that problem by coordinating the two documents and eliminating inconsistencies between them. Equally important, ADAAG will be rewritten in enforceable code language. According to Salmen, the new language will set out appropriately written performance criteria, clearly defined by intent. What is important is the end result," he said.

Substantial, experience-based changes to the technical requirements, which take into account alternative solutions based on new technology are also expected. "We intend to improve the standards based on experience," Salmen said. "Since the ADA has gone into effect, the construction and design industry has taken accessibility criteria seriously. We have a better understanding of what works and what doesn't from a technical point of view. It will be based on systems and approaches that have proven to be effective."

The committees hope to produce guidelines that are "uniform, enforceable, and justifiable to not only the disability community but also to building owners and designers," said Salmen, who added that requirements for new construction will be much clearer and mesh better with local building codes.

The revision and coordination process is a lengthy one. During the past year, first draft documents of the proposed revisions have been circulated by subcommittees of the respective organizations for public comment. That process came to an end this Fall." The full ADAAG review committee is currently meeting to consider public input, and is expected to issue a set of recommended changes in April to the Access Board. The Access Board is in turn expected to put out a notice of proposed rule making in the Summer or Fall of 1996 that will provide another opportunity to comment.

The ANSI review process is expected to produce a revised document which will be put out for comment from February through April 1996. The revised document will be formalized as a second draft standard to be balloted by all members. It is anticipated that the final revised documents for both groups will be completed in 1997.

The impact of this process on ADA, as it is experienced by the building community, will be enormous. All new construction will be required to meet the new standards reflected in ANSI AI 17.1 and the revised ADAAG. In addition, ADA contains a provision requiring an ongoing program for periodic reevaluation of the accessibility of places of public accommodation by their owners. The evaluation requires owners to revisit the issue of whether or not all readily achievable barriers have been removed. If changes in the standard create new opportunities to readily achieve barrier removal, it must be done.

While conceding that this will create problems for some, Salmen is certain that the new guidelines will be embraced as a superior alternative to the old ones.

This is indeed a welcome light in the tunnel. If the guidelines are clearer and more easily understood, then, will be supported and more widely applied. They can be effective vehicles for users wishing to achieve greater accessibility, without forcing building owners to waste money, on solutions that don't ultimately work out for the users. That is clearly a win/win situation for all concerned.