Description

Draft national accessibility guidelines define a public right-of-way as public land or property, usually in interconnected corridors, acquired for or devoted to transportation purposes. Examples include sidewalks and streets, crosswalks, curb ramps, street furnishings, and parking.

Importance

While national accessibility guidelines and standards have existed for facilities for almost three decades, the unique challenges presented by public streets and sidewalks have delayed adoption of guidelines or standards for public rights-of-way. Draft guidelines were proposed by the United States Access Board (ABA) in 1992, 1994, and 1998. In 1999, the ABA created a 33-member Public Rights-of-Way Access Advisory Committee, which published its report in 2001. Draft guidelines were released for public comment in 2002, and reissued in 2005. Regulatory assessment of cost and impact is still on-going.

Public rights-of-way and facilities are required to be accessible to persons with disabilities through Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) (29 U.S.C. §794) and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA - 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131-12164). These statutes prohibit public agencies from discriminating against persons with disabilities by excluding them from services, programs, or activities. An agency must provide pedestrian access for persons with disabilities to surrounding streets and sidewalks. The draft guidelines impose standards for accessible features such as curb cuts, ramps, continuous sidewalks, and detectable warnings.

 The 1999 Advisory Committee report, Building a True Community, provides criteria for the construction or alteration of public rights-of-way reflecting the broad spectrum of expertise represented by committee members. The report, which follows a "toolbox" approach to guidelines to facilitate implementation and promote understanding of all users’ needs, provides criteria for sidewalks, street fixtures and furnishings, street crossings, vehicular ways, parking, and other components of public rights-of-way.

An ad hoc group of ABA members crafted a set of draft guidelines based on the committee’s recommendations which departed from the advisory committee’s report, so the Board made an the guidelines available for public comment on June 17, 2002. More than 1,400 comments were received from the public; 200 from the transportation industry (design engineers and consultants, State and local government departments of transportation); and 100 from State and local government administrative agencies.

Ten key issues subject to detailed analysis were addressed in the second draft: crosswalk width; on-street parking; walking speed and pedestrian signal phase timing; elevators at pedestrian overpasses and underpasses; same-side alternate circulation routes; cross slope in crosswalks; detectable warnings; accessible pedestrian signals; roundabouts and roundabout signalization; and alterations.

Draft Guidelines

Although the guideline development process is slow, the regulatory process and related research has provided a lot of guidance for designers, including the 1999 Accessible Rights-of-Way: A Design Guide, based on earlier versions of the standards. The 2005 draft guidelines should be consulted on each of the components of public rights-of-way listed in the first column of the table below. Design resources in addition to the 1999 Guide and the 2005 guidelines are noted in the third column of the table below.

Research and Development Needs

Local jurisdictions and other entities covered by the ADA or ABA must ensure that the facilities they build or alter are accessible to people with disabilities. While the guidelines address certain features common to public sidewalks, further guidance is necessary to address conditions unique to public rights-of-way. Many vital elements of public rights-of-way have no associated rulings or information, as evident from the table above.

Various constraints posed by space limitations at sidewalks, roadway design practices, slope, and terrain raise valid questions on how and to what extent access can be achieved. Access for blind pedestrians at street crossings and wheelchair access to on-street parking are typical of the issues for which additional guidance is needed. In addition, new trends in roadway design, such as the growing use of traffic roundabouts, pose additional challenges to access, while various technological innovations, particularly those pertaining to pedestrian signaling devices, offer new solutions.

Links

Click on links for any of the reports listed in the table above. For more information on rights-of-way, go to the Board’s public-rights-of-way webpage or call them at (202) 272-0025 (v), or (202) 272-0082 (TTY). Other comprehensive reports from the U.S. Access Board include Building a True Community (2001), Accessible Rights-of-Way: A Design Guide (2007) and Accessible Public Rights-of-Way: Planning and Designing for Alterations (2007).

Accessible Design for the Blind, which prepared the major report, Accessible Pedestrian Signals: Synthesis and Guide to Best Practice, is a great source on many related issues.

Consult the Institute of Transportation Engineers for their “electronic toolbox”, a set of resources to make intersections more accessible (this includes many of the resources already listed in the table above).

The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) defines the standards used by road managers nationwide to install and maintain traffic control devices on all streets and highways. The electronic version of the MUTCD 2003 Edition with Revisions 1 and 2 incorporated is the most current edition on the MUTCD web site and is the official FHWA publication. A Notice of Proposed Amendments (NPA) to the MUTCD containing comprehensive revisions proposed for incorporation into the next edition of the MUTCD was published in the Federal Register on January 2, 2008 for public review and comments. A 7-month period was provided for comments to the docket, which closed on July 31, 2008. The FHWA is currently reviewing and analyzing the comments received. A Final Rule for the next edition of the MUTCD is anticipated during 2009. The NPA's proposed MUTCD text, figures, and tables are available for viewing. Slide presentations illustrating the proposed amendments are also available to enhance understanding.

 Authors

This article was synthesized from various U.S. Access Board publications by Susan S. Hunter, Ph.D.

References

While work on these guidelines continues, interim guidance is available from the Board through an active outreach program on rights-of-way accessibility. The U.S. Access Board routinely provides training on the subject to various audiences at different conferences across the country as well as technical assistance on issues and specific projects in response to individual inquiries. In addition, it supports research to collect needed information and has produced design guides and other resources. These can be referenced directly from the table above.