Michael Ivanovich

ADA overhaul ready for engineering review
June 17, 2008

 
The Bush Administration approved sweeping changes to the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA); advance text with accompanying analyses and reports were posted on the ADA.gov website.. The changes were published as a Proposed Rule in the June 17th issue of the  Federal Register, which initiates a 60-day public review. There is one section for COMMERCIAL FACILITIES, and another for STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT SERVICES. 

The "advanced text" posting includes  an analysis of the changes as Appendix A. The Appendix describes the major changes and provides rationale. This is probably the most useful text for engineers at this time, unless they want to comment on the text of the proposed rule.

After considering the comments when the review period is over, final rules will be published as law.

According to the New York Times, more than seven million businesses and all state and local government agencies will be affected. Covered will be all new construction and renovations, with some coverage for existing buildings. The new rules would set more stringent requirements in an effort to meet the needs of an aging population and a growing population of disabled war veterans.

A report by the U.S. Census Bureau states there are 50 million Americans with some type of disability. (in 2002).  According to the report, a person has a disability "if they have difficulty performing a specific activity such as seeing, hearing, bathing or doing light housework, or had a specified condition, such as Alzheimer’s disease or autism. People are considered to have a severe disability if they are completely unable to perform one or more of these tasks or activities, need personal assistance or have one of the severe conditions described in the report."

Under those definititions, the report stated that approximately 51.2 million people said they had a disability; for 32.5 million of them, the disability was severe. The report did not breakdown the reasons for the disabilities (eg., birth defects, illnesses, accidents, or service injuries among veterans). 

Regarding disabled American veterans, a 2007 Census report said that there are 6.1 million veterans with a disability, with about 3.5 million of them over 65 years of age. However, according to the Associated Press, the number of DAVs has increased 25% (to 2.9 million) since 2001, because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't know why the AP article and the Census figures were so far off on the number of DAVs. 

According to the AP article, there are "755,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Of that group, the VA says more than 181,000 are collecting disability benefits."

So -- in honor of those who are serving America and returning as DAVs, please take a look at the new (proposed) ADA requirements and participate in the review. If you see anything that you believe merits support from your colleagues, feel free to post a comment to this blog.

To get slighly off topic, while poking around the Internet, I found a related gem that is part of the Whole Building Design Guide. The chapter, "Assessment Tools for Accessibility" by Peter A. Stratton, Steven Winter Associates, Inc. The chapter "describes tools that help make it easier for designers, developers, and contractors to assess, survey, or audit facilities for accessibility for people with disabilities. While several of the tools are intended for new construction or alteration projects, they can also be used to survey existing buildings to identify those features or elements in need of modifications." 

For ADA-compliance designers and commissioning providers, it's a great find.
 



 

Posted by Michael Ivanovich on June 17, 2008 | Comments (0)