New PROWAG Guidelines a Major Advance for ADA (and All Pedestrians)
(Source: Flickr/Dylan Passmore.)
The landmark Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law in 1990, and the changes in the built environment it spawned have made the United States a world leader in enabling access to users with mobility limitations. Design features such as ramps at building entrances, automated doors, and seating areas for wheelchair users in auditoriums and stadiums have become commonplace.
Despite some monumental strides, disability-rights advocates have long argued that there are still many holes in public policy and challenges in the physical landscape. Now a significant category is being addressed with the new ADA and ABA Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines (PROWAG), filed as a final rule in the Federal Register on September 7. The new guidelines are the culmination of a 24-year process and promise to make American towns and cities safer and more predictable for users of all abilities.
Overseen by the U.S. Access Board, the new guidelines “address access to sidewalks and streets, crosswalks, curb ramps, pedestrian signals, on-street parking, and other components of public rights-of-way.” Among the important updates outlined by the Access Board are:
Pedestrian Access Routes: Sidewalks, shared-use paths, and other pedestrian circulation paths must contain a “pedestrian access route,” which is required to be accessible to, and traversable by, individuals with disabilities. The portions of these sidewalks and paths that comprise the pedestrian access route must be wide enough to minimize the possibility of a pedestrian using a mobility device falling into a roadway when passed by another pedestrian. Pedestrian access routes have specified cross slopes and running slopes so that they are traversable by pedestrians using manual wheelchairs or other mobility aids without exhaustive effort.
Alternate Pedestrian Access Routes: When an entity closes a pedestrian access route for construction, it must provide a temporary alternate pedestrian access route with basic accessible features.
Accessible Pedestrian Signals: All new and altered pedestrian signal heads installed at crosswalks must include “accessible pedestrian signals” (APS), which have audible and vibrotactile features indicating the walk interval so that a pedestrian who is blind or has low vision will know when to cross the street. Pedestrian push buttons must be located in a position so that a person using a wheelchair can reach them. The walk speed used to calculate the crossing time allows pedestrians with disabilities sufficient time to cross.
Crosswalks: Curb ramps and detectable warning surfaces are required where a pedestrian circulation path meets a vehicular way. Crosswalks at multilane roundabouts and channelized turn lanes must have additional treatments that alert motorists to the presence of pedestrians or slow or stop traffic at those crosswalks.
Transit Stops: Boarding and alighting areas at sidewalk or street level, as well as elevated boarding platforms, must be sized and situated such that a person with a disability can board and alight buses and rail cars. Pedestrian access routes must connect boarding and alighting areas and boarding platforms to other pedestrian facilities. Transit shelters must have clear space for use by a person in a wheelchair.
On-Street Parking: On-street non-residential parking must have designated accessible parking spaces sized so that a person with a disability may exit a parked vehicle and maneuver to the sidewalk without entering a vehicular way. Standard-size, designated-accessible on-street parking spaces must be situated near an existing crosswalk with curb ramps.
Edward Erfurt, Strong Towns director of community action, who has decades of experience in planning and executing infrastructure projects, says the level of detail in the new guidelines is a game changer. He’s observed that even municipalities that are trying to comply with the ADA and do the right thing for their citizens with mobility limitations lacked specificity, and that inconsistent execution of things such as crosswalks and curb ramps has been a major impediment for such users. Erfurt believes that PROWAG’s “focus on the user at the slowest speeds and the highest risk in these environments” will bring new best practices to the field.
Steve Wright, a writer, planner, and disability-rights advocate, says that many deterrents to users with mobility challenges are imperceptible to other users. “Most everyday people—and even a high percentage of Public Works officials and inspectors—think if a fairly wide sidewalk is in place, it's mission accomplished.”
Wright praises the PROWAG guidelines for the level of technical detail, such as requirements for grading sidewalks and intersections. He calls cross slope “the great hidden barrier,” and says that a street that may appear to have a usable sidewalk and curb ramps can be an Olympic-level challenge for a manual wheelchair user. Requirements to address slope at every intersection will also reduce standing or freezing water that accumulates on curb ramps and impedes wheelchair users, or worse, hurtles them into moving traffic.
This specificity, and the legal requirement that planners and engineers adhere to the guidelines, promises to bring improvements that will make everyone in American cities safer. In addition to new construction, all retrofit and improvement projects will result in upgrades to mobility and pedestrian safety. Erfurt describes such an example: “Take the simplest thing of having a pedestrian crosswalk with a clear direction perpendicular to travel across the street. Not only does it help somebody with a disability, it aligns every pedestrian where they need to be so there's more awareness of their surroundings and enhanced safety for all.”
Toole Design, an engineering firm that does accessible design projects, did an analysis of the changes for its clients, and predicts that “PROWAG implementation will result in more accessible streets and sidewalks for people with disabilities and greater consistency and predictability in design, which is especially important for people with disabilities.”
Rather than chafe at the cost of such projects, Wright urges municipalities to think of them as an investment that could unleash massive economic benefits from an untapped workforce. He notes that many Americans with mobility impairments are often unemployed or underemployed because navigating their cities in a timely, reliable manner is so challenging. Adding predictability to their trips could enable thousands of people to return to regular work.
An Access Board spokesperson concurs, “[a] more accessible American infrastructure expands opportunities for employment and social interaction.” With this substantial update on the books, the Access Board continues working on other aspects of accessibility, including “guidelines for rail vehicles, self-service transaction machines, medical diagnostic equipment, and electric vehicle charging stations.”
Ben Abramson is a Staff Writer at Strong Towns. In his career as a travel journalist with The Washington Post and USA TODAY, Ben has visited many destinations that show how Americans were once world-class at building appealing, prosperous places at a human scale. He has also seen the worst of the suburban development pattern, and joined Strong Towns because of its unique way of framing the problems we can all see and intuit, and focusing on local, achievable solutions. A native of Washington, DC, Ben lives in Venice, Florida; summers in Atlantic Canada; and loves hiking, biking, kayaking, and beachcombing.