Welcome everyone. This is a very large turn out today and I think that it is indicative of the interest in this particular topic. We are happy to have been able to schedule this special session today. Thos is one of our sessions offered under our regular monthly series of audio conference programs on the Americans with Disabilities Act and related issues. We scheduled this special session this month following the release by the U.S. Access Board of the Revised Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG)/Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) Guidelines on July 23rd of this year. This session is, as I said, one of our regular scheduled series. This program is sponsored by all ten of the Disability and Business Technical Assistance Centers that are funded federally by the U.S. Department of Education, National Institute on Disability, Rehabilitation and Research. This program is being real-time captioned during the program on the Internet. If you are interested in accessing that technology, you can go to our website at www.adagreatlakes.org and follow the links for Programs and Services. That will get you into the Audio Conference Series where you can link into the Real-Time Captioning. Following this session, a transcript will be edited and posted as part of our regular archives as well as the audio recording. If you think you missed something, or want to revisit it, there is an opportunity for you to go back and review the information. We are also offering AIA credit today as well as CRCC credit. For those of you that are requesting that credit, you will be required to submit to whomever you registered for this program with verification of attendance and contact information. We will be verifying that against our records for the audio conference prior to submission. Our next session this month, we have a second session on August 17th, which is related to Making Meetings Accessible, and if individuals are interested in that, you can get more information about that program on our website or from your Regional Center. That program will feature June Issaccson Kailes, who is a renowned speaker and publisher in the area of making meetings accessible and we are looking forward to that program. Again, that is August 17th, from 1:00-2:30 p.m. Central Standard Time. Many of you will note that this session today is going until 3:00 p.m. It is longer than our regular sessions, but that is due to the complexity of the issues that we are going to be covering today. Hopefully you have the materials that were associated with this session. We distributed as part of the session the document produced by the Access Board, which was their summary of the changes in the regulations. Obviously, also may have gone on-line to actually look at the full document. Hopefully some of you have had a chance to do that. I think it is somewhere around the area of 360 pages or maybe less than that so it is a daunting thing to print on your printer, but it does give you an opportunity to look at them up close and personal and something if you have not done you will want to do. We will go ahead and get started. The session will be run with our speaker starting out, we will then take questions. The operator will give you instructions when it is time in order to ask your questions and then we will proceed to the next person in the line and proceed through those individuals that have questions. We recognize that sometimes we can''t get to everybody''s questions but we will do our best to be able to field as many questions as possible today so please bear with us and be patient. So as we begin today, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce our speaker, Jim Pecht, who is an Accessibility Specialist with the Office of Technical and Information Services at the U.S. Access Board. He joined the U.S. Access Board in November of 1991 after receiving a Masters in Architecture from the University of Maryland. One of his first duties when he came on board was to assist with the rule making for the Accessibility Guidelines under Title II of the Americans With Disabilities Act. More recently, he has coordinated the work of the Board''s Facility Workshop, which began the process of revising the Accessibility Guidelines under the Architectural Barriers Act as well as worked on the team developing the combined guidelines for the Americans with Disabilities Act and Architectural Barriers Act that we are going to be working off today. So you have a speaker who is very intimately knowledgeable and involved in this process and with every detail probably along the way. He provides technical assistance to the building and design construction industry as well as state and federal agencies and consumers with disabilities. He has responsibility for administration of the Board''s 5500 volume technical library on accessibility issues. He has been a speaker before many professional and business groups affected by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), including the American Institute of Architects and also advised Federal Agencies on their obligations under the Architectural Barriers Act and the Rehabilitation Act, including the White House, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Social Security Administration as well as the Federal Communications Commission. He is also currently serving as a member of the National Fire Protection Association, the Construction Specifications Institute and is an Associate Member of the American Institute of Architects. So lots of experience, lots of expertise and without further adieu, I would like to welcome Jim and I am going to turn the microphone over to you Jim so you can begin to impart your knowledge on to our participants.
Good afternoon, or morning as the case may be assuming we are having folks from all over the country. I am going to sort of briefly sort of go into a lot of things that are in the summary that was passed out to folks and then probably go into more detail about some specific stuff so you can sort of follow along but I will be sort of be deviating with the more specifics and things like that. As most of you know, the Americans with Disabilities Act is a civil rights law which covers state and local government services, programs and activities, private commercial facilities and privately owned places of public accommodation. The enforceable standard, which is what the people have to follow with regards to the law are set by the Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation. The Architectural Barriers Act on the other hand is a building construction requirement primarily used by the federal government. It is a statute that requires the federal government when it builds buildings to build them accessibly. Again, the Access Board is not the enforcing body, does not provide the standards under the law, just the minimum guidelines. The enforceable standards are set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the General Services Administration, the Department of Defense and the United States Postal Service. What the Access Board does with relation to both of these two laws is we set minimum guidelines. In other words, we set the bar and below this you can''t go and be considered accessible. The standards set by all the standard setting agencies must be consistent with the minimum guidelines set by the Board. But what this does is it sets up a sort of a two-step process with regards to the different agencies. In other words, my agency does rule making, in other words, we put out a proposed rule for public comment for the guidelines, that is the process of getting comments from the public, analyzing those comments and then making changes as appropriate based on those comments. We then put out a final rule. At that point in time, it is up to the other agencies that are dealing with the standards to do rule making as well to propose to adopt our guidelines as their standards. That is what the next step that has to happen. The two laws, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Architectural Barriers Act are different. There are some things that are just different between the two laws that will show up a little bit later and we will talk about them as to why this structure of what we provide is what it is. But, there are some differences. One of the differences is the Architectural Barriers Act; not being a civil rights law has a waiver or modification process. In other words, there is a process where a federal agency can make, or apply for a waiver or a modification to the standard. That is not available under the Americans with Disabilities Act as it is a civil rights law. Now, one of the things that were published recently in several newsletters was that in our Federal Register publishing of the final guidelines, there was an "effective date" listed. This is just a function of the federal register. Every final rule that gets published in the Federal Register is required by the Federal Register to list an effective date. As far as we are concerned, all that means is the guidelines are out there, they are final, they are now going to be in our section of the Code of Federal Regulation. It is not a date that is going to indicate when these documents are going to become enforceable. That has to happen when the Justice Department, Department of Transportation, DOD, U.S. Postal Service get together or not get together and do their rule making and they will set an effective date as to when their standards go into effect. That is when they become enforceable. Those agencies publish a final rule and that rule is listed with an effective date, and that is the date that people have to worry about with regards to enforcement. That is when they actually have to do this. Now, what do you do in the interim? Well, basically the requirement stands as whatever standard is currently on the books, that is what you have to follow. In other words, the Justice Departments Appendix to 28 CFR Part 36 is the enforceable standard for Title III of the ADA, which covers the private sector. It is one of the two choices under Title II. The other choices, the old federal accessibility standard, Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS) or the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standard is also the standard for the Architectural Barriers Act. That is the current standard. Those are the legal documents that you currently have to comply with. Our new guidelines, you can use them but you need to be aware that there are areas in our guidelines that we have loosened up. In other words, they are not as stringent as the current enforceable standards. So that is what you need to be focused on if you want to use our guidelines. You need to look at the areas where our guidelines are now less or less stringent than the current standard. Those are the kinds of things you don''t want to do. In other words, for example, UFAS gives a 5% scoping requirement for detention cells, our document talks about 2%. But again, that is a difference between the two documents. We also have lowered the scoping for assembly areas from certain larger assembly areas. Again, if you are building a large stadium, or arena, you want to look at the current requirement, the current standard. Until the Justice Department adopts our guidelines as the enforceable standard, you really can''t use our guidelines where it is less stringent than the current standards. Now, one of the things we did with regards to work on this document is we tried to harmonize with the model code industry. Particularly focused in on harmonizing with the International Building Code, IBC 2000 and 2003, and the American National Standards Institute''s (American National Standards Institute (ANSI)) document, A117.1 Accessible and Useable Buildings and Facilities document. The IBC basically writes the scoping for accessibility in the Model Codes. They then refer to the ANSI document for technical requirement. There is no scoping in the ANSI document but we have members of our staff that sat on both the development committees for both those two codes, model codes, and we have worked very closely with them to try to harmonize our document with their document. Now, there are going to be some differences. Primarily because there is some things that we did that they didn''t agree with, some things they did that we didn''t agree with. There is also some things that they added after we had put out a notice of proposal. In other words, we had already given notice, we hadn''t given notice for certain things they added so the things they added to their documents after we gave notice, we couldn''t really go back and put in because we did not give the public notice on. But by and large, the documents are going to be fairly similar to each other. There are going to be some differences here and there, they are pretty close to being very much the same, not exactly, but pretty close. Again, our document really deals with new construction and alterations. We really don''t deal with existing facilities. Our guidelines really don''t specifically cover existing facilities. Existing facilities that aren''t being altered are covered by the different regulations. In other words, the existing facilities regulation of the Justice Department''s Title III regulation that talks about Readily Achievable Barrier Removal, or in the case of the State and Local Governments under the ADA, the federal facilities, it is a program accessibility obligation. Our guidelines really don''t deal with any of that. We just basically deal with what is required under the new construction or planned or voluntary alterations. Now, the new document has a fairly revamped format. We have basically changed the numbering to pretty much reflect what looks, what the model code looks like. It goes along with that kind of standard issue, what they do and how they number their documents. We have taken the advisory out of the Appendix and put it with the specific advisory provision with the requirement provision in the documents. But it is labeled as such. In other words, you will see a provision, 7034 for Alarms required to do this, then in a box with the word ''Advisory'' is the advisory that you would normally find in the appendix so you don''t have to hunt around for it like you had to in the old document. It will be right there with the provision you are looking at. One of the other things we did, we changed the figures, in other words, we have all new figures. All the figures are also advisory. There are no mandatory requirements in the figures. Anything that wasn''t in figures that was a requirement in the current document has been translated into text so the text is what governs and the text is what is required. All figures are now advisory and for you architects out there, they are also going to be in Auto CAD format so you can get those and download those and use in your drawings if you would like. We also added an index which a lot of people thought would be a helpful thing for specific key words. There is an index in the back of the document to find specific issues. The guidelines are basically in three parts. There is a scoping and application section for the Americans with Disabilities Act, scoping and application section for the Architectural Barriers Act, and a common technical document. The reason that there are two different scoping sections is what I alluded to earlier in the fact that the two statutes are different in certain aspects. There are certain things that you find in one statute that you won''t find in the other as required here, not required there, so that is why there are two scoping documents. By and large, the scoping documents are pretty much the same, except for where the statutes dictate. In other words, the Architectural Barriers Act covers leased facilities. The ADA does not specifically cover leased facilities in the statute. Obviously, there are some things in regulation that would deal with a facility but as far as the Architectural Barriers Act, it specifically covers leased facilities, so in the scoping provisions for the Architectural Barriers Act, there is a specific new section now for leased facilities. In other words, when you lease a facility, federal government leases a facility, there has to be a list of things that you have to have in that facility. Another example would be the elevator exception in the ADA, that is in the statute. There is no elevator exception in the Architectural Barriers Act, therefore, you won''t find an elevator exception similar to what is in the ADA in the Architectural Barriers Act. Also, we have included all the changes that we have made to the documents to date, in other words, all the things, additions we made for state and local governments, children''s elements, play facilities and recreation facilities are all found in this current document. So if we look at Chapter 1, which is application, one of the things we did is we basically changed the philosophy the way we look at the document at the guidelines. We, the current guidelines basically say okay, you are given a list of things that are required to be accessible, and these are the things that are required to be on an accessible route. If it is not on the list, it was always kind of fuzzy as to whether or not it was actually covered or not and required to be accessible. The new document basically turns that philosophy around and says okay, from now on, everything is required to be accessible. The only way you get out of something being made to be accessible is a specific exception, so exceptions are more thoroughly covered and more thoroughly spelled out. For example, we added a new exception for press boxes that you wouldn''t find in the current document. One of the other things we did with regards to the application section is we took out all the specific examples of the equivalent facilitation. You still have the option to use equivalent facilitation but the specific examples have been taken out and removed completely from the document. Chapter 2 is a scoping document. It basically tells you how many and which things are required to be accessible. We have provided enhanced covering for several new areas. In other words, employee work areas has been beefed up and it now includes requirements for common use circulation paths within certain employee work areas to be accessible. There are some specific exceptions with regards to equipment. How close they have to be, and handrails, ramps and things like that but for the most part, common use circulation path and larger employee work areas are required to be accessible now. Also, means of egress in employee work areas are required to be accessible. In addition to that, there is also a requirement that there be connections provided so that visual alarms, if there is an emergency warning system or fire alarm system in the building that you can add visual alarms to employee work areas as necessary for employment discrimination purposes. We have increased the number of public entrances that are required to be accessible from 50% up to 60%. We increased the number of van parking spaces. We haven''t increased the total number of accessible parking spaces, but of those spaces, we have increased the number of van spaces from one in every eight to one in every six are to be van accessible spaces. The scoping for stairs has changed fairly dramatically. Instead of stairs that connect levels that are not connected by an accessible route which is what is currently in the document, we are now requiring all stairs that are used for egress purposes to be accessible and meet our guideline. We increased the scoping provisions for TTY''s or telecommunication devices for the Deaf. Currently, if there is a group of phones provided on a site and one is in an interior location, you are required to have one TTY for the whole site and that is pretty much for the whole facility actually. We have now modified that to include requirements for what happens when you have the site, what happens in a building, what happens on a floor in a building. So, we have pretty much increased the scoping for those types of facilities. One reason that we changed the scoping for a site is because when the original document came out, there wasn''t a device on the market that could be out in the weather, just wasn''t technologically available at that point in time. It is now and so this has been included with the new scoping provisions that we include specific site issues with regards to the requirement for TTY''s. We are also allowing limited use, limited application (LULA) elevators to be used in certain buildings, primarily where you have a building that is eligible for the elevator exception and where they don''t want to put in a full blown passenger elevator, but want to provide some accessibility. We are saying in those situations you are eligible to use a LULA in this point in time in the new documents. We have changed the requirement for means of egress, we basically referenced to the IBC, International Building Code, they are the folks that really know what they are doing with regards to that so we referenced their standards with regard to egress, with regard to accessible means of egress. We are now putting specific requirements for kitchens and sinks where they are provided. In other words, previously you only found requirements for kitchens in the dwelling unit section of the old Uniform Federal Accessibility Standard and to some minor degree in the transient lodging section of the guideline. Now it is wherever they are provided for public or common use spaces, or in certain specific spaces. We have specific requirements for sinks and for kitchens. There is with regards to toilet rooms, as far as the scoping is concerned, currently the guidelines say all public toilet rooms, so any time you have a room it is required to be accessible whether it is public or common use. We are allowing that certain circumstances usually in medical facility where you are clustering single user toilet facilities that you are allowed to make only a portion of those accessible in certain circumstances. The scoping for signs has been reorganized and all the disparate places where scoping for signage was occurring throughout the document in parking or in entrances or in alterations. Those have all been reorganized into one specific area for scoping to make it easier for people who are doing signage packages to find out where they are required to go and what they are required to do in regards to the signage requirement. One of the biggest changes to the document is what we did in assembly areas. We reduced the scoping, as I said earlier for some of the very larger facilities. We have added new provisions, new scoping provisions for tiered boxes and things like legitimate stage and music hall kind of situations. We have given you new dispersion language with specific exceptions that deal with smaller and larger facilities and we have reduced the number of designated aisle seats that are required to be accessible. Previously, the number was based on the total number of seats. Now the number, the percentage if you will, is based on the number of aisle seats that are provided. We have got a whole new section for scoping for depositories, vending machines, change machines, mailboxes and fuel dispensers. This is all new to the document. The current document you will see there is a section for windows, but it is currently labeled as reserved which means there are no specific requirements but now we are having new scoping requirements and specific technical requirements for windows. One of the things that the ADA has not had previously is a section for residential facilities. We are including a new scoping provision, that technical requirement for residential dwelling units as far as the ADA is concerned. That has been in the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standard and continues to be but it has been updated and dealt with. Why don''t we stop real quick and take some questions on scoping and assembly and some of the other, I mean application and some of the other things.
Sure. Chris, would you give some instructions and folks we are strictly at this point will be taking questions specific to the scoping and application of the regulations, not the technical requirements at this time. Otherwise, we will never get through this session.
The definition of a planned alteration?
You are asking for what the definition of the planned alteration is?
There is a definition in the guidelines of what an alteration is. As far as a planned alteration, there is not a specific definition as to what that actually means. I have always used the term to mean an existing facility that you are planning to alter for whatever reason, to remodel or renovate. You were not being forced to do it because some law said you were going to do it, you were just going to do an alteration. That is what I have always meant as a planned alteration as opposed to an existing facility that you wanted to do let us say readily achievable barrier removal to and that is what you were doing. That is not really a planned alteration. That is something that the laws requiring you to do and you can do it at this point in time because it is ''readily achievable''. That is primarily what I would define it as. But, we don''t have a specific definition of a planned alteration, just the standard definition with some modifications now as to what an alteration actually is.
Okay. Next question please.
I was wanting to know if you would have any idea when the Department of Justice might make this final rule?
The Justice Department indicated to us that they were going to put out what is known as an advanced notice of proposed rule making where they ask a whole bunch of questions about what they should do next with regards to the guidelines, how they should adopt them. They were originally planning to publish this advanced notice of proposed rule making or ANPRM on the same day that we published our final guidelines, but for, I think, they had logistic problems with getting it approved by the folks upstairs and those kind of things. It hasn''t happened yet, but it should happen fairly soon as far as I understand. They are going to be asking questions like, okay, how much, how much lead time shall we give you? In other words, when the ADA first came out, we gave you 18 months before it became effective. Is that a good idea? Should we have more time? Should we have less time? So they are going to be asking questions about that. They are going to be asking questions about, I hate to use the phrase ''grandfathering'', but they are going to be asking questions about things like, if you built a building under the current standard, it is currently there, you haven''t really done anything to it and we adopt this new standard, should we, or should we not apply the things that are greater to you as far as barrier removal is concerned. So, there is a lot of issues with regards to those kind of things as to whether or not the Justice Department is going to do them or not. There is issues with regards to they are going to be asking questions about whether they should be setting standards for equipment or furnishings, some other questions are regards to a whole bunch of issues with regards to what is happening now. They are going to have to go through that whole rule making process just like we did. Hopefully it won''t take as long, but they are going to put out an advanced notice for rule making, ask a bunch of questions, get the answers, then put out another notice of proposed rule making, an NPRM, with the proposed rule saying this is what we are proposing to do, and they will get public comment on that and they are going to have to analyze it, deal with it, and they are also going to have to do a regulatory assessment and look at it for cost issues and all that kind of good stuff. My gut reaction is, and I can''t say for sure, the process varies from the complexity of the issues and agency to agency, but my gut reaction is probably going to be a year and a half to two years before they come out with a final rule that has an enforceable document in it and has an effective date on it. But that is just a guess on my part.
Yes, thank you. I think that is what we all think is a guess. It is a Friday; we just don''t know which Friday.
I have a question about residential dwelling units versus transient lodging. You have the long term in nature versus short term. Where would I find what that would mean and how does that apply to a University situation with it''s housing?
We basically put in new, or revamped definitions for transient lodging for residential dwelling units to try to sort of separate out what means what. I don''t think we have a specific number with regards to what actually short term means as to how many months, if that is what you are looking for, we just don''t have that. It was discussed by the Board but they decided not to put something in there. It had a lot to do with how the Justice Department enforces things with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and those two agencies really need to sort of look to this sort of document to sort of see how they are going to resolve it within their regulations. I am not going to be able to tell you one way or another. It is going to be on a case by case basis as far as what it looks like with regard to a university and how it is used, who uses it, and for how long a period of time it is, and how long with regards to those two agencies dealing with the enforcement issues with regards to Americans with Disabilities Act or Section 504 of the Rehab Act in the case of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) or something like that.
And what was your intention of keeping in a reference to Section 504 and not getting rid of that whole reference?
Well, basically, with regards to the scoping provisions, we are deferring to HUD on their projects. In other words, if HUD is providing the money, if they are providing financial assistance, they have their own 504 rules, and they are fairly extensive rules and fairly extensive requirements and we are basically just saying that for those facilities that are dealing with HUD rules, HUD Section 504 rules, we are deferring to HUD with regards to what HUD requires with regard to the scoping of those dwelling units.
Basically, that is not something that you, that the Access Board has control over that, you are not setting up your own scoping.
No, we are basically saying we don''t, if you are, if you are covered by HUD''s 504 rules, you go to them for your scoping requirements. We are basically saying we are not setting scoping requirements for those types of facilities.
Different agencies will set their own scoping?
That is right, for that specific thing.
Okay, why don''t we go back Chris and have you do some more presentation and we will come back for questions again.
I am assuming you mean Jim.
I am sorry, Jim. Thank you.
OK, let us get into the technical chapters. Chapter 3 is what we are calling Building Blocks. We are basically; building blocks are the elements that are going to be used by other sections, going to be referred to by other sections fairly consistently. Things that will always look like this, and instead of having them in six different places in the document, we are going to have them in one place. This is what we are going to say, we are going to say it once and every place else will refer back to it. Those sections include ground and floor surfaces, changes in level, turning space, clear floor ground space, knee and toe space, protruding objects, reach ranges and operable parts. Now for the most part, there has been some tweaking in here, but the really large change as far as these sections is within the reach range sections. We have basically taken the 54'' parallel approach reach range and dropped it down to 48''. So, now 48'' is the highest reach range for all reach ranges across the board. That is the biggest change that was made to the document. Primarily due to the fact that ANSI was looking at the issue and ANSI changed it and we also got a lot, I mean we got about 400-500 comments alone on this issue. With regards to people who use chairs, and people of short stature felt this was a good idea so the Board decided to go along with that. Now, again, an example of where we took a whole bunch of different sections and sort of codified it here is the knee and toe space. Look at the current document, you will find knee and toe space in regard to lavatories, sinks, tables, counters, and it is stated differently depending on what you are talking about. We didn''t think that was a very good idea, so we basically said we have got to set standards, set guidelines for knee and toe clearance, and that is what it is going to be for anything. For a lab, a sink, a table, for a counter, for whatever. So, that is what I sort of mean by building blocks. These are sort of the generalized sections that you refer back to from every place else. So, in other words, ground and floor surfaces is standard stuff, a change in level, quarter inch, no change, quarter inch to a half inch, bevel, one to two. That applies to any change in level in any facility unless there is a specific exception, and provided that as far as exceptions is concerned. Chapter 4 deals with the requirement for accessible routes. We took out the definition for accessible routes because we figured if we are going to give you a whole chapter that was going to give you the requirements for an accessible route, it didn''t make sense to give you a definition because the requirements basically provide the definition. In that chapter, we provided a new section called walking surfaces. It is basically dealing with those surfaces that are basically level up to the point it becomes a ramp. We are going to call those walking surfaces and distinguish them from ramps, curb ramps, elevators, platform lifts, things like that. We have given new specifications and clarifications for doors in the sense of recessed doors. We are now saying that we are giving you a depth, in other words, after this depth, then the maneuvering clearance has to go within an alcove condition. It has to be a forward approach and we are saying that at 8 inches rather than now it is currently not specified. We are also clarifying edge protection requirements on ramps. We are clarifying that there is a top landing requirement at curb ramps, in other words, a landing required at the top of the curb ramp, and it is required to be a certain size. We are giving you more alternative elevator and car designs, and specific types. In other words, we are dealing with in addition to a standard passenger elevator, either electric or hydraulic, we are also talking about destination oriented elevators which is a new type of elevator that the industry is sort of looking at, not looking at but specifying for. Now like I have said before, we are giving you requirements for limited use, limited application elevators. We are giving you requirements for private residence elevators, when they can be used. We are also giving you some new specifications for platform lifts and we are also referencing the new ASMI A 118, which is the platform lift standard, which is basically an off shoot of the A 117 elevator standard but they have now gone off and have a specific standard of their own that as far as requirements are concerned. Chapter 5 gives you general site and building features and in this section we are giving you new specifications for van parking. We are changing the way you look at how the access aisle with the van parking looks. You are going to be able to use the current requirement, which is an 8 foot access aisle and an 8 foot vehicle space, but it is going to be in the form of an exception. You are going to be allowed to use it as an exception. What we are going to be requiring is a 11 foot vehicle space and a 5 foot access aisle. One of the reasons we did that is because the 8 foot access isle was just too tempting as a parking space. You could drive in with a van, park your vehicle, go to the store and come back and there is a little GEO Metro parked in the access isle because it looks like a parking space. We are going to try to make the access aisle look smaller so at least it will try to discourage that from happening. We have also set new requirements for parking signs; in other words, we have given you a height. It has to be on a pole or above the ground and has to be a certain height. We have changed or given new specifications for stairs for riser heights. Basically, this goes to the following sort of, the ANSI document. What they are requiring with regard to riser height. With regards to handrails, we have done a lot of sort of changes and tweaking in the handrail section with regards to sizes and clearances. In other words, we are giving you circular cross section and requirements for non-circular cross sections that are very similar to what is found in the model building codes. In other words, it talks about perimeter and diameter dimensions that are currently required in those documents. We are sort of going along with those. We are also specifying that the clearance between the handrail and the wall is now a minimum, it used to be an absolute. Now it is going to be a minimum. Chapter 6 basically deals with plumbing elements. Drinking fountains, we have changed to require a forward approach as the only think that will be allowed currently. There is not going to be an allowance for a parallel approach to a drinking fountain, which is required to be wheelchair accessible. It has to be a forward approach and has to have knee and toe clearances underneath it. In the water closet section we have changed the 18'' dimension from the centerline of the toilet to the sidewall, which is an absolute dimension currently. We are changing that to a range from 16'' to 18'', and we have tried to do that throughout the document. We tried to take every, or as many of the absolute numbers as we could and changed those into a range to give you a little bit more leeway with regards to where you position things. There will still be some absolute numbers in the document, but there are a whole lot less than there used to be so it should be a little bit easier for folks to deal with. One of the other things we are dealing with in regards to water closets, is we are taking away the allowance for that lavatory to be in the clear floor space next to the lavatory. In other words, we are saying there could be no other fixture in the floor space for the water closet. This was primarily to facilitate a side approach where you park next to the water closet and transfer directly to it. Now, having taken that away, we have said OK, we are going to let you have for single user facilities, we are going to let you swing the door into the clear floor space for any fixture as long as you provide a 30'' by 48'' parking space, if you will, beyond the swing of the door. In other words, if you get past the swing of the door with the 30'' by 48'' space and the door closed behind you, then the door can swing into any fixture in that room. Currently, that is prohibited. As far as urinals, we have now specified a specific depth. We used to say that it had to be elongated, now we specify a specific depth. For the showers, we have allowed the alternate shower stall to be used as far as any design; it is one of the choices. Instead of having two choices, you have three. You have the transfer shower, the roll-in shower and this alternate roll-in shower, which is now allowed. We have specified a maximum water temperature for showers and tubs. We have new specifications for grab bars with regard to size and clearance above the bar, the size is similar to what we did with hand rails with regards to circular cross section and that sort of thing. We have also specified how far above the bar something can be placed as far as the clearance, how much clearance is necessary above the bar. We have changed some of the specifications for seats as far as the size. We have given ranges instead of just maximums and minimums and maximums. We are now allowing both a L-shaped and a rectangular seat to be used and giving you specific locations where they are to be provided in each shower where they are required. We have also set a height, which is sort of a standard transfer height for a seat for bath seats. We have also included new technical requirements for washing machines and clothes dryers. This is again new to the ADA document. There have been some limited requirements in the old UFAS document, but only with regard to residential dwelling units. These are now going to be required where they are provided. There are going to be scoping and technical requirements for washing machines and clothes dryers and as part of the recreation stuff, we added technical requirements for sauna and steam rooms. Chapter 7 is the communication features section. Fire alarms, we basically took out all the technical requirements for fire alarms. We are now referencing directly to NFBA 72, the National Fire Alarm Code. We figure they know a whole lot more about what they are doing with regard to fire alarm codes than we do so we figured that would be more appropriate to basically let the experts deal with that issue. So, we are referencing NFBA 72 and that should be a whole lot easier for a lot of architects to deal with in regards to that they are probably already dealing with NFBA 72 already. One thing we did require or did specify in our document is where fire alarms are provided they have to be permanently installed. There is no allowance for these portable units in the new document. With regards to signs, we have basically reorganized the signage section and we have given you a lot of greater detail on certain things like Braille. There are specific size requirements, shape requirements and spacing requirements for Braille and other tactile elements. TTY''s, we did some modifications to the technical requirements. One of the big things we did with regards to TTY''s was specify the height for the keyboard, and this was primarily due to the fact that a lot of times, the wheelchair accessible telephone would also do double duty as the TTY telephone, which didn''t do a whole lot of good for people who were trying to stand and use a TTY because if you look at the knee clearance requirements for wheelchairs, to put a keyboard down that low, someone pretty much had to get on their knees to type in for the TTY, so we sort of specified a specific height that doesn''t really allow you to use that TTY as the wheelchair accessible telephone. We refined the technical specifications for detectable warnings with regard to size and shape and spacing. With regards to assisted listening system, we have given you a whole lot of new specifications. These are primarily for the manufacturers that are making the things as to what is required of those specific pieces of equipment. One of the other big changes with regards to the guidelines is in the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) section. We are now requiring speech output for all ATM''s that are required to be accessible. There are a lot of other changes with regard to specific requirements for tactile keys, and visual output and things like that. But for the most part, the biggest thing is the requirement for a method of speech output is required. We have also got specific sort of general requirements for two-way communication systems. Generally, the two-way communication systems that you find in the document are only really geared towards emergency situations in elevators or areas of rescue assistance. We are now having general technical requirements for two-way communication systems that are used to gain entrance to a building or to a residential facility or something like that. Chapter 8 is basically special rooms and elements chapter. Again, one of the major changes, major changes that we did were to the assembly area section. We are giving you specific requirements for lines of sight, for both standing and seated spectators. Depending on if you are seeing over the head or over the head of the row beyond, depending on how your design works. We are basically saying that companion seats are now allowed to be moveable, but they must be the same quality as those in the same area. We have specific technical requirements for kitchens, for both U-shaped kitchens, and what we are calling pass-through kitchens or what some people would call a galley kitchen but we are calling pass-through because it is a different sort of way of looking at the design as far as how it is used. In transient lodging there have not been a whole lot of changes, we did add a section for vanity tops. In other words, if vanity tops are provided in other transient lodging guest rooms, they must be provided in the accessible transient lodging guest room but that is only where provided in the others are required in the accessible one. The other big section, which is new to the document, is regards to a whole new section for the technical requirement for the residential dwelling units in regards to what is allowed in those facilities. Chapter 9 is your built-in elements. We have a new section, sort of new, with regards to benches. The clear floor space for benches is now required to be parallel to the short access of the bench, and we are giving you specific specifications for back support. In other words, previously, the bench had to be next to a wall, basically your wall provided the back support, now you can still do that, but if you want a freestanding bench, we give you specific specifications as to how you provide that back support for that bench. With regards to service counters, the language for cash registers is gone, there is no specification with regards to whether or not there is a cash register or not. If it is a service counter, it is required to be accessible. We are allowing in addition to the parallel approach, we are allowing for a forward approach and giving you specific specifications for that. Some people have looked at that and misinterpreted that to be an ''and''. It is not required to have both, it is an ''or''. You get to choose between either the parallel or the forward, either is acceptable. We are also stating that whatever the depth of the accessible counter is, the full depth of the counter has to be accessible. Then the last chapter is Chapter 10, which is Recreation Facilities, which has been added pretty much as it was done in the final recreation rule. It has just been reformatted. There have been no changes for that. That pretty much wraps up my aspect of it. If you have questions for the Access Board, please contact our information line at 1-800-872-5232 or you can get on our website at http://www.access-board.gov. There is a lot of good information on that website. So with that, I will open it up to questions.
Great, Thanks Jim, I know it is tough to get a conceptual idea of how the regs have changed and what the key issues are and at some point I think I heard a rumor that when you go down it was something like 155 changes or is there more than that or less than that?
There is so many I can''t really say. I mean, I could, I have quite frankly, I have literally done a day long training on this document, going through the different specific changes and I can get into minutia that we did not get into on, I could take a week to talk about this stuff. What we did is a major, major overhaul of the whole document. I have tried to sort of touch on the sort of major things that a lot of people are going to be affected by. There are a whole bunch of things that are little and new which people have not seen before.
Also, just to clarify, as I know that I have been in different conversations where this has been discussed, someone could use these guidelines in their current design work, the catch would be you never would be able to go below what the current standard is.
That is correct.
If you want to use it now for the mounting as an example, it is a call we get frequently in our offices and I know my colleagues across the country do, is about the issue of toilet paper placement in a toilet stall or in a rest room. And you know, the pictures or the diagrams and the guidance currently given in the standards are obviously very difficult to discern exactly, and we get above, below, next to, etc. Someone could use the current; I mean the revised and would be in compliance with the current standard.
Oh yes, they are much more specific as to where that is allowed to be positioned. In other words, let us say the distance from the back wall is not measured from the back wall but is measured from the front of the water closet now. So, it is 7''-9'' measured from the front of the water closet so it depends on what sort of fixtures you specify as to whether or not that is going to be located in regard to that element in space if you will.
In contrast, we wouldn''t want somebody designing a large venue where they would decrease the percentile of accessible seating that they included that would obviously be below the standard. Why don''t we go ahead and Chris, once again, give our audience some instructions in case they have forgotten, and we will now go into the phase of taking questions from you, the audience.
Thank you, Ladies and Gentleman, if you have a question at this time please press the 1 key, if your question has been answered and you want to remove yourself from the queue please press the # key.
I want to know if there is a time when these guidelines will be in print.
They are in print now. You can order it from us now.
Just to clarify, they can do that by calling your number or could they also send a request by email off of your web site?
If you get into our website and go to the button that says ''Publications'', I believe there is, it should be there and it should be an email, I think it is pubs@access-board.gov, you can send an email with a request for that as well.
And again, you also could contact your regional center as they could assist you in getting a copy as well.
Okay. Next question, please.
Does the rear of a facility, is it required to have an accessible route when that is not an employee, normal employee work entrance?
You mean when it is a public entrance?
No, it is not a public entrance. Does the rear of a building have to have an accessible route when it is not the normal employee entrance to work?
Well, hang on a second. I think we, an employee entrance as far as how we define it, a public entrance.
It is not a normal public entrance.
I understand, but, yeah, we define a public entrance as an entrance that is not a service entrance or a public entrance. So, an employee only entrance would be a public entrance, so the question is under new construction, it is how many entrances are you, public entrances are you designing into that building and how many of those are required to be accessible? We are currently saying 60 percent of those are required to be accessible but we don''t specify which one has, you have to make accessible. One would assume you would make the main entrance, but it may not be obvious that what is a main entrance and what is not. So, if you have four entrances and three are required to be accessible, you are, you get to pick which three you make accessible.
Then the requirements still hold for those elements which are not accessible you would need to have signage where the accessible entrance is located.
That answers that question. I have a second question if I may. Can a relay service for deaf and hard of hearing persons substitute for a TTY?
I would have no idea. That would be a question to ask the Justice Department. That is a program accessibility obligation with regard to how you provide services programs and activities. It is not something we would get into.
Next Question please.
Okay, I have two questions if I may. First question is under scoping again. Under the historic preservation I think 202.6 I believe, I am going off the top of my head. It talks about a state historic preservation officer being able to waive the ADA upon application. Is this the intent?
I think that is, that is just the language that came over from the current document as I recall. I would have to look to see exactly what it says.
I don''t have it in front of me, so I can''t give you the specific number. If I remember correctly reading it, it talked about it there was a problem due to historic preservation, someone can apply to the state historic preservation officer, and that person has the authority to waive the ADA, and to me, that becomes a potential conflict.
Alterations to historic qualified building or facility shall comply with etc, etc, exception, where a state historic preservation officer or advisory council on historic preservation determines that compliance with the requirements for accessibility routes, entrances, or toilet facilities would threaten or destroy the historic significance of the building or facility. The exception for alterations to qualified historic building or facilities or that element shall be permitted to apply. Is that what you are talking about?
Yes.
That is currently what is allowed currently. That is a threat to destroy, that has always been in the ADA. I think it is actually in the statute.
It is actually in the statute itself and reinforced in the Department of Justice''s regulations under Title II and Title III. It is not new, it is not different.
Basically, if the alteration threatens or provision of the accessibility in the alteration threatens to destroy the historic significance, you basically, there is other things you can do. Unless that threatens to destroy it. There are certain buildings that anything you do would threaten or destroy the historic significance, like quote ''Lincoln''s cabin''. There is really no way to make that accessible without basically not making it a cabin anymore.
I understand.
But generally, if you go up to an entrance and it is a colonial building with nice side lights and molding, and John Nash design features, and they are doing a restoration project to that entrance, that is an alteration and technically that entrance would have to be made accessible. Now if making that entrance accessible required widening the door, therefore it would destroy the whole composition of the molding and some of the moldings, that would threaten to destroy some of the historical significance of that entrance. You are then allowed to use some of the alternatives which means you wouldn''t make that entrance accessible, but maybe make one that is not as nice or around the back or whatever you would make that one accessible, unless making that one accessible would make, threaten or destroy. It sort of goes from there. But, that is always been in the guidelines, and always been in the ADA.
Right, these are not changes at all into the current statute. It is the same interpretation and same language that appears in the current.
Next question please.
I am calling to ask why the press boxes get an exemption in the current scoping requirements?
Well, press boxes, one problem with press boxes is you have basically high schools through the country where a group of dads have gotten together and have spent maybe a couple thousand dollars to build a press box. That is by or on behalf of the state and local government, and therefore required to be accessible, and it is, you know, above the ground, and generally, it is sometimes higher than what can be used with a platform lift. Basically you would be requiring a full-blown passenger elevator. So we have said for certain small press boxes.
This is for small press boxes? Not at Ohio State University or Michigan State University or new Cruise Stadium here in Columbus, Ohio?
Let me get the specification, hang on a second. I think there is an aggregate of 500 square feet or something like that. Give me a couple seconds.
And also language about it being attached, not part of a bleacher system, too. There is other language.
There are a couple different things. I am just trying to figure out where it is. Can''t remember exactly.
But it is not a blanket,
No, it is not a blanket. It is basically small press boxes that you can only get to in certain circumstances.
I can understand that. I have two more questions that concern rest rooms. The restrooms. First restroom question is what is the reason that you are permitting any door to swing in to a restroom?
Well, it is a requirement that only talks to single user toilet facility. Where only one person is going to be at a time.
I heard that, and I just, I was able to advise a church in central Ohio here that they had to change the swing of the door because it did swing in to a single user restroom facility.
Churches may be required to do something under local code but they are exempt under the ADA.
I understand they are exempt under the ADA, but it is also a public accommodation issue, and a courtesy issue.
I mean, it is a function of do they want to meet the requirements.
If we have the ability to allow the door to swing in to any restroom, then you can have various entities designing smaller single restroom facilities, and they will say they can allow the restroom door to swing in because it says so in the code, and they won''t pay any attention to the size of the restroom facilities.
You do, we do allow it, but with caveats. It has to be a single user, you have to have this 30'' by 48'' clear space beyond the swing of the door, you don''t get out of any other exception, other requirements, you still have to have a five foot turning space in there, you still have to have the clear floor space for the lavatory, you still have to have the clear floor space for the toilet. And again, as I said before, the lavatory cannot encroach into the clear floor space for the lavatory. It has to be completely outside the clear floor space for the water closet. That is going to make it slightly bigger, so we said if you are going to make it that big, we will give them a little leeway the other way. You are allowed to swing a door into any toilet room currently as long as the door doesn''t swing into the clear floor space into any fixture. I would sort of say you could probably use our new guidelines as equivalent facilitation with regards to what we are specifying as long as you meet the rest of the guidelines for the toilet room.
I can see the architects here in Ohio using their political license and fudge factor and making these restrooms smaller than what you allow and then we have the inspectors here in Ohio, and they will go in and they don''t inspect, our building inspectors do not inspect the accessibility features of buildings and they will just pass it because all they inspect is the heating and air conditioning and safety requirements.
But we are not going to get into a debate today about why. These are a done deal, and I think they are completed and there was a public comment period and individuals did have an opportunity to review this information and provide comment and has been looked at extensively. I think also, I would refer you back to the fact that in your state, you may have different things going on. For example, in Ohio, you primarily are referencing the International Building Code in Ohio which obviously is going to be enforced locally and the ADA is not enforced locally. You have issues of trying to educate architects, your code officials and such that there are key and important issues for them to attend to and this has been a long-standing problem of review and getting adequate review in the permitting process of some of these issues. But you know, we are not going to be able to have a debate at this time in this program on the why something was done.
I didn''t ask why, I just asked what the reason was and one other question. The range of the grab bars from 18'' to, what was it?
The grab bar? The height? The centerline of the toilet to the sidewall?
What was the reason for that, that ranges being given?
Because people were having a hard time figuring out the absolute of 18'', and what the tolerance was for that facility, and it was sort of an issue to sort of build-in a tolerance into the document rather than providing allowing that, what we currently say is for standard industry tolerances for field conditions.
Would 20'' be okay, too?
No
20'' wouldn''t be ok?
It has got to be between.
16''-18'' IS now the tolerance. The 18'' absolute you have tolerance for field conditions. In other words, if you are putting the drain hole for the toilet in a concrete slab, the Concrete Institute says for placing a hole in a concrete slab, you get a tolerance of plus or minus half an inch. That is the tolerance I would consider for that design for that construction for that 18'', plus or minus a half inch. If you are drilling a hole in plywood, a plywood floor with regards to where you set the joists and things. You have a lot tighter tolerance as far as I am concerned. But the question has always been, is it, if it is off an inch, is it too much? What is too little? What is too much? To specify, we left it up to industry tolerances, and architects have hated that absolute dimension, so we basically said okay, we are going to give you in this instance; we are going to give you the range of 16''-18''. That is now your tolerance. Sixteen inches (16''), 18 1/16'' does not comply.
Okay. Next question please?
Hi. We have two questions and they both fall under Chapter 7, communication, and one has to do with did you address at all acoustical requirements for classrooms and auditoriums when you addressed communication issues and the second is in terms of signage under communication. Do you address at all how many languages signs have to be in or does that fall somewhere else?
The answer to both of those questions is no. With regards to the acoustics, we basically have been working with, I believe, it is either an ANSI specification or an ASTM specification with regards to putting in issues which regards to requirements for acoustics and things like that but we have not put in any requirement with regards to acoustics in the guidelines and the signage stuff is we don''t specify what a sign, we don''t even specify that you have to have a sign, except for certain symbols of accessibility in certain circumstances. What the sign says, how it imparts it in what language we don''t specify.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question please.
Yes, I was wondering whether or not you have considered on the accessible route expanding it. We have had considerable concerns over wheelchairs that are now in excess of 32'' OR 36", and the scooters are obviously wider. Were there any changes made to that to address new technology?
We have done a little bit of research into that area, but we haven''t gotten to the point where we feel comfortable with doing something across the board without major rule making. I think that may be the next step down the road, but at this point in time no, it is pretty much the same general standard dimensions that have always been in the guidelines with regards to 30'' by 48'', five foot turning space, and minimum maneuvering clearance at doors and things like that.
Thank you.
Jim, if I am not correct, was there not a summit that was sponsored in Pennsylvania?
It is quite possible. I know we have been involved with a bunch of different things, and we are doing a bunch of, I think we are still doing some research with regards to anthropometrics and things like that, that may yield some of that information somewhere down the road, but I think at this point in time, we just didn''t have enough hard information to sort of say one way or another that this was recommended or not.
I think this is an issue that goes to the transportation requirements for lifts and things of that nature, too, so it is quite an extensive issue out there, and it is nice to hear there is more research being done in that arena. I would like to switch gears a little bit here. I have a few questions that were submitted to us before the session via e-mail, and I will go ahead and bring one of those to your attention at this point. This individual submitted a question stating that they understood that power door openers are not required, have not been required. But was, they basically are in the hope of seeing an improvement on exterior door entrances in the new regulations, but they couldn''t find any improvement from what they reviewed. Is there still no requirement on what weight size or for the requirements for power doors in the regulations?
No, there is still no requirement that you actually have to provide in certain circumstances a power or automatic door or even a power assist door, and the pound of force requirement for an exterior door is still not specified. The latter primarily due to the fact there is just so many things that effect an exterior door. Generally exterior doors are bigger and heavier. They may have wind loading issues on them, they may have vacuum issues created by HVAC systems or best of yield conditions. So there is just a bunch of things we didn''t, it needs a lot more research on before we sort of say this is a good idea. With regard to automatic doors, again, I don''t think, we just sort of stay with status quo, primarily because of the industry sort of, what is the best way to put this? They are not as reliable as we would like them to be in certain circumstances. Again, the question comes up as to which facility do you require it? Do you require it in big facilities and if so, what is the square footage, what is the minimum square footage that triggers the requirement? We just, there is a whole bunch of stuff that we ought to look into regards to that before we do something down the road with regards to requiring something.
Thank you very much. Next question from our audience.
We have two points of discussions, one is a request and the next one is a question. Request is, you had discussed for example, the use of the single user restroom as equivalent facilitation and had also made a point that it may be a year and a half before Department of Justice (DOJ) adopts this. We happen to agree that single user restroom is equivalent however, we have had a recent incident with the Department of Justice attorney who insists that it is not allowable and when we ask them about the new ADA, the gentleman says ''What ADA?, we only enforce the existing standards''. So the request is simply that if you could coordinate with the Department of Justice as to what new things are equivalent, and which ones are not it would be very helpful. The second issue,(Interruption by JIM)
I would like to do that but it is never going to happen because we don''t enforce the law, they do and that is basically the bottom line and it is a function of, they are going to make a call for an enforcement issue as they make it and they are going to interpret their standard as they see fit.
The problem, they are a series of individuals, and it depends on which attorney you happen to be talking to at which time. So some coordination would be helpful and you are doing a great job Mr. Pecht and we appreciate it. You are clear and we sincerely appreciate what you are doing. The second issue has to do with fuel pumps and gasoline stations, which you had mentioned in your discussion, and there are a couple of points that are in the new standard. If you could discuss those a bit I would appreciate it.
Again, this sort of goes back to the philosophy in current ADAAG where you make a list of things that are required to be accessible and those are required to be on the accessible route and it was always unclear as to whether gas pumps were actually covered or not. We have always taken the stand they are really not covered because they are really not specified. Now the Justice Department covers them as far as their regulation is concerned under their general prohibitions against discrimination requirements. But as a far as technical requirement there has really never been anything to sort of deal with. So with this new philosophy that everything is covered, but you get out of certain things with regard to specific exceptions, gas pumps are now covered. But we basically listened to the industry and added two exceptions. One to the reach range requirement, that is for the 48 inches, which basically says if you put in a gas pump on an existing curb you are allowed for the reach ranges to be up to 54 inches from the roadway surfaces. If it is new construction with a new curb it has to meet the 48 inches and they said with their new gas pumps that they are coming out with they will be able to do that. The other exception deals with the nozzle or what you grip to deliver the gasoline. The way they are kind of designed they have a really hard problem dealing with the five pounds of force so we have given them a blanket exception for those specific gas nozzles from the five pounds of force requirement.
Does that include the lifting of the nozzle?
I don''t know. It is not specified. I don''t think so. I think it is just the squeezing.
Would every pump be required to be accessible?
As far as I know, yeah it seems to imply that. There is not a specific scoping requirement giving a percentage so that generally means all of them.
Thank you very much. Appreciate your comments.
Thank you, we will go on to our next question please.
Hi, could you talk a little bit about the scoping requirements for tactile warnings and truncated domes in the specifications and how that would apply now in the public right of way?
Sure. The new document has basically taken out the requirements for detectable warnings for every place except as transit platform edges and one of the main reasons we are doing that because we are in the process of doing rulemaking specifically on public rights of way, and that is a new document that is going to be coming out, that is a proposed rule sometime in the near future. I think we put out an advance draft of that document but that is all that we have put out at this point in time. The Board basically felt that there was a lot of issues that still need to be resolved with regards to where detectable warnings should be required. How they should be required, and where they should be specified with regarded to specific curb ramps. It may be that as the current standard specifies any time you put a curb ramp in within a site it has to be, has to have detectable warning the full length and depth of the curb ramp and it doesn''t specify as to where that curb ramp is. It may not be necessary for all curb ramps to have detectable warnings, it may not be necessary for a curb ramp within a sheltered area in a parking garage to have detectable warnings. It just may not be necessary. However, a busy intersection may be a different issue. The other thing with regards to public rights of way since the current guidelines of the current standards say within a site, it is always been questionable as to how you apply that to a public right of way, what is the site for the public right of way. Is it a street, the block, the city, the state? It depends on who controls the actual public right of way. So it was questionable as to how you apply that. So in order to clear that up, we are in the process of doing a specific rulemaking for public rights of way and we are going to be asking a whole bunch of questions with regard to detectable warnings with regard to curb ramps. Where they should apply, which curb ramps, which intersections, all intersections, no intersections, all this kind of good stuff. We will be asking those questions and hopefully getting those type of answers. Once we get those answers, we may go back into this document and modify the detectable warning requirements to include curb ramps within a site given what we learned in the public rights of ways rulemaking but we are waiting for that to sort of happen.
Do you have any advice as to what we should be doing as, we as a public agency should be doing now in our public right of way?
Are you getting federal financial assistance?
No.
Okay, I probably recommend that you look at what DOT is requiring through their Federal Highway Administration. When they give out funds, they are requiring detectable warnings. Requiring it to be followed as how we proposed it in the advisory committee''s report, and I think there is some information on our website, an update about detectable warnings on our web page that you might want to look at with regards to what we are recommending with regards to public rights of way and curb ramps.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next question please.
I have a question, but it relates to areas of assembly, and did you do anything to clarify the range of user locations under areas of assembly?
When you say range of user locations what do you mean?
Well, under areas of assembly, if I remember correctly, it specifies that at a certain point you had to have a series of different ranges of views or locations?
You are talking about the dispersion?
Yes.
Yeah, we greatly clarified that. Currently, over 300 seats, fixed seats, you are required to disperse and that is all it says. We now have requirements that deal with horizontal, side-to-side, and vertical, in other words varying distances from the performing areas, if you will, whatever it is you are viewing. There are specific requirements as far as integration is concerned, and there are a bunch of exceptions that basically deal and go to the smaller venues, the under 300 square feet. In other words, we actually lost the 300 square feet requirement for the most part. There are specific assumptions in regard to dispersion in those kinds of elements, or facilities and again, it is much more detailed than it was previously, and its more specific as to where you are required to disperse those wheelchair locations in those areas.
Thank you. Next question please from the audience.
Yes, Hi, our question just kinda gets back to the original topic in the beginning about scoping, why is a new proposed requirements less stringent than before?
Again, there was a bunch of things that certain things we loosened up on and certain things we tightened up on and we added new stuff and there is a whole range of things that the Board did based on primarily public comment and to some degree some research that was done, but it was primarily due to public comment and the realization that there were certain things, like press boxes, small press boxes that it didn''t make a whole lot of sense to require a full blown passenger elevator to a high school press box where you only have four people sitting in there calling a game. It didn''t make a lot of sense. So there was a bunch of different reasons why we did it, but again, it is sort of done.
Yes, I mean, that is I think the struggle some people have, if they don''t agree with what may have been done, or I think that, at this point, the final rule is out there and I think people do have to understand what is there is there, and it does help to understand why, and I would refer some people who might be more interested in some of the ''why'' things were done in the preamble of the rule. As it was issued on the 23rd of July in the Federal Register, there is a great deal of detail by different points as to why certain things were done or changed or whatever.
I apologize and I should have mentioned that. The preamble basically gives pretty much point by point for each section if we did a change why we did it, and if we had a specific comment, that said this, then what the Board''s response was, either that we did this because we agreed with it, or we didn''t agree with it therefore we didn''t do it and this is why we didn''t agree with it and this is why we didn''t do it, so there are some rationale, if you will, in the preamble.
The other things I would just say, in our session in July, our audio conference session, we had John Wodatch from the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, and many of the callers asked him some pretty pointed questions about the rulemaking process that DOJ was going to undergo in relationship to adopting these guidelines as a standard under Title II and Title III of the ADA. He did discuss at that time the fact that they will go out for their own rulemaking process by which they will be collecting and asking a series of questions and collecting additional comments and such, and that I think people always need to remember that in this case, there may be another opportunity for you to say something or put in your particular comments and such, but to understand that it is not necessarily to say that because you may put a comment, the Department of Justice would 100 percent change the regulation. I think, and Jim correct me if I am wrong, that the Department of Justice cannot go below what the Access Board sets as the standard but they could make it more stringent? Is that correct?
That is correct. Basically, The language in the statue says when the Justice Department sets standards, those standards must be consistent with the minimum guidelines set by the Board. We have always assumed that to mean that we sort of set the bar and below that, they can''t go.
Correct, I think that there is more opportunity for people maybe to give some comment, whether or not it will probably be the same extensive type of commenting on section by section that it has under gone with the current revisions to the ADAAG that the Access Board underwent, but I think that there still would be some opportunities for people to give their feedback and participate. I know that John indicates they will be having some public hearings on this at different places across the country as well.
Again, I perceive the greatest area where they were quote amodified'' what is required in the guideline will be how they apply the guidelines to existing facilities where you are not planning to do an alteration. In other words, the readily achievable, what is applicable under readily achievable barrier removal. They say that you are not required to comply with new construction, required with a percentage of new construction and that is allowable as far as, under their regulation.
So it is a stay tuned in some of that, in regards to some of the additional application of the guidelines. Okay. Thank you, next question please from the audience.
Yes, I wanted to know what to do if it is unclear on what the most stringent standard is, and I guess which standard to use, the law or these new proposed guidelines? My specific example is the van accessible parking. You are actually decreasing the access aisle so I can see where some people would think it would be less stringent.
We are decreasing the access isle but we are increasing the size of the vehicle space. So the actual square footage if you would is still 16 feet across, it is just how you divide the two up is different. The actual 8 and 8 equals 16 is now 5 and 11, which equals 16. It is still the same area, just how you are noting it, if you will and going back to your first question, the guidelines are not enforceable. They are just recommendations at this point in time. For design practice, if you want to look at it in that sense, but what is required, what is enforceable is the Justice Departments Standard and the current Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards as far as the Architectural Barriers Act is concerned. That is what is legally required, that is what you have to comply with. Where our new guidelines go beyond that and provide greater accessibility, you are obviously allowed to do that if you want, but it is not required at this point in time.
Okay. That is still, I understand your point that it is the same space, but if I have somebody who comes and looks at my access isle and I don''t have a 8 foot access isle, can I still get in trouble for that?
Again, currently, the statute says, I mean, the guidelines say you have to have an 8-foot access isle. So maybe, earring on the side of caution, go with the 8-foot access aisle and 8 foot space at this point in time because that is what is stated in the standard.
Ok, and that was my question. Just if it is unclear where you might, you know, what to do. My other question is what is the height of a range or cook top?
I don''t know if we specified that. I know it has to be, any of the operable parts have to be within the reach range, which would be 48 inches, depending on, and if It is toward the back, it would have to be lower based on a reach across an obstruction, but I have to look at the Chapter 3 to know exactly what is specified. I think all the appliances as far as operable parts send you back to the 309, which is operable parts section, or 308 which is the reach range section.
Right, there is no specific, in fact I am looking at it right now. There is not a specific for the, it does refer you back to the operable parts.
And that should send you back to 308.
Okay, I was just concerned that it might be the 34-inch counter height. But it won''t be, they send you back to the reach ranges.
Right, you have to look at it different when you look at counter height issue, versus a cook top, it is operated differently, so I think that is a different application.
It depends on what type of appliance you are provided. If you provide the old fashioned type that has the knobs on the back wall, that is going to be a whole lot harder to make accessible as opposed to the ones that have the controls on the front edge which most of the new stuff does.
You have to look at your choice of appliances.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question please.
I have a question about Section 809.4 Toilet Facilities and Bathing Facilities for the Residential versus 806.2.4 Toilet and Bathing for Transient Lodging. I noticed that on 809.4, it says that at least one toilet and bathing facility shall comply with 603 through 610, but on 806.2.4, it is only 603 and then the roll-in shower. So, I was wondering why a transient lodging shower wouldn''t have to be compliant with the other sections there on toilet facilities?
What is the citation?
806.2.4.
Hold on a second. Let me look. I am guessing it is just the way we wrote it.
Silence as you are looking at a huge document. It is difficult, especially when you have to flip back, it is even bigger now so you have to flip back and forth in that context even differently.
This may be the time where I come out and say I don''t know.
Maybe that is a question that she should call directly maybe to the Access Board to discuss with somebody? Where they have the chance to really flip back and forth easily?
I can do that.
It says no fewer than one water closet and one lavatory and one tub or shower shall comply with 603. I don''t know. That is a good question. I may have to bring that up to (pause)
It would seem that both types of toilet and bathing faculties should have to comply with 603 through 610.
Maybe you have got a stumper there that came out of this and so you have an unique perspective and you are looking at it differently than others may have looked at it so maybe at the end, we can give you some contact information and Jim and you may be able to follow up together? Does that work?
Either that or just contact the technical assistance line.
OK, thank you.
Sorry about that. Let us go on to the next question please.
You had mentioned earlier that all stairs are required to be accessible. To what degree do they need to be accessible?
If I said accessible what I meant was all stairs that are part of a means of egress are required to meet the guidelines, which means they are required to have handrails on both sides, have rise and run, nosing and those kind of things.
We are not talking about wheelchair accessibility?
No, meaning the section that, there was, the scoping says it shoots you to a specific section in the technical requirements, I think it is 504, I think. Hang on a second. (Pause) 504 is Stairs which gives you requirements for treads, and risers, open risers, tread surfaces, nosings, handrails, wet conditions. It gives you those requirements. If I said accessible, meaning I meant meaning the technical requirements in the document, in the technical requirements.
Thank you very much.
Sure.
I think, if I am not mistaken, was there not a change in that there is a slight change in the requirements for the handrail extensions?
Yeah, we also basically did away with the last 12 inches at the bottom of the stairs, you still have the extension of the handrail for one tread width, but the 12 inches horizontal was deleted, primarily because that was something that ANSI did and we went along with their thinking on that.
Over time, that was one that comes up frequently when people are doing stairs now under the current standards. OK, next question please.
I was checking on what the requirements are if anything different on areas of rescue assistance.
Well, basically, we are referring to all of the requirements in IBC, International Building Code 2003. So whatever the requirements are in there, that is what we are requiring, and they are pretty much the same as what is, what we were thinking of to begin with in the proposed rule. Which is why it was redundant language and that is why we took it out and referred to the IBC.
There are changes there, but I think the issue is that it was not the Access Board that actually developed those changes, they are referencing a current standard which is the International Building Code which Jim,and this is a point that is important, we know, we found ourselves in this position, when you are using the revised ADAAG you will need to have other documents in order to have all the information that you will need to be able to comply because by referencing these other standards like ANSI, like the International Building Code individuals will need to go through the process of acquiring that information from those various other bodies. They will not be published as part of ADAAG as they are obviously copyrighted materials. Is that a correct interpretation?
That is correct but also, it is I also want to say we analyze those documents very carefully, and we made sure that by referencing them, we weren''t losing accessibility. You still are going to have the 30 by 48 at least to, depending on occupancy number, the smoke enclosure, the fire rating, the signage requirements, the communication, emergency communication, that is all found in IBC and we thought it was easier to reference a model code that everybody was using any way.
Can I ask then, are those other documents readily available on line as well?
No, you have to buy those from the appropriate agency or appropriate model code group.
Some of them are available on-line, but you have to purchase them on-line to be able to access them. I believe you do have that information on your website, Jim and how to contact them?
Yes, and in the document itself we try to give web pages and places where you can get that stuff.
I think that, you know, in some ways, I think you can look to it as being a good use of federal dollars and that there was not a lot of duplication of effort and that you look to what research and things that have been done by other bodies instead of spinning your wheels to do the same thing in a duplicative manner. But would it also be correct to say that you will be monitoring those and for example, if an external agency to the federal government that you are referencing were to change the regulation and the Access Board felt that was no longer consistent with the level of access that the Access Board consistent with the mandate under ADA would follow, you may make changes down the road. Is that correct?
Legally, we can''t cite to just the document. We have to cite to a specifically dated document. In other words, we will cite to currently 2000 and 2003. That will be what we will cite to. If there is a 2006, we won''t automatically cite to that, because we have to cite to the specific date. Now, we felt that it was going to be a whole lot easier when these new, most model building codes go through a three or four or five year revision cycle, so we figured it would be a whole lot easier to do a lot more smaller rule making somewhere down the road after we look at the new documents, new revisions as they come out and decide if it is a good idea, yes or no, to go ahead and just reference them or reference them with some modifications. Now you will notice some of these we referenced with some modifications, like NFPA. We wanted to be very clear that they had to be the alarms you are providing had to be permanently installed, so we specifically put that in test in our document, and there is something in the fire alarm code with regards to the decibel level for audible alarms that we specified a specific level because we felt it was important for accessibility to do that in our document. I well see that is what will happen down the road. We will review those documents as they are, as the new issues or new additions come out and will make determination as to whether it is a good idea to go ahead and reference it out right like we did before, or reference it with modifications. But that is something I fully expect us to do down the road to keep up with the current standards, reference standards a whole lot better than we have been in the past.
It does reduce confusion at the state levels and different places where they may be using these codes.
The current standards is referencing a 1990 edition of the elevator code, which is kind of silly to me, but that is the way it has to be done. We just can''t reference to the document because if we reference to the document without giving a specific date, we would basically be turning our rulemaking authority to a private entity and we are not allowed to do that.
Ok, why don''t we go on with our next question please.
I wanted to know if the washers and dryers and appliances like dish washers and microwaves are going to be required to have tactile buttons or knobs as opposed to flat screens?
We are not requiring any sort of tactile operable parts for pretty much anything, as I recall, but not specifically for those, no.
Is there a way to get that in, because that is excluding a lot of people.
No, ma''am, this is a done deal. Until we do another revision down the road, this is what it is going to be.
You could, again, when the Department of Justice goes through it is rulemaking, you could submit some information to them in regard to that with the standard, not the guideline. But would it not be true to say that the only tactile requirement is ATM, that ATM is the only one that has a tactile requirement on it, it that not correct?
I believe so, other than the pip on the five on a telephone or keypad.
Okay, next question please.
Thank you. My question was partially answered. Regarding assembly areas and seating requirements, I was wondering what was the, I have two issues, one is like sports stadium seating for sporting events, and other stadium seating in movie theatres, what do the new requirements say about those?
Well, as far as stadiums are concerned, we have specific requirement for sky boxes and luxury suites, and again, the general requirements with regards to dispersion and integration and how you get to the wheelchair location is talked about and it can''t be, the wheelchair location can''t be in the circulation path. There is a bunch of things in the technical requirement that we deal with. If you are talking about stadium style movie theaters that gets to those exceptions we were talking about. In other words, in a small theatre, under 300 seats you still have to meet those dispersion requirement of horizontal and vertical. Or you can take advantage of a couple of exceptions. There is an exception in the horizontal and exception in the vertical, and basically what those exceptions do, they pretty much require that the seating location in a stadium style seating be in a ''sweet spot'', the center. It would take me a long time to describe it. It is easier to do with pictures, if you look at the guidelines, I think you can get an idea of what we are talking about.
You mean the center in terms of left to right or vertically?
Both.
Both, OK, thank you.
I believe that there has been a great deal of litigation in this arena currently that has been going on across the country by the Department of Justice on various designs.
And others, yes.
Private right of action and such on designs and things, and I think this is an area of ongoing discussion in the new requirements do provide greater clarification than what the current regulation does in this area. Next question, please.
I had really three questions, but I am going to back off to two and kind of a request on, I was the one that sent the email in about the doors with the power doors for outside. You said that you may be looking at that sometime in the future and I would like to lend my request for that to be looked at and the quicker future we can get to the better. That is a very needed thing and then I had a couple of questions, one, they are both unrelated to each other, one, going back to that 30 by 48 bathroom, I am trying to picture this in my mind which is kind of hard but outside, beyond my chair, if I am sitting in my wheelchair, rubber meets the road if I am sitting in my wheelchair and try to go into that restroom, is it going to be really possible and not mathematically, but really possible for me to get in there and get swung around so I can close the door?
Yes. Because like I said, you are still required to have the five-foot turning space. You are still required to have maneuvering clearance on the inside of that door. You are still required to have the minimum, what is it now, 56 or 59 by 60 clear floor space for that water closet. You are now required to have the clear floor space for the lavatory, for the most part, not all of it, a good chunk of it outside the 30 by 48 outside the clear floor space for the water closet. All we are saying is if you take that configuration, you can swing the door into that sort of standard size room if you have a clear 30 by 48 space beyond the swing of the door. In other words, I get in the room, I get past the swing of the door, the door closes behind me, then I move into the turning space and I maneuver around to get wherever I need to.
OK, the other question I had was on carpet. Have you guys done anything with carpet? I know that when you are in a manual chair, especially on some of this plush carpet and some of nicer hotels and stuff, that it is impossible to move.
Are you talking rolling resistance or are you talking about just general pile height? Generally the requirement for carpet has not changed. We still have a maximum half-inch pile height, extra loop, whatever the requirements are. It pretty much came over as a whole cloth the same and it really hasn''t changed. You still have got the same basic requirements as what is currently required. We haven''t done anything specifically with regards to rolling resistance. I think what you are talking about, when you go down the nap in the carpet tries to shoot you towards the wall. That is something we haven''t really looked at. We may look at it in the future, but at this point in time we haven''t.
Just as you try to propel yourself across the room, just the flat rolling resistance can be very difficult.
I understand. We may look at that somewhere down the road. I don''t know if it is on our list to look at as far as research or not. I know it is an issue and it always has been. It is just something we didn''t get to this time around.
Thank you.
Again, I would encourage you, if you have areas of concern like that, you send them to the Access Board because I think that you know there is an interest from the Access Board to hear what people want or see as some of the issues as they determine their agenda, is that correct Jim?
Yes. Obviously anything.
Well, we are rounding out the two hours here today. It is a little bit before 3:00, so we know that there are people out there that did not get their questions answered, and we apologize for that. It is one of the catch-22 here when we have time and we have so many issues that come up, and the balance between spending time on one question or the other is a very difficult one. I think we have covered a lot of ground and a lot of topics today, and as you heard Jim say, he has done whole day plus sessions on this with groups and still had more to say after those so we know that this is an area where there is a lot more questions. This is what we would say a preview to it because I think there is a need for a lot more flushing out and people having a much better understanding of these things as they go along. I think it is also very important to understand that this set of guidelines is not currently enforceable. So we are all in the process of learning, and looking at these and looking to the future and what it will be holding but right now this is not an enforceable standard for the Americans with Disabilities Act. As you heard Jim say in the beginning, the various agencies under, Federal Agencies will be doing different things in regards to their rulemaking for their responsibilities as Federal Agencies with the Architectural Barriers Act as well. I think that one of the things we often do here as centers and people across the country involved in these issues is often times people confuse things that are architectural in nature versus those that might be programmatic or may be requiring some kind of other type of interpretation that does not actually have to do with how the architectural environment is designed but it may be how someone uses it or the policies and procedures, and I think that is a huge area that the Department of Justice will be addressing as they apply these standards. I think you heard Jim say earlier in his comments about the requirements for readily achievable barrier removal and what that will, that actually entail under any changes that it might make, and I think there are many, many other changes questions, while there may be accessibility known now, what does an accessible gold course look like or something of that nature. There is still a lot of procedural questions and policy questions that will have to be answered by the Department of Justice in order to make these actually enforceable standards. So we, there is a long way to go yet, but I think this is a great start, and I appreciate John, Jim''s time, I don''t know why I am getting your name wrong today, to spend some time with us and I hope everyone here found it was valuable. As I said earlier, the transcript and the audio, digital recording will be available from our website in the near future, and that will be www.adagreatlakes.org. Following the links through our programs and services to the audio conference series where you can access our archives which includes both a written transcript as well as a digital recording of this session. Jim, if you would like to give your contact information again for the Access Board, I think that would be helpful.
Sure. Our 800 number is, (800)872-2253, If you are using a TTY, it is (800)993-2822. If you want to fax us a question, it is (202)272-0081 and if you want to email us a question, it is TA@ACCESS-BOARD.GOV.
And all of that information is also on your website.
Correct.
How to contact you at the www.access-board.gov. Again, if you, we encourage you to also contact your regional Disability and Business Technical Assistant Centers, we have been undergoing training and have an ongoing relationship with the Access Board and have people in our offices that will be able to assist you with this information as well as getting you some answers to things that might not have been answered for you again today as well. So look to your resources and use them. Just a reminder that our next session is August 17 at, beginning at 1:00 p.m. Central Time, and that will be addressing issues of making meetings accessible. We also have a session in September on the 21st of September that is going to focus on how to conduct an accessibility survey of an existing facility and that will feature Mark Derry from Eastlake, Derry and Associates in regard to that practice. I invite you to join us again, and I hope the session was valuable to you. I encourage you to complete the evaluation forms that should have been provided to you, if not, we have an evaluation form on our website. At www.adagreatlakes.org, follow the links for the session through our programs and services, and you will find an on-line evaluation form that you can submit. Thank you one and all, and have a great day.