New Guidelines Bring Clarity to Accessibility Requirements

Writing in Strong Towns, Ben Abramson asserts that newly approved Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines (PROWAG) “promise to make American towns and cities safer and more predictable for users of all abilities.”

The new guidelines “address access to sidewalks and streets, crosswalks, curb ramps, pedestrian signals, on-street parking, and other components of public rights-of-way,” Abramson adds. 

The new PROWAG adds accessibility requirements to pedestrian access routes such as slope, calls for alternate access routes in construction areas, and mandates curb cuts and detectable warning surfaces at crosswalks. It also requires accessible pedestrian signals, “which have audible and vibrotactile features indicating the walk interval so that a pedestrian who is blind or has low vision will know when to cross the street.”

The guidelines also address accessibility at transit stops and accessible parking spaces in neighborhoods with street parking.

For Strong Towns director of community action Edward Erfurt, “the level of detail in the new guidelines is a game changer” that will bring new best practices to cities that have lagged behind in implementing accessibility improvements. “This specificity, and the legal requirement that planners and engineers adhere to the guidelines, promises to bring improvements that will make everyone in American cities safer.”