I don't think anyone would have a problem with ADA if common sense was applied to it.  An F-16 cockpit is not wheelchair accessible but under the strictest reading of the ADA it should be.  Your fire dept has physical restrictions for the job, therefore the living area for the firefighters (kitchens, bathrooms, bunks, turn-out gear storage, etc) should not be confined to ADA....now public access bathrooms or conference rooms in your building, I can understand that.

The biggest problem I have with ADA is the ease at which those least deserving get to abuse it. Handicapped individuals who truly need and deserve the exceptions should be pissed at this as well.
Handicapped parking placards are handed out like free tickets to a Sunday rodeo.
I've seen handicapped parking filled with Monster truck axle lift pick-ups.
FSA'ers get a placard for grandma; leave her at the house and drive all around with the best parking in town.
We have the voluntarily morbidly obese demanding scooters all over the place.....I'd put a sensor on them that automatically shut them off when they are within 20 ft of the potato chip aisle and 30 ft from the tobacco checkout counter.

My dad lost is leg due to blood clots from cancer.  He got a prosthetic limb and was able to move about again.  He certainly qualified for a handicap placard and I asked him why he never got one.

He just looked at me and said: "Why?...I can walk"

Sounds like you need to make an OSHA complaint for unergonomic working conditions that cause chronic back pain.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

I could live with that.  But I can't climb a 5" vertical curb in a wheelchair, gotta have a ramp for that.

You don't know the pertinent laws.

The Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) made all federal agencies responsible for developing their own accessibility programs, long before the ADA was ever on the table.  To satisfy that law, DoD adopted the standards published by the Access Board, the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS).  DoD's policy memorandum explicitly exempted (and does to this day) any facility that is accessed solely by uniformed service-members.

The ADA came later, and with it a new set of standards called the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG).  The built-environment standards of the ADA are only pertinent to non-federal governments and private enterprise (the part I object to).  DoD at that time decided to adopt both standards and enforce a "whichever-is-more-stringent" approach.  That sucked.

The Rehabilitation Act then imposed certain portions of the ADA law on federal entities, particularly those relating to "reasonable accommodations" that must be made for certain employee conditions in excess of the minimum accessibility standards (UFAS and ADAAG).

In 2004 the Access Board replaced the UFAS and ADAAG with the ADA-ABAAG which establishes more uniformity between the two laws with slight variations in scoping.  The DoD still exempts certain facilities, though the policy memo is technically out of date.

Access Board is continually "refining" the ADA-ABAAG, leading to stuff like accessible pools, and a new set of standards coming soon governing access in public rights-of-way among other things.

In case you can't tell, it's a significant portion of my job.

For the sake of refining this argument, from now on let's leave me and my perceptions out of it.

1Andy2,
 What accomodations (WRT hndicapped accessibilty) do we as a country, owe to military personnel who've come home missing members or have serious brain
damage from injuries sustained in combat?  Any?
-kid

edited for clarity

The Federal government owes them compensation for disability in the line of duty.  

Joe's Crabshack and Walmart aren't the US Federal government, however.   They are private businesses who, in theory, have the freedom to deal or not deal with whomever they will.

Which is neither here nor there, since it's the Americans with Disabilities Act that we're actually discussing.   Not the Servicemen with Disabilities Act.

Exactly. No one has a right to go in someone else's private property. If someone doesn't want to accommodate handicapped people, fine forget him and go to another store.

The part you highlighted (F-16) was satire....however it is a govt vehicle, and with the way congress critters like to mess with laws and the DOD for grandstanding and vote buying, I'd say its plausible , ridiculous but plausible. A brief here, a subcommittee reference there....next thing you've got Joint Chiefs all in a tizzy.

By what you posted, the fire station discussed above was built with a misinterpretation of the laws, correct? (You're the expert here)

The main point of the post was to highlight those entities that abuse the system.  Especially the parking deal....just watch your local mall, grocery or walmart parking lot for a few minutes.
I've seen FSA races to grab the last scooter.

No one is calling for the end of the ADA, just the abuse of it by freeloaders and litigious individuals.

I was in a wheelchair for awhile after a car accident, which is not the same as being permanently wheelchair bound, I know. Maybe I am weird but I did not expect the local grocery store to make their smaller-than-closet-sized bathroom wheelchair accessible. I went to the restroom before I went to the grocery store b/c I knew I could not access it without someone carrying me and that was not going to happen.

What did piss me off was other people. For example, tried to do a little Christmas shopping while I was wheelchair bound. My husband at the time went to go look elsewhere in the store and I was in the section of WM where they put the bath/perfume/ gift sets, which was not a problem b/c I would operate the wheelchair on my own. What I had not planned on was how many people dropped things they decided to not buy IN my lap like it was a return counter, how many of them would try to walk over my legs (which usually involved quite a bit of pain b/c one of them had a broken ankle and was being flexed/rotated), or they would literally put their hands on the handles of the wheelchair and push me out of their way. I was fucking appalled and infuriated. My poor ex, when he found me and realized what was happening, did not leave me alone again and glared everyone away.

Everyone in the Army does...oh. You mean the Disabled peoples ADA. Carry on

My wife is a commercial interior designer so I know the exact rants you speak about.

I can't say what governed the fire house design.  There are state and other municipal statutes that may also bear.  The ADA is the minimum acceptable federal standard.  It sounds to me like the kitchen designer may have gone a bit overboard.  But it's also important to think about who else might need to access that building element.  If the fire station were to let a service contract for custodial services, they would not be permitted to include an able-bodied requirement in that contract, so the elements subject to cleaning would need to be accessible.  This, incidentally, is the same rationale DoD applies when making a numbered Army HQ (for example) fully accessible.

Parking is the most evident feature, so it draws the most ire.  Fact of the matter is that your municipality (generally through a zoning ordinance) determines how much parking a building is required to provide.  The ADA only says that a small percentage of whatever parking you do provide has to be accessible; i.e. of the prescribed shape, size, and location with correct striping and signage.

The scooters at my local Walmart seemed to be reserved for some kind of ad-hoc negro (disabled or not) derby tournament whose rules and event structure I can never quite discern.

And I am calling for an end to the ADA, but I'll continue to defend the need for an ABA.  The federal government itself should be universally accessible to every citizen.  I would always promote the principles of universal and accessible design to my private clients, but I absolutely do not agree that they should be compelled to provide it.  Maybe a tax-incentive structure would work better--I dunno.

I'm sorry if that hurts some people's feelings, but this.

While it's a nice thing to do and sometimes makes good sense from a business perspective, no one has any right to force a private business to accommodate people with disabilities.

Put a stick beside the machine?

Different states have different accessibility codes. For the private sector, all ADA really calls out for is that you meet the accessibility code when you make a major renovation, or build new, or you have a plan in place to come into compliance. I use to be responsible for ADA compliance at a former job.  I had a multi year budget plan that got revised every year as to bring our facility into compliance.

I'm extremely sympathetic to the plight of the truly disabled and I don't really care how they got that way since "Olympics of Suffering" is more of an FSA competition. I want to be as considerate as possible but I really don't see how you can justify forcing people to alter their business for certain types of disabilities without forcing them for all.

If ramps are required why not require at least one employee be fluent in American Sign Language. If that why not include a tablet or other device which allows the blind to know where an item is only by voice (including installing myriad sensors so the device knows where it is). I just can't really understand why only people who are wheelchair bound are deserving of more sympathy/dollars per person than any other disability that is equally or more difficult.

The one week wheelchair challenge is something I've done because of accidents twice in my life for 5 months the first time and 10 months the second time. I get it, it's exceedingly difficult to handle but I imagine that people without sight or without arms feel they're at least as disabled and virtually no one including Congress cares. We continue to regulate what businesses must do but refuse to acknowledge that it is immoral for you to require someone do something for the "common good" without the public treasury paying for it completely.

TLDR:  Want ramps, raise taxes and have the feds pay for it and anything else you want (nothing is free)

The Cadillac of bathroom stalls.