DOJ/DOT Technical Assistance Document on Curb Ramps When Streets, Roads or Highways are Altered
Department of Justice/Department of Transportation Joint Technical Assistance1 on the Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act Requirements to Provide Curb Ramps when Streets, Roads, or Highways are Altered through Resurfacing
[Preamble: The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) authorizes the Department of Justice (the Department) to provide technical assistance to individuals and entities that have rights or responsibilities under the Act. This [enhanced 2013] document provides informal guidance to assist you in understanding the ADA and the Department's regulations. This guidance document is not intended to be a final agency action, has no legally binding effect, and may be rescinded or modified in the Department's complete discretion, in accordance with applicable laws. The Department's guidance documents, including this guidance, do not establish legally enforceable responsibilities beyond what is required by the terms of the applicable statutes, regulations, or binding judicial precedent.]
Technical Assistance Document
Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that state and local governments ensure that persons with disabilities have access to the pedestrian routes in the public right of way. An important part of this requirement is the obligation whenever streets, roadways, or highways are altered to provide curb ramps where street level pedestrian walkways cross curbs.2 This requirement is intended to ensure the accessibility and usability of the pedestrian walkway for persons with disabilities. The diagram below is representative of a curb ramp.
Representative Diagram of Curb Ramp Components
An alteration is a change that affects or could affect the usability of all or part of a building or facility.3 Alterations of streets, roads, or highways include activities such as reconstruction, rehabilitation, resurfacing, widening, and projects of similar scale and effect.4 Maintenance activities on streets, roads, or highways, such as filling potholes, are not alterations.
Without curb ramps, sidewalk travel in urban areas can be dangerous, difficult, or even impossible for people who use wheelchairs, scooters, and other mobility devices. Curb ramps allow people with mobility disabilities to gain access to the sidewalks and to pass through center islands in streets. Otherwise, these individuals are forced to travel in streets and roadways and are put in danger or are prevented from reaching their destination; some people with disabilities may simply choose not to take this risk and will not venture out of their homes or communities. The photo below is representative of a road marked for a pedestrian route across the road but there is no curb ramp when the marked route meets the curb. How would someone in a wheel chair or using a walking device cross the curb?
Photo of Missing Curb Ramp at Pedestrian Crosswalk
Because resurfacing of streets constitutes an alteration under the ADA, it triggers the obligation to provide curb ramps where pedestrian walkways intersect the resurfaced streets. See Kinney v. Yerusalim, 9 F 3d 1067 (3rd Cir. 1993). This obligation has been discussed in a variety of technical assistance materials published by the Department of Justice beginning in 1994.5 Over the past few years, state and local governments have sought further guidance on the scope of the alterations requirement with respect to the provision of curb ramps when streets, roads or highways are being resurfaced. These questions have arisen largely due to the development of a variety of road surface treatments other than traditional road resurfacing, which generally involved the addition of a new layer of asphalt. Public entities have asked the Department of Transportation and the Department of Justice to clarify whether particular road surface treatments fall within the ADA definition of alterations, or whether they should be considered maintenance that would not trigger the obligation to provide curb ramps. This Joint Technical Assistance guide addresses some of those questions.
Where must curb ramps be provided?
Generally, curb ramps are needed wherever a sidewalk or other pedestrian walkway crosses a curb. Curb ramps must be located to ensure a person with a mobility disability can travel from a sidewalk on one side of the street, over or through any curbs or traffic islands, to the sidewalk on the other side of the street. However, the ADA does not require installation of ramps or curb ramps in the absence of a pedestrian walkway with a prepared surface for pedestrian use. Nor are curb ramps required in the absence of a curb, elevation, or other barrier between the street and the walkway.
When is resurfacing considered to be an alteration?
Resurfacing is an alteration that triggers the requirement to add curb ramps if it involves work on a street or roadway spanning from one intersection to another, and includes overlays of additional material to the road surface, with or without milling. Examples include, but are not limited to the following treatments or their equivalents: addition of a new layer of asphalt, reconstruction, concrete pavement rehabilitation and reconstruction, open-graded surface course, micro-surfacing and thin lift overlays, cape seals, and in-place asphalt recycling.
What if a locality is not resurfacing an entire block, but is resurfacing a crosswalk by itself?
Crosswalks constitute distinct elements of the right-of-way intended to facilitate pedestrian traffic. Regardless of whether there is curb-to-curb resurfacing of the street or roadway in general, resurfacing of a crosswalk also requires the provision of curb ramps at that crosswalk.
What kinds of treatments constitute maintenance rather than an alteration?
Treatments that serve solely to seal and protect the road surface, improve friction, and control splash and spray are considered to be maintenance because they do not significantly affect the public's access to or usability of the road. Some examples of the types of treatments that would normally be considered maintenance are: painting or striping lanes, crack filling and sealing, surface sealing, chip seals, slurry seals, fog seals, scrub sealing, joint crack seals, joint repairs, dowel bar retrofit, spot high-friction treatments, diamond grinding, and pavement patching. In some cases, the combination of several maintenance treatments occurring at or near the same time may qualify as an alteration and would trigger the obligation to provide curb ramps.
SUMMARY
This enhanced Joint Technical Assistance guide issued in 2013 by DOJ/DOT provides informal guidance to assist in understanding the ADA regulations regarding curb ramps when resurfacing roads, street, and highways. In general, most resurfacing projects will likely trigger the need to install or repair curb ramps, as required. Click on Original Technical Document for an original version of the document.
[Revision 8/2023] In August 2023, the US Access Board issued its final rule on Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines (PROWAG). PROWAG has provisions for parallel parking. Please see the post at PROWAG]
NOTES:
1 The Department of Justice is the federal agency with responsibility for issuing regulations implementing the requirements of title II of the ADA and for coordinating federal agency compliance activities with respect to those requirements. Title II applies to the programs and activities of state and local governmental entities. The Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation share responsibility for enforcing the requirements of title II of the ADA with respect to the public right of way, including streets, roads, and highways.
2 See 28 CFR 35.151(i)(1) (Newly constructed or altered streets, roads, and highways must contain curb ramps or other sloped areas at any intersection having curbs or other barriers to entry from a street level pedestrian walkway) and 35.151(i)(2) (Newly constructed or altered street level pedestrian walkways must contain curb ramps or other sloped areas at intersections to streets, roads, or highways).
3 28 CFR 35.151(b)(1).
4 2010 ADA Accessibility Standards, section 106.5, Defined Terms.
5 See 1994 Title II Technical Assistance Manual Supplement, Title II TA Guidance: The ADA and City Governments: Common Problems; and ADA Best Practices Tool Kit for State and Local Governments: Chapter 6, Curb Ramps and Pedestrian Crossings under Title II of the ADA, available at ada.gov.
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