Fightin_Aggie said:

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WBBQ74 said:

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TDLR refs here in Texas can be extremely aggravating at times. My late BIL w/ ALS was wheelchair bound for the last 5 years of his life. I get it. On the other hand site compliance with ADA 'guidelines' can be very costly and with minimal chances of ever being needed/used. I once had to design a full sidewalk ramp with several landings for a Krispy Kreme donut shop along the frontage road for 1604 here in SA. Zero chance of any pedestrian traffic along this highway and even less of a chance of someone in a wheelchair making a donut run to this location. Total waste of money.

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They are expanding the middle lanes down 183 in Austin and have to install sidewalks on both sides of the frontage roads as required by Austin walkability rules I believe.

You should see the sidewalk they are putting in along the sides of both existing frontage roads (North and South). They are easily spending millions per mile on this thing. Retaining walls, ramps, fall prevention walls because some of the sidewalks have a 3' drop on one side, new drainage, moving utilities, ramps.

It is insane. It will be more walkable when done but maybe 3 people per hour walk those areas during the work week. So all this so 30 or so people a day can use a sidewalk instead of an unimproved flatish land or having to take a step down into someones existing parking lot. It is nuts

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Don't forget the 7 million dollar Lamar Street bridge that wasn't needed at the time it was built.

Yesterday said:

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FL_Ag1998 said:

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annie88 said:

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Wow, I'm kind of disgusted by some of the comments on here, and it tells me that most of you have never had to deal with any kind of serious restriction in your lives.

Do better.

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This x100000000. When my dad was going through the cancer that ultimately killed him the chemo left him so weak it took all his strength just to walk from the handicap parking spot right next to the doctor's office door into the lobby. It gave me a new perspective on how crucial handicap access is.

Most of the comments above are just pathetic.

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Most? Which one is pathetic, and why? Thanks!

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If you can't tell then that's sad and I feel really sorry for you.

Ain't government grand??

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Do you think every hotel with a pool needs a lift?
Does every public bathroom need a rail at 30 inches?
Should a business be fined/sued because the grade of the ramp is slightly higher than 3%?

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None of these. I am guessing just one pool side HC lift probably costs $10K and will probably never be used, ever. Should a hotel be required to put out that kind of money for absolutely no use ? ? I would think you could rent one for a weekend if you had a guest that was handicapped and told you that he planned on using the pool. But, No, a lift has to be there on premises ready to be used.

When I built my accounting office nearly 30 years ago, I put in a ramp that led from a handicapped parking space up to the back door, a doorbell on that back door, and one of the two restrooms had to be ADA compliant.

I chose who I wanted to do work for and who I did not want to do work for. In all that time, the handicapped parking space/ramp was used one time, the restroom was never used by someone with accessibility issues.

techno-ag said:

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ADA is supposed to help people not punish successful businesses and close them down.

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Unfortunately, you are not correct about this.

Muy said:

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dmart90 said:

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Muy said:

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Not like people with needs can't simply go to restaurants who cater to those needs.

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What a dick thing to say.

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What?!! In every aspect of life, we have options to choose where to eat, no matter what our needs are. Sorry this hurts your feelings.

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Your lack of empathy is telling. Yes, we all have choices. If business A sucks I can go to business B. I have that CHOICE. But in this case I am limited to business B because I'm handicapped and I can't even try business A? And your response if basically "sucks to be you"?

That's a dick think to say.

Fightin_Aggie said:

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They are expanding the middle lanes down 183 in Austin and have to install sidewalks on both sides of the frontage roads as required by Austin walkability rules I believe.

You should see the sidewalk they are putting in along the sides of both existing frontage roads (North and South). They are easily spending millions per mile on this thing. Retaining walls, ramps, fall prevention walls because some of the sidewalks have a 3' drop on one side, new drainage, moving utilities, ramps.

It is insane. It will be more walkable when done but maybe 3 people per hour walk those areas during the work week. So all this so 30 or so people a day can use a sidewalk instead of an unimproved flatish land or having to take a step down into someones existing parking lot. It is nuts

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It truly amazing how much infrastructure they are tearing up to install a sidewalk and how long each project is taking. Subdivisions can install sidewalks in a couple of weeks. These are taking many, many months of construction to install small sections of sidewalks.

annie88 said:

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Wow, I'm kind of disgusted by some of the comments on here, and it tells me that most of you have never had to deal with any kind of serious restriction in your lives.

Do better.

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On brand for this bard, tbh. Waiting for someone to say ADA compliance is woke.

Hungry Ojos said:

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So every small business/mom and pop shop should be compelled by law to construct significantly expensive ramps, elevators, etc solely because one day they MIGHT get used by someone? That's the better alternative than said handicap person simply going to a similar store that is able to accommodate them?

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They should make reasonable accommodations, yes. That's not me saying everything in the ADA is reasonable.

techno-ag said:

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IADA is supposed to help people not punish successful businesses and close them down.

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Is that not the story of all government action that impinges on the freedom of the individual? The ADA was a stupid idea at the federal level. Let the states handle it how they want.

Unless you've been there (or are there) it's difficult to understand.

And note that you can make a correct comment and still be a dick about it.

And again, I'm for the power of the market. If able bodied people could see through the eyes of the disable and point out to business owners their inaccessibility, the market could improve things in a hurry. MOST owners love business and will do whatever they need to do to accommodated once their shortcomings are pointed out.

The dicks on the other side that attempt to monetize their (and others) disability by ticky tacky ADA litigation are a special kind of evil and actually do much more harm than good for the disables.

Helicopter Ben said:

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Muy said:

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Not like people with needs can't simply go to restaurants who cater to those needs.

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And even worse, you can't just make special accommodations for them. We didn't offer table service, but we would have been more than happy to for any customer who needed it. We wanted to put in a raised deck area but we couldn't because of ADA. Nevermind that they could go anywhere else on the premises.

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People go so far as to measure the width of bathroom stalls and promptly sue if they're off even by an inch.

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There is a notorious guy in Houston area that does exactly this kind of thing. We were always a little scared he might show up. And just like with all the regulatory quagmires out there, it's pretty much impossible to be in full compliance.

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What I don't understand is why existing buildings and businesses at the time of the passage of the act wouldn't be grandfathered in to at least some degree.

WBBQ74 said:

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TDLR refs here in Texas can be extremely aggravating at times. My late BIL w/ ALS was wheelchair bound for the last 5 years of his life. I get it. On the other hand site compliance with ADA 'guidelines' can be very costly and with minimal chances of ever being needed/used. I once had to design a full sidewalk ramp with several landings for a Krispy Kreme donut shop along the frontage road for 1604 here in SA. Zero chance of any pedestrian traffic along this highway and even less of a chance of someone in a wheelchair making a donut run to this location. Total waste of money.

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TLDR

One thing that really chaps my ass is some rules related to service dogs.

Yeah, if someone has a real service dog, then they should be able to take it in with them. If it misbehaves, the businesses should be free to kick the dog out.

The big problem is that there is almost no way to decide whether or not a dog is actually a service dog. There are some indications that they may be bogus, but it can get really expensive for the business owner to go by that.

I suspect that service animals are the most faked thing out there. The proportion of service dogs that are bogus compared to actual service dogs is probably far higher than the proportion of fake olive oil to real olive oil.

In the past 20 years, I've seen precisely one dog that I think was probably a service dog. I've seen plenty of clearly bogus service dogs, though. And the people with the bogus service dogs seem to be by far the nastiest people out there when it comes to whining about how they are being discriminated against.

I know several people who claim that their dogs are service dogs when the dogs are just pets, including one relative of mine.

We need some clearly identified way to identify if a dig is a legitimate service dog and real teeth for those who make false claims. Some kind of state issued photo id for the service dog at the very least. And anyone claiming that their pet is a service dog should face enormous fines and have their dog taken away from them permanently as a required punishment (in addition to fines) every time they are convicted of falsely claiming that their dog is a service dog.

It wouldn't surprise me if there were a hundred bogus service dogs for every real service dog. Maybe even five hundred or a thousand.

As it stands, about all the business can do is stand by and let those idiots bring in their bogus service dogs. They are too damned scared to even take action if the dog is grossly misbehaving.

Yeah it got out of control a while back for all kinds of service animals. Remember the service horse on airplanes?