 The weather for coming in today seems like every time that we have one of these events, the weather turns on us. I don't know if that's a good or bad omen, not quite sure, but today we've got a topic of great interest and we've been asked to see if we can present this many, many times over and we have the folks from Kimley Horn who are here to grace us with that information. We've got Scott Arnold and we also have Aaron Urik and a little bit about Aaron who's going to be our guest speaker. Aaron received both her Bachelor of Science in Master of Engineering Degrees in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M. Okay. I was like, come on. I'm just waiting. I'm just waiting. She is a licensed professional engineer and has over 12 years of practical traffic and transportation experience with Kimley Horn. Aaron's practice focuses on completing self-evaluations and developing Americans with disability act, ADA transition plans for public agencies. Aaron has managed ADA self-evaluation and transition plan projects across the country including projects in Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Aaron? Thanks so much. It's all yours. Thank you, folks. A couple of housekeeping items. If you do have a question, please raise your hand and Scott will bring you the microphone. We are being recorded so they do need you to speak into that. So we are going to go pretty quickly because this is a very condensed version of what could be an eight-hour training, so I'd be happy to field any questions that you have as we go through the material, but if we have too many, we may have to hold those to the end to make sure that we don't go over time. So I want to preface this also by saying that this is not a TDLR presentation. This is simply an overview of PROAG, but we will get to how TDLR relates to PROAG here in a moment. So I do want to cover an ADA Sanders overview, how we got to where we are with the design standards today, project scoping, and then the technical requirements that are contained within PROAG and the MUTCD. So after the ADA was signed in 1990, the first design standards that came out were the 1991 ADA standards for accessible design. And over time, there were iterations of that design standard that were fixed because they found additional information, wanted to provide designers and contractors with information to make a better product in the field. And so where we are today is the 2010 ADA standards for accessible design. But what they have realized is that that did not cover design and construction of pedestrian facilities in the public rights away, and there was a need for additional documentation to handle some of the unique characteristics that you see when you can't grade your site flat. And so that's where PROAG came from. And so right now, also just to let you know, the 2004 ADAG is simply placed in front of some scoping material to create the 2010 ADA standards. So nothing's really changed in the design standards since 2004. But PROAG is intended to supplement those 2004 ADAG requirements, and right now it's a standalone document, but they are intending to eventually incorporate it into those standards. But it is still undergoing the rulemaking process at the federal level right now. But FHWA has said that it is a best practice until it's adopted when you are designing and constructing pedestrian facilities in the public rights away. So if where the ADA 2010 standards are silent, it is where you want to go to reference information. And if you want to look at the memo for where FHWA has stated that's the best practice that they're recommending, that link you can follow to get there. So touching a little bit on TDLR and PROAG, TDLR in May of 2017 did come out and say that you can follow either TAS or you can choose to follow PROAG as it relates to the public rights away. So know that everything that you're going to be hearing today is acceptable by TDLR right now. So a little bit of overview of PROAG, the way that it's set up, they have the preamble and then there's four chapters. The application and administration is a lot of the Q&A that came from the various versions of PROAG as it was reviewed by the public and received comment over time. And then the scoping requirements really go into, okay, do I actually have to follow PROAG? What do I have to bring into compliance if I have a project with an alteration or I have new construction? So there's a lot of good information in there. I know all of you get bored and want to have good reading material. This is one of those things that you can just go check out in your free time. But really the meat of PROAG is going to be in chapters three and four where they get into the technical requirements. And that's really going to be the focus of the presentation today, but we will touch a little bit on the scoping. So here's a list of all the different chapters. So we're going to try to touch on all of these, but some of them we cut out for time's sake. So if something's not covered in this presentation, I will be here for a little bit afterwards if you have some questions, but we're going to focus mainly on the pedestrian access routes, pedestrian street crossings, and try to get most of your questions answered related to those. So this presentation will be available afterwards, and the way that it's organized is that the section number in the upper right hand corner relates back to PROAG. So if you want to read the entire technical section, you can easily reference back what slide is being referenced. So project scoping, basically all new construction is required to follow the current standards. So if you're on an onsite design, you need to be following the 2010 standards. And if you're in the public rights way, you need to be following PROAG. And so there's very little reason why you would not be able to make facilities fully compliant when you have brand new construction, when it's greenfield construction. So I know there's been some questions on that and we'll touch a little bit more on, you know, what's your limiting factors. But when you have alterations, you need to make sure that your facilities are being brought into compliance to the maximum extent feasible. So there is recognition that there are existing constraints. The world isn't going to be flat. You can't make everything perfect. But that doesn't mean that we don't do anything. You have to really try to do the best that you can and look at several different options to really have the best accessible design at the end of the day. And one thing that's important to note is that reduction in access is prohibited. So where you previously provided access, for example, a curb ramp, or maybe you have a striped crosswalk. You can't simply remove it because it's not compliant. You've provided that access and now you need to bring it into full compliance. FHWA and Department of Justice got together because there had been a lot of questions on what's considered maintenance versus alterations. So they did put out a technical memo that defined what those differences are. Because when you have a maintenance project, you're not required to bring your curb ramps into full compliance. For example, if you're filling a pothole, that's not going to affect needing to bring your curb ramps adjacent to that pothole into compliance. However, if you're doing a mill and fill overlay on a street, curb ramps that are on those adjacent corners are required to be brought into compliance, as well as the pedestrian crossings that are serving those curb ramps. So there's a lot that goes into this. But if you're wondering about project scoping, don't just put your blinders on, especially on some of those alteration projects because you are required to bring curb ramps into compliance or install them where they were not previously installed but should have been. And there is a link to that FHWA DOJ memo, as well as the glossary of those terms that you saw on that chart. Yes, can you hold on please for the mic? If somebody is upgrading an intersection with traffic signals and there are crosswalks but there are no ramps, are they supposed to improve the ramps with the single project? Yeah, so if a pedestrian has ever been invited into that intersection in any way, whether it be with pedestrian signal equipment with sidewalks leading up to a curb with curb ramps or march crosswalks, you are required to fully accommodate pedestrians at that intersection. So if you have a signalized intersection that you have zero desire to have pedestrians cross at that location, you do not want to put any pedestrian facilities inviting them there. So if you have, for example, if maybe it's a signal on the outskirts of town, but you know in the future you may have pedestrians that you went out there, you can wire it for pedestrian signal equipment and just not install it at that time and install it once the heads are out there. The crosswalks are existing right now and there are no sidewalks, but we are upgrading the signal. Are we obligated to upgrade the ramps also is my question. Yes, if you had crosswalks installed and you mark them, that's inviting pedestrians into the street. So you need to fully accommodate them with the curb ramps on either side. Now that doesn't mean that you necessarily have to have sidewalks installed because sidewalks are never required to be installed with the curb ramps are if you have invited peds out there. So for alterations, what this is basically saying is if you install something on the pedestrian circulation path, but you're not altering the pedestrian circulation path, only the element that you installed is required to be in full compliance. So if you installed a bench for example along the sidewalk, you would be required to have the appropriate clear space that's required for benches, but whatever access is being provided to that bench, if you didn't alter it doesn't have to be included in the scope of your project. Now that's not saying it wouldn't be a good idea to also bring that path of travel into compliance, but it's not specifically a requirement of pro-ag. And then anywhere that you do have where you are altering that path of travel, you do have to include that in the scope of your projects. And any elements that you are adding, so example, if you're at a signalized intersection and you're adding pedestrian push buttons, you do have to create that accessible path of travel so that a pedestrian can use that push button, which includes the clear space and any sidewalk or curb ramps necessary to access it. There's a lot of times that you'll hear people say it's technically infeasible for me to make this fully compliant, and you need to be careful about what the definition of technical infeasibility is. This definition here relates mostly to buildings and facilities, and it's really talking about structural members. So unless there's something in the public rights way that you're truly not able, that it is truly technically infeasible, you can use this as a reason not to meet full compliance, but just be careful that you have to defend your decisions in saying that it is so. And so examples of physical constraints, and these are specifically listed in Pro Ag because they realize there are constraints in the public rights way. It can be underlying terrain if you have sloped streets that can't be graded flat, right-of-way availability, any underground utility structures that you have, adjacent developments if you have buildings that are on the corner right up against the right-of-way, drainage, and any historical or natural features. But I did want to note that if you, just because something's old, doesn't make it historic. You have to make sure it's on the historic registry and understand the significance of why it's on the registry. And so it is still a requirement to bring those facilities into compliance to the maximum extent feasible without disrupting the historical significance. But one important thing I did want to note is that cost is not a constraint. Especially if you're doing new construction, you need to be able to plan appropriately and make sure all your facilities are compliant to begin with. Now, if you had something where the cost is then tied back into one of the physical constraints, there may be justification for not completely removing that constraint to make your alteration feasible. So a couple of examples are going to be constrained right away. So the photo on the left shows buildings that are backed up to the sidewalk that's serving the public rights away. So obviously we're not going to tear down the buildings to install a curb ramp or make that corner accessible. But we do need to try and get it to be as accessible as possible where there are constraints. And the photo on the right, this is actually taken in Austin, where you do have a lot of rolling terrain. And there were some questions that I received already about the cross-loop of the pedestrian crossings and how that ties into the existing grade of the roadway. Now, we are going to talk about the compliance requirements for those cross-slopes, but just note that sometimes it's not feasible to have your rolling terrain roadway and also have compliant crosswalks. So it's going to be a design balance and you're going to have to figure out what's the best that we can do so that we're not creating a dangerous situation for pedestrians, but we're also serving the vehicles that are crossing this pedestrian path of travel. So there is not going to be a black and white answer in these cases, but you do need to take all the design requirements into consideration and select the best appropriate solution for the location that you're working in. So another item that I wanted to touch on, that's specific to Proag, is the number of curb ramps that you're providing at each street corner where you have pedestrian crossings. Now Proag states that you should always try to install two pedestrian or two curb ramps on every corner, assuming you're serving pads on all sides. And the reason being is you're trying to provide a little bit of directionality and guidance to pedestrians who may be visually impaired. So you're pointing them the appropriate direction as you put them into the street. Now where you have alterations, where you may have existing physical constraints, maybe you have drainage inlets or other features that are not allowing you to put in two directional curb ramps, you can still have that single diagonal curb ramp, but the point is you need to try and see if it's feasible before you just immediately go to the diagonal curb ramp solution. Another thing that I wanted to mention is that there is no requirement that your curb ramps be perpendicular or parallel to a pedestrian crossing. You just wanna align them as much as possible with the crosswalk that they're serving, but they don't have to be perfectly in line with it. Just get it as close as you can. And anytime that you can't fit two curb ramps on a corner, it would be a good idea to keep some project documentation, just saying that we tried X, Y, and Z to make it happen, but we had these existing constraints, just in case there ever is a complaint, you can easily reference why you made that design decision. So I know there's also been some concern about the changes in some of the design standards over time, but I wanted to be clear that curb ramps have always been required starting with the earliest design standards and what triggers the need for curb ramps to be installed is when you have a prepared pedestrian surface leading up to a curb. So basically whenever you have a sidewalk that crosses a curb, you're required to install a curb ramp to get that pedestrian from the top of sidewalk down to street level. And so while the language has changed over time, the requirement hasn't. And so there was also, I think this may touch on your question a little bit where you have a striped crosswalk, but maybe you don't have existing curb ramps. At this point, you've invited pedestrians into the street, so you need to fully accommodate them and install curb ramps on both sides of the street to get them out of the street and over onto the sidewalk. This example came up because we had a citizen who was saying they used the accessible parking for the city, but then they literally had to lift their mom's wheelchair to put her down into the street, to cross the street and then lift her back up because this was the nearest crosswalk that they were able to use safely to get from the parking to where they were going. So it's important that you have those accommodations available. So a couple of visual examples of where you are required to have curb ramps. Basically, like I said, any time that you have sidewalk leading up to a curb, you're required to have a curb ramp, but more importantly, you're also required to have a receiving curb ramp on the opposite side of the road. And now where this gets tricky is when you really didn't want pedestrians to cross entirely across the street. Like maybe you have a major street intersecting a minor street and you really had no intention of peds crossing the major street. You really need to think about your curb ramp design and your curb ramp orientation in advance of installing it because as soon as you install a diagonal curb ramp, that then is implying that a pedestrian can cross in both crossing directions. And once you have that diagonal curb ramp, you're required to have the receiving curb ramp on the opposite side of the street. And this example specifically with the T intersections has been a letter that's been written to municipalities in the DFW area. They received a complaint and FHWA or Department of Justice sent a letter to the city saying, we received this complaint and yes, we find that you are required to install those receiving curb ramps. Well, the city was concerned that it was a safety issue crossing the major street and that was never their intent. So that's why it's so important to think about it ahead of time instead of after the fact, but we'll get to what happens when it is truly a safety concern. And in addition, anywhere that you see the green check marks, that means it's a pedestrian crossing you're required to accommodate. And when that happens, not only do the curb ramps have to be installed and being compliant, but the pedestrian street crossings also need to be compliant. Can you hold on please, the microphone. I think the one before it was the receiving ramp. If there is no sidewalk, are you obligated to do that to build it? Yes, and the reason that it's triggered is because of the diagonal curb ramps on the west side of the intersection are then requiring you to have a receiving curb ramp. And sidewalks are never required to be installed according to the ADA, but that doesn't mean there's a point at which accessibility requirements stop and good planning judgment picks up. So just because you are required to install those curb ramps doesn't mean consideration shouldn't be given for the installation of sidewalk to also accommodate pedestrians more fully on the east side of the intersection. So follow to Manar's question about a signalized intersection. Let's assume one corner, you don't have sidewalks period. Are you still have to build the ramp there? It depends on what curb ramps are on the opposite side of the street. So if you had a curb ramp that's leading pedestrians across the street to the corner that you're asking about, then you would have to install a curb ramp. Now, if you don't have a curb ramp on the other side of the street, there's no domino effect that's requiring you to have a receiving curb ramp in which case you don't have to install a curb ramp on that side. And I have a few more diagrams that might help clarify as well. Okay, thank you. I just have one following question of that. Do we need to have marked crosswalks at this location to have those ramps built? We want people to cross along this side, not on this side. Understood, so marked crosswalks are not required. You wanna reference the MUTCD for that, which basically says it's engineering judgment on whether or not you wanna mark it. But just because you don't have a marked crosswalk doesn't mean that it's not a pedestrian crossing. So the decision to install markings in the crosswalk would be your judgment on if you want to increase pedestrian visibility in a pedestrian crossing that is required to be accessible. And so that's really gonna be a judgment call on your end or on the designers side. Are there more questions over here? Okay, so there's an existing, let's say there's an existing receiving ramp, but it's not compliant according to current standards or any standards at all really. So you're building a new ramp on one side and you're going to that receiving ramp. Do you have to rebuild the existing receiving ramp? That's correct. And with the exception of it being a safety issue, which I'll get to in a moment, but if you have a non-compliant curb ramp, it should have been installed compliant to begin with, so that's not an excuse not to fully accommodate the pedestrian crossing. I have a question, I'm with the water department. So a lot of times we do a lot of water rehab, sewer rehab in the old neighborhood, it doesn't have sidewalk, it doesn't have curb ramps. And we have water line that's crossing over the intersection. Are we required to install any curb ramps on those projects since it's the subsurface improvements? So if you do not have any pedestrian accommodations whatsoever on the street, there's no sidewalks, there's no curb ramps, there's no pedestrian push buttons, there's no requirement to install curb ramps to nowhere. Thank you. Any other questions? All right, so I wanna show a couple more diagrams with a few different examples. So this diagram is showing the same as previously, but now you have sidewalk on the right-hand side of the road, or we'll call it the east side. So those diagonal curb ramps on the west side are triggering the need for those receiving curb ramps on the east side, but then you also have sidewalks, so it was probably a good idea to install those anyway just because you have the connectivity. But in either case, whether the sidewalk exists or not, you are required to install the receiving curb ramps. Now here's an example of what you would want to do if you have no desire to cross, we'll call it the major street, which was running north-south. You wanna make sure that your curb ramps have directionality and they're only pointing pedestrians in the direction in which you wanna cross them. And so in this example, you have perpendicular curb ramps that are pointed only serving the east side of the road. And also note there is a landscaping barrier between the sidewalk that's running east-west and that curb that's on the, or on the left-hand side of that curb ramp. So you're providing a physical barrier, there's no need to install a curb ramp, and there's no reason to accommodate the pedestrians crossing where you see the red Xs unless you had a planning desire to do so. And then finally here, it's just showing the domino effect again. So you have sidewalk leading up to the curb on the east side of the intersection, which then triggers the need to have a curb ramp installed, but then that also triggers the need to accommodate that pedestrian crossing. And then finally, that receiving curb ramp on the opposite side of the road. Now if you stop that sidewalk short, I have received that question before. You can technically stop the sidewalk short and just not accommodate pedestrians, but again that kinda goes back to good planning judgment and is this really what we wanna do to serve the pedestrians in this area? So while technically it's not required at that point, just think a little bit more about it from the planning side and pedestrian walkability or accessibility side of things. So if you decide that you have that curb ramp that you shouldn't have installed to begin with and you really, it's a safety issue having peds out on the street, and by safety issue it's gonna be up to the municipality or the state agency to come up with a consistent policy that basically defines what is a safety concern. So maybe it's an engineering study and you're looking at the speed limits on the roadway in which the pedestrians are crossing. Maybe you're looking at their crossing distance. There's several different studies that are available today that show best practices for mid-block crossings. And so you could pull some of those requirements and come up with a policy. And so if it's deemed that that location is unsafe for pedestrians, and you've also exhausted other options to make that pedestrian crossing safe, such as marking the crosswalks, somehow reducing the pedestrian crossing distance with ball bouts or maybe installing rectangular rapid flashing beacons or some other active warning device or even just signage. And the final answer is it's still not safe. Then you can remove that pedestrian or the curb ramp serving that pedestrian crossing and you need to make sure that you're putting in that landscaping barrier that we saw in this slide between the curb and any existing path leading up to it. But really it needs to be consistent. You can't just pick and choose what intersections you choose to implement this policy at. It has to be across the board. Anytime this comes into question, that policy needs to be what gets followed. Any questions on that? All right, so now we're gonna get into the technical standards. And like I said, I want this to be interactive. So if you have questions, stop me, but there may be slides further on that have the answers to your question. So I may push those back a little bit. But for pedestrian access route, this basically includes anything along the pedestrian path of travel. So your sidewalks, your pedestrian street crossings, at grade rail crossings, your curb ramps. So basically anywhere a pedestrian which averse, that's included in the pedestrian access route. So starting off with sidewalk, Proag says that you have to have a four foot minimum exclusive of the curb width. And this is one of the differences between the 2010 standards and Proag, which I will also summarize at the end of this presentation for you. But the minimum width went from three feet to four feet. But also keep in mind, if you have a shared use path, it is considered to be the full width of that shared use path when you're talking about the continuous width. And then if you have pedestrian refuge islands, whether it's the channelized right turn lane or a median where you have curbs built up to where it's cut through ramp, that width is required to be a minimum of five feet to allow two wheelchairs to pass each other in that space. And so all the images that you see from on these slides, if they say figure with a prefix of R, these all come out of Proag. So here it's just simply explaining that that width is exclusive of the curb. Now in the 2010 ADA, there is an allowance for pinch points, but as you can see in that figure, that was really intended for hallway examples where you may have a temporary pinch point. But when we're looking at evaluations of existing facilities, if we know they were constructed to the 2010 standards and you have that pinch point, but you have at least 36 inches of clearance, it's not a compliance requirement that you bring it to that full four foot width because the 2010 standards were the standards in place at the time of construction. But just note that for new construction, that pinch point wouldn't apply and you would have to have that full four foot clear width. So here's some examples of where that really comes into play. The picture on the right shows a fire hydrant where they look like there was some utility connections being made to it, but the fire hydrant's right in the middle of the pedestrian access route. So this kind of goes back to, should we have designed that fire hydrant to be placed in the middle of that sidewalk to begin with? And so really thinking about your design up front instead of having a case like this, and maybe the sidewalk was installed after the fact, but that also brings up the question, could we have put a bulb out around that utility that's causing the conflict? Rideaway is gonna be a consideration, but maybe there's an easement that you can work within to get that small amount of concrete around that utility. The photo on the right, there's really just no excuse for it. The rideaway was obviously there and it was just a lack of communication to get that sidewalk placed appropriately with respect to where that pole is. Also, temporary obstructions can obstruct that clear width and so if you do have sandwich boards or maybe picnic benches, something that business owners may take in and put out every day, it's important that you have enforcement and policies related to these signs so that they aren't reducing what would have been a compliant clear width or continuous width. On the right hand side, you have a vehicle and that's parked up on the curb. Part of the issue we hear is that they weren't milling down the roadway before they overlaid it and so now you have a reduced curb height which is allowing vehicles to think that this is acceptable. So a lot of this goes back to enforcement when you have these temporary obstructions. Now one thing I did wanna point out, even though the 2010 standards did have a clear width requirement of only three feet, if you do have any sidewalk that's less than five feet in width, you are required to have passing spaces every 200 feet and I have yet to see a location that has sidewalks less than five feet that have passing spaces every 200 feet because I don't think these ever get put into the design. While previously those three foot sidewalks were allowed, if those passing spaces were not installed, you're out of compliance. So driveways and cross streets can serve as these passing spaces but that's assuming that they're spaced less than 200 feet apart. So that's something to take into consideration if you have existing facilities that those passing spaces have always been required and they're not new. And so that just goes back to when you're doing your sidewalk design, does it really make sense to do the bare minimum and only have a four foot sidewalk or does it make sense to put in that extra foot, have a five foot sidewalk and then you don't have to worry about the passing space requirement. And so here's some examples of what that looks like but the purpose is, again, so that two wheelchairs can pass each other safely on that pedestrian access route without someone having to go off the sidewalk. And it doesn't have to be a full extra of five by five passing space, you can see there on the top figure that it's just an extra foot scabbed on. So one of the other differences between Proag and the 2010 standard is going to be the running slope of your pedestrian access route or your sidewalk. So if you have sidewalk that is serving the adjacent roadway, you are allowed to have the running slope of that sidewalk match the grade of the adjacent roadway. Now Proag doesn't have a definition of what that difference in slopes is, but one extreme example I could give you is if you're in San Francisco and you have very rolling terrain with your roadways, and then that sidewalk, you're never gonna be able to get it at a maximum of 5%. So that's really where this requirements stem from because they recognize in the public rights way, there are just instances that you can't get a max 5% running slope. Now if you had that same rolling terrain in a location where you were able to grade your roadway flat, but your sidewalk is still rolling with that terrain, that is an instance where you are held to the 5% maximum even if you're within the public rights away because you were able to get your roadway down to a lesser grade, and so therefore the sidewalk has to be equal to that. And like I mentioned, the maximum in the 2010 standards is gonna be that 5%. So for folks that say, hey, I don't know if Proag's a good idea, I'm not sure if I wanna follow it, this is one of those reasons because if you have any sidewalk over 5% in the public rights away, technically you're required to have handrails and create ramps, and that was never the intent within the public rights away. And so here's some examples, both of these sidewalks are within the public rights away, one of them happens to be on the back of curb, one of them's offset, but both are allowed to follow the grade of the adjacent roadway. Now for the cross slope of that, this hasn't changed, it's the same, it's always been 2% max and it still is, and so this also includes not only sidewalk cross loop but also driveway crossings and entrances that may be on a cross street, but we're gonna also talk about cross street cross slopes which are slightly different. And this is major perpendicular to the direction of pedestrian travel. Now with all these maximum requirements or thresholds that we're going over for compliance, also know that there are no such thing as construction tolerances. So if you want construction tolerances in your design, you need to build them in to your design to begin with. So cross slope maybe you wanna specify be at a 1.5% maximum so that during construction if something happens and it gets built at a 1.6 or 1.7, you're not over the compliance threshold versus having it at a 2% on your plans and then when it gets constructed it's a 2.1% and now we gotta tear out brand new concrete to make it compliant. So we really need to work those tolerances into the design itself. So cross slope on pedestrian crossing streets, this is another change between Proag and the 2010 standards. So again, 2010 standards said that the cross slope has to be 2% regardless of where you are in the world. That is what it is. Now Proag says that if you have free flow conditions for vehicles along a pedestrian path of travel, you are allowed to go up to a maximum of 5% cross slope and that's a combination of driver expectancy, driver comfort so that they're not bottoming out as they're going through free flow condition. So this could apply at maybe two way stop conditions where you always have one approach that never has to stop but free flow could also be at a signalized intersection where you never know which approach is gonna have the green phase so that you are needing to allow all of them to have that up to 5% maximum cross slope. Now this goes back to the beginning when we were talking about Austin where you may have a very steep roadway grade and now you're having to level out to this up to 5% and then continue back down. And then you may have other streets tying back in. Now it's not always gonna be feasible to make all of these slopes work but you do need to try your best to get them to work and maybe that means grading back a little bit further outside the intersection, however far back you need to go but that's gonna be a decision that if you make something not fully compliant you're gonna have to make it defensible. So if you got pulled into a lawsuit for some reason because it did not meet full compliance and you're sealing these plans you need to be comfortable defending your decisions. And so that's really the best guidance I can give is you're designing alterations to the maximum extent feasible but for new construction they need to be fully compliant and if in either case you can't meet full compliance you need to be comfortable defending that design decision. And then with mid block crossings those crossings, the cross slope can equal the grade of the roadway so it's not necessary to plateau out for that pedestrian crossing mid block. So all pedestrian access routes are required to be firm, stable and slip resistant and this is another one where there's not any good definition. There are research articles that get into the coefficient of friction but I don't think any of us really wanna get to that level of detail. So basically if you have concrete or asphalt you're going to be good but there is an article that was done if you are interested in what's considered a traversable surface or even a surface that maybe you wanna use as a landscaping barrier. This is a really good article that was done by the US Access Board that tells you what materials you could use as alternate if you don't wanna use concrete or asphalt. So vertical alignment you want this to be generally planar and smooth easy rollability so if you can think about brick pavers for example if you're installing those on sidewalks and you have someone who's using a mobility device a wheelchair, a walker it can be a very rough ride for them. If you do have those slight vertical discontinuities in between those brick pavers. So thinking about that in your designs and construction if you're gonna have brick pavers making sure you have a good base and making sure you have a good maintenance program to make sure that you never have vertical discontinuities between the brick pavers. And so that is when you get into the requirements for those vertical discontinuities and the maximum when you're in the field you're looking at a quarter inch elevation change. There is an allowance for a half of an inch but you have to have this perfect bevel on it and that's more for prefabricated materials and maybe like your detectable warning surface plates but otherwise if you're looking between sidewalk panels or even cracks that occur mid panel that vertical discontinuity can't be more than a quarter of an inch. And we saw some examples of utility covers or utilities that were in the pedestrian access route. You can have covers in the pedestrian access route. They're so required to be firm, stable and slip resistant but keep in mind if it's absolutely necessary they're over time probably gonna be a maintenance issue and you cannot have the sidewalk cracking and heaving around that and still have full compliance. So it's gonna be an ongoing maintenance concern. So wherever possible it's always good to get those utilities out of the proposed sidewalk or where you may have sidewalk in the future. And then also note that you can't have gaps greater than half an inch. This applies to grapes but then also if you have cracks in your sidewalk or maybe it's still flush it's not causing a vertical discontinuity but it's splitting open. Those cracks can't be more than a half an inch either. So here's an example where they had a utility cover in the crosswalk which is perfectly okay but then you can see the cover that's further back in the photo where you start having that excessive cracking around it because the underlying terrain is shifting and so that's just gonna have to be continually fixed if this is where those utilities were placed. Here's another example where it looks like the pull box was put in the curb ramp and there was plenty of other locations that that could have been placed instead of on the flare of that curb ramp. So it's fine where it is but if you start having that cracking over time you're gonna need to do something to fix that concrete. More examples of the vertical discontinuities that could be caused from tree roots coming up it could be caused from the ground sinking but all of these are causing compliance issues that are really maintenance concerns. So if you're looking from a design perspective it's thinking about what landscaping am I putting in adjacent to my sidewalk? Can I put in tree root barriers or maybe should I just avoid putting large trees and shrubbery within a certain distance of that sidewalk? So all things to keep in mind as you're choosing your landscaping. This is an example of where it was probably compliant or at least I have to hope it was compliant when it was installed but over time there's now a four inch gap between the base of the curb ramp and the pedestrian street crossing. So that just goes back to a maintenance issue. And if you do have something like this thinking about why this was caused in the first place instead of just going back out replacing the curb ramp is there something that we can do to fix the underlying condition so that this doesn't happen again in the future? This one always makes me cringe a little bit because this was brand new construction. They did an overlay project new curb ramps had to be installed and so the contractors said I'm gonna make sure all those curb ramps are there at the end of the project and they actually created curbs with the curb ramps. So this is really when if you're thinking you're gonna go out and just install curb ramps on certain corners and you haven't done design or even been out in the field this is a result that can happen and why it's so important to at least go look at the location where you think you're gonna be installing curb ramps and understand are there existing constraints like the curb's not there anymore because we keep overlaying without milling it down and is there any way that during this overlay project that maybe we can tie and wrap around to that minor street that's there and fix the entire pedestrian crossing. I don't know if you can see it but where there's kind of that depression in that crossing area that's actually a drainage inlet. So they couldn't just overlay it with asphalt. So there's a lot of things going on but that really just goes back to good project planning good communication and good scoping before just going out in the field and starting construction. More examples of non-flesh curb ramps meeting the street and then horizontal openings. I mentioned this earlier with cracks you have a maximum opening of a half an inch but this also applies to grapes that you may have in the sidewalk. But if you do have grapes in the sidewalk you wanna make sure that the slits in it are aligned perpendicular to the pedestrian path of travel or have it so that both directions are equally accessible because you can get those wheelchair wheels stuck in the grapes if they are installed in the improper orientation. So any questions about pedestrian access routes before I move on? Yes. Scott's running. Or a case of a new or existing roadway that exceeds 8% or 9% and you're following your sidewalk down that 9% how do you tie in your curb ramp at the end of that if you can't exceed 8.3? So we are gonna get to curb ramps but just to briefly answer your question for the public rights away curb ramps have a limit about to 15 feet in the curb ramp run and that intention is to allow you to chase grade for a little bit but terminate it and then from there you have to have a transition section to really tie it back in to what slopes you're not gonna make compliant and really just do the best that you can with that gradual transition and the full 15 feet of your curb ramp run. And then the second question if you're tying into a roadway that has a 7% running slope or longitudinal and you're coming where do you put the transition from 2% max on your ramp? How do you tie that into your roadway? Do you have to redo your whole roadway? So if it's an existing condition you do wanna make your transitions as gradual as possible and as long as possible. So what you're trying to avoid is any abrupt changes and so it's not a requirement but maybe you choose as a policy decision have a 15 or 20 foot back transition period where you're going from a non-compliant slope gradually into a compliant slope or however that needs to look but it just needs to be as gradual as possible do the best that you can and you may not meet full compliance but that just needs to go into your documentation on stating why you couldn't meet full compliance. So could that transition happen and say you're coming into an intersection and you have your ramp 2% cross slope max and you're trying to tie into a 7% roadway? Well, and also keep in mind that that pedestrian crossing for the tying in roadway is gonna have depending on what it is either a 2% max cross slope or 5% max cross slope where you're crossing the pedestrian so all of that's gonna have to be taken into consideration and there's not gonna be any black or white on how you do this it's just gonna have to be your engineering judgment at the end of the day to make it the best possible design balance that you can get and also keep in mind it sometimes is better to have several elements out of compliance but have them all be moderately out of compliance than to have all but one element compliant and then that final element is so out of compliance you're causing a dangerous situation. So really in those instances you're just gonna have to do the best that you can with your existing constraints. I don't, sorry, I don't have a perfect answer for you. I know you really wanted it but sometimes those transitions could also happen at the base of the curb ramp you can have combination curb ramps so thinking outside the box a little bit maybe it's a combination of having a perpendicular curb ramp transitioning into a parallel curb ramp which we'll talk about here in a minute but trying to maneuver your slopes in different areas that are nontraditional so that's one other thing you can consider is that your curb ramp selection. I have a question about a similar thing you was talking about. So yeah, we have a new curb ramp that's going across an existing street and then we're receiving it on the other end and that cross slope across the existing road is not compliant. So I just wanna make sure I understand what existing conditions is versus new construction. If we're building the ramps and the sidewalk on both sides of that existing street that street we're supposed to consider part of the new construction and we're supposed to rebuild it if possible. Is that what you're saying? We can't just say it's existing conditions. I believe new construction is considered more greenfield so if you're gonna be crossing pedestrians that street should have been thinking about pedestrian you know the design of that street you probably should have been thinking about pedestrians in the future if they weren't already out there. And so at this point it's an alteration and you have that existing roadway. Now is there something that you can do to somehow grade it back just a little bit more than only that pedestrian street crossing? Maybe, I don't know but that's something that you should probably consider and say yes we could do it or no we couldn't and here's why and just have that in your back pocket in case you get questioned. I have another question over here. Our city ordinance says that repairs and maintenance are the responsibility of the owners. So in case there is sidewalk gap more than one fourth inch or a couple of inches what are the legal complications if somebody falls? So this happens in several municipalities across the country this is not unique to Fort Worth or anywhere around here. If the ordinance does put the responsibility back on the property owner for maintenance at the end of the day the city is gonna have the deepest pocket so if there is a lawsuit they're gonna get pulled into it just as well as the property owner and unless the property owner actually signed a piece of paper that says I recognize I am responsible for maintenance of that sidewalk there's really nothing that the city can do from a legal standpoint especially if you have code enforcement that's not being enforced so that would be one way that you could go about making sure that you're if you are holding the property owner's responsible you're actually enforcing that ordinance instead of waiting until something happens but at the end of the day it's in the city's right away it's ultimately the city's responsibility to make sure that that maintenance is happening. We're gonna move on because we only have a few more minutes and I wanna make sure I touch on this but we'll take any additional questions on that afterwards. So for protruding objects this is also going to be basically on the sidewalk but keep in mind that continuous width that we talked about for pedestrian access route only needs to be four foot wide so if you have a 10 foot wide sidewalk for example you still have what's considered a pedestrian circulation path and that full 10 foot width but the pedestrian access route that we just talked about the requirements for is only applying to that four feet except for when you have protruding objects because a pedestrian could walk or roll anywhere within that 10 feet so you wanna make sure that they're not getting clothes lined by something or hit by the side with an obstruction. So you have what's considered your cane detectable range which is 27 inches above the finished surface and that's where if someone is using a cane they can actually feel for obstructions and avoid them but anything above that's 27 inches the cane's not going to feel so you have to be able to make sure that anything that's coming from the side has no more than a four inch protrusion but then also thinking about overhead you can't have anything hanging lower than 80 inches and so that can be permanent overhanging objects like an awning or a sign but then also temporary like tree branches and then also when you have post-mounted objects the important thing here is really looking at these pictures but if you have a post you can't go more than four inches off of either side of the post if you have this in the pedestrian circulation path or if it is gonna send more than the four inches you need to have a base so that the extension off the base isn't more than four inches and then similarly if you have two post signs you also have those same clearance requirements. If you have for some reason stairs and your public rights away and also even in a building where you have reduced vertical clearance that someone who is seeing impaired wouldn't be able to see that reduction happening you need to have guardrails or something that's warning them not to go underneath that stairs or whatever is creating the vertical reduction and so these are from the text dot standards they have what they call a protected zone but it's basically showing the same thing as the pro-ag images but really keeping in mind that tree rances are an ongoing maintenance issue or even bushes that are coming from the side and you need to keep that pedestrian circulation path clear. So curb ramps and blended transitions there's basically a perpendicular curb ramp parallel curb ramp and then combination so we're gonna go through real quickly the city of Fort Worth design standards but these can have various designs but they need to be meeting minimum requirements. There's also blended transitions where the entire corner is turned down and they have slightly different requirements for the slopes but you can have perpendicular curb ramps that basically means your turning space is at the top of the curb ramp whereas parallel curb ramps are where you have two ramps coming down and the turning space is at the bottom of the curb ramp. So city of Fort Worth has a lot of good design details that show various types of curb ramps of the different applications so definitely reference good design standards if you have them available but one thing to note and one difference between pro-ag and 2010 standards is the turning space the size requirements are slightly different and it used to be that you had to have 2% max slope in all directions whereas now it's just 2% running and 2% cross slope and you have some different size requirements based on if you're constrained by curbs or if you're constrained by anything on the back and also depending on what type of curb ramp that you have so as much space as you can give for those turning spaces the better if you make everything five by five you won't have to worry about if you're being constrained and if you're following the proper requirements so wherever possible just make those as large as you can here's some examples of perpendicular curb ramps I mentioned earlier you can have directional where they're actually parallel to the crossing or you can have them angled but they're still considered perpendicular curb ramps and then I mentioned earlier the maximum ramp run length on both perpendicular and parallel curb ramps is going to be 15 feet and you can go up to a maximum of 8.3% on that running slope but you do want to make sure again if you're doing your designs that you have something specified less than the maximum here's some examples of cut-through curb ramps that are non-compliant and you are required to have the curbs built up at 90 degrees in this example someone could roll their ankle if they're walking over this or if you had a wheelchair it could get up on that 45 degree slope and potentially tip over so you need to make sure that those curbs are perpendicular and that they're right at 90 degrees and then if you have flared sides you want to make sure that those are a maximum of 10% measured parallel to the curb line but one thing to note here is that you want to choose the appropriate side treatment for your conditions that are leading up to it so if you have a pedestrian access route that's leading up to the curb ramp from the side it's appropriate to put in flares those flares are not part of the pedestrian access route but they are part of the pedestrian circulation path gradually getting that pedestrian down to the base of the curb ramp now if you don't have sidewalk coming up along the edges of those curb ramps there's no reason to have flares so you just go ahead and put in those curb sides now if you had the example on the right and you had flares grass next to them they're technically not wrong but it's not probably the best use of your concrete if you're putting them in because you're just creating an extra element that has to meet compliance where you could have just put in the curbs to begin with here's some more examples of various median treatments so you could have two perpendicular curb ramps back to back or you could have the cut-through ramp but either way you need to make sure all of those elements of the curb ramps are compliant depending on what design you choose one thing to note here if you are choosing cut-through ramps then any application whether it be medians or channelized right turn lanes you wanna make sure that drainage isn't becoming an issue so you wanna make sure that you're gonna have positive drainage out of that area and you don't wanna have really long cut-through ramps because that's just giving you areas where you can have debris and water settling in places that are creating obstructions and if you do have the median cut-through we'll talk a little bit about detectable warning service but you do need to make sure that you have a minimum of two feet of area where you don't have detectable warning service to allow for maneuvering in that area if someone is using a wheelchair here's some examples of where we have pedestrian access routes leading up to a curb ramp and the improper side treatment was chosen in these cases you would wanna have the flares on the side so that you're basically creating that vertical discontinuity that we mentioned earlier but now you have almost a six inch vertical discontinuity instead of a quarter inch allowable and here's an example of a compliant where you're protected by landscaping or some other non-diversable surface and here's an example of a parallel curb ramp but it's also a combination with the perpendicular so you're ramping down from both sides those can both be up to 15 feet at up to 8.3% you have your common landing area for your parallel curb ramp but it's also serving as the top turning space for that perpendicular curb ramp that's then getting you down to the street and that could also be up to 15 feet so that's one of those examples where if you're choosing a combination curb ramp you can really try to meet some of your grade constraints using a design like this and so it just goes back to thinking outside the box and making sure you're not limiting yourself to only a six foot ramp run and parallel curb ramps have similar turning space requirements so the parallel you need to be aware if you have constrained sides because then your size requirements increase here's examples of what two different types of parallel curb ramps can look like but basically you're ramping down from both sides with a level landing area in the middle and these have the same requirements perpendicular curb ramps maximum 8.3% running slope max ramp run length of the 15 feet and then blended transitions if you are gonna choose to use these they're not preferred because they're very similar in providing directionality as a diagonal curb ramp would be but they're acceptable should you choose to install them you just need to make sure the running slope is no more than 5% maximum versus the 8.3 and then common requirements between the two curb ramps it's gonna be a minimum of four feet in width that's another change from the 2010 standards where three foot was the minimum but if you are installing a shared use path just note that the curb ramps have to be as wide as the shared use path you can't have a four foot wide curb ramp on a shared use path if it's greater than four feet wide and then if you have grade breaks you wanna make sure that those are perpendicular to the pedestrian path of travel basically you want wheelchair wheels to touch the base of what's ever beyond the grade break at the same time otherwise you're creating a potential tipping hazard and that's examples of what that looks like with the grade break perpendicular and then you wanna make sure that all your cross slopes of your curb ramps same requirements as we saw with sidewalks it's gonna be a maximum of 2% and just making sure that you're measuring it appropriately depending on if you have a parallel or perpendicular curb ramp now counter slope is that area that's gonna be once you get at the base of the curb ramp back up into the street that's gonna have a maximum of 10 or a 5% if you can't make that happen pro or US access board has also provided guidance on how you can work around it but that should not be your go to that's kind of your in an alteration situation you're designing to the maximum extent feasible which is that red text and here's an example of why that's important basically a wheelchair wheel could bottom out if you don't have the appropriate slopes very similar to a vehicle bottoming out coming out of a driveway that's too steep tying into a flat roadway if you do have a diagonal curb ramp you're also required to have a clear space so that someone can turn once they're in the street that outside the vehicle path of travel there's no slope requirements for this area but you they need to have the maneuvering space at the base of the curb ramp here's some more examples of what that can look like there's various orientations related to the striped crosswalk detectable warning services basically pro ag they took these out of the 2010 standards because they wanted to do more research as it relates to curb ramps but in pro ag they're required on all curb ramps at street crossings and then if you have a curb ramp at a driveway if it's a residential driveway you don't want to have the curb ramps and start or sorry the detectable warning services installed on the curb ramps but if it's a commercial driveway it's optional if you have a big box development like a Walmart it's probably a good idea to have the detectable warning service on those curb ramps because you're going to have a lot of in and out vehicle traffic you need to have your light on dark or dark on light contrasts if you're ever in doubt about what color to use yellow is the last color that you lose in your vision as you age so it's always a good choice for those detectable warning services in this case gray was chosen and as that sidewalk became discolored you no longer have that visual contrast so thinking about not using colors like black or gray is probably a good decision when you're choosing your color but for placement you want to have them the full width of the curb ramp and you want to make sure that they're at least two feet in the direction of pedestrian travel when they were in previous design standard requirements it did have the detectable warning service on the full length of the curb ramp run but that was part of the reason they took it out of the standards to do additional research is because it became difficult for folks that were using mobility devices particularly wheelchairs to maneuver on that curb ramp run so that's why it's been reduced to just the two feet minimum and also brick pavers are not a great material to be using because they can become maintenance issues so those prefabricated plates are probably your best bet here's pictures of what the placement is one thing I did want to point out on the parallel curb ramp detectable warning services are intended to be a curb replacement so you only want to install them or the curb has been fully removed I've seen these a lot where the design the detectable warning services will actually be on the base of those ramp downs but then nothing's warning of pedestrian they're entering the street in the actual proper direction so placement's important with all of these curb ramps but particularly that's the one that we see the most issues with and we are almost at time so I'm trying to fly through this when you have detectable warning services you also want to make them perpendicular to the pedestrian path of travel but when that becomes more than five feet back as you can see in that diagram on the left you want to have them placed diagonally so that they are as close to the roadway as possible you don't want them to become ineffective because they're too far back here's some examples where they should have been the entire curb removal area but there are gaps in there and going back to that making sure you have two feet of area where there aren't detectable warning services in those refuge islands if you install them so we're almost done just want to give a I tried to point out the differences between the 2010 standards and Proag throughout the presentation but also tried to summarize them now keep in mind this is just the major differences so there's other little subtle differences in the language the requirements are generally the same though we didn't talk about pedestrian signal design because that's a whole another hour long training but pedestrian signal equipment is incorporated those requirements are incorporated by reference in Proag which basically points you to the MUTCD now there are a few requirements in Proag as it relates to operable parts making sure that you have the appropriate amount of force required to activate those push buttons and the clear space requirements but everything else is going to be in the MUTCD we talked about the sidewalk width going from 36 to 48 inches and then that pedestrian access route the grade of it being able to follow the grade of the adjacent roadway versus that 5% max detectable warning surfaces they weren't previously addressed in 2010 standards for curb ramps but now they are in Proag and should you choose to install them on an onsite design where it's a private development it's not in the public rights way you don't have to but if you are going to install them we recommend going to Proag so that you have proper placement and design of those detectable warning surfaces curb ramp length was not addressed previously in 2010 standards but now they have the 15 foot length max so that you can chase grade for a limited amount of time or a limited amount of distance and then that pedestrian street crossing slope the 2% max versus now you can have 5% on free flow conditions and you can equal the grade of the roadway on the bid block on street parking we didn't cover that but if you do have on street parking there are requirements in Proag that you need to go reference and then we touched on the turning space for the curb ramps slightly different size requirements and a little bit different on the 2% max slope versus all directions versus in the running or cross slope direction clear spaces for push buttons this is similar to the sidewalks you can also match the grade of the adjacent pedestrian access route for the running slope instead of having it be a 2% max and then shared use pass if there's a whole supplement to Proag if you are doing shared use pass recommend that you go look at that document as well so I know that was a whirlwind of information but we do have references at the end if you wanna actually go look at these standards and like I mentioned I will be available for a short time after this training if you have any questions that I did not answer and if there's any right now that y'all wanna bring up we can take maybe one or two questions before everyone heads out All right, well thank you guys for your time