selected businesses and government facilities to evaluate specific features
of the establishments using the minimum accessibility standards in the ADA
Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG). We visited eight different kinds of
businesses as well as state and local government facilities in 11 different
cities. Because we purposely chose to visit those places likely to have
more barriers for persons with disabilities (older cities in states with less
protective laws), we believe our findings are not overoptimistic. Second,
we interviewed the owners or managers of the places we visited to find
out what they knew about the ADA and what actions, if any, they had taken.
(We did not directly measure the extent or accuracy of what they knew
about the ADA, but rather asked them to rate their own level of
knowledge.)

Finally, also during early 1992, we surveyed people with mobility and sensory-related disabilities about how often and where, in the 6 months before January 1992, they found specific barriers in trying to access public services and public accommodations.

Principal Findings

Most Facilities Were
Generally Accessible

We found that most businesses and government facilities we observed had
established access consistent with the accessibility standards on most
features. Our survey yielded similar findings from the viewpoint of persons
with disabilities. Our results are consistent with a nationwide set of
observations made by the United Cerebral Palsy Associations in
January 1992. They rated nearly all businesses they visited as "basically
barrier free," the second of four possible categories of accessibility." The
full results of our observations and surveys are presented in appendixes II
and III.

We judged 231 establishments on as many as 416 different features. We also surveyed persons with disabilities about their experiences with 97 different potential barriers. Specifically, we found the following:

The ADA required that guidelines be issued by the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (ATBCB), a federal agency. The Department of Justice subsequently issued the ADAAG as an appendix to its regulations. These guidelines were developed and issued primarily to define new construction and alteration requirements and do not specifically address existing facilities. "We included in our review only those businesses immediately subject to civil penalties; that is, those with 25 or more employees or more than $1 million in gross receipts.

"United Cerebral Palsy Associations, National Survey Results Look at America's Readiness for ADA Access (Washington, D.C.: February 1992).

Looking at the performance of each establishment we visited, we found, on average, 67 percent of the observed features were consistent with the ADA Accessibility Guidelines. In the most accessible establishment, 92 percent of the applicable features were consistent with the ADAAG, compared to 40 percent of the features in the least accessible establishment.

Considering a wide range of potential barriers listed in our survey, we found people with disabilities reported that 72 percent of the features we asked about did not often create barriers.6

Considering the type of business or government facility, we found no differences in our observational assessments. Our survey respondents, however, reported finding the most barriers in 7 of 19 possible places: restaurants or bars; hotels, motels, and inns; theaters, concert halls, and stadiums; office buildings; service establishments such as laundromats, dry cleaners, barber or beauty shops, and travel agencies; auditoriums, convention centers, and lecture halls; and sales or rental establishments such as bakeries, grocery stores, clothing stores, and shopping centers.7

To determine the most common barriers remaining, we noted any features that met two criteria: we frequently observed the problem in our visits, and our survey respondents reported often encountering the barrier. Thirteen specific barriers met this test. However, frequent barriers may or may not be important ones. We therefore reviewed our findings using priorities for barrier removal in businesses set by the Department of Justice. Where scarce resources set limits on barrier removal, Justice recommended that top priority be given to improving the access to a facility, followed by access to the goods and services within; that is, doing what one comes to do in that facility. Access to rest room facilities ranked third, followed by all remaining access matters. Of the 13 common barriers we found, 8, or two-thirds, were in the top two Justice priority areas-getting into the facility and doing what one came for-as shown in table 1.8 Thus we

"The rate at which respondents reported encountering barriers may underrepresent the actual
presence of barriers. It is likely that individuals with disabilities most often frequent establishments
they know to be most accessible and actively try to avoid those they know will present barriers.
"By contrast, respondents reported fewer problems in banks; doctors' and medical offices; lawyers'
and accountants' offices; terminal depots; museums, libraries, and galleries; parks and zoos; schools;
day care centers, and other social service centers; gymnasiums, health spas, and other places of
recreation; state or local government buildings; federal government buildings; and bus, rail, and other
public transportation systems.

"We included barriers in hotel room bathrooms in the second Justice priority category as those are
barriers to the basic use of the hotel guest room. Barriers we found in rest rooms elsewhere, such as in
shopping malls or even the common lobby areas of hotels, were placed in the third Justice priority
category, related to rest room access.

Table 1: Important Remaining Barriers

by Priority Category

concluded that despite the relatively high level of accessibility of many of the establishments, important barriers remain.

"Our survey asked persons with disabilities how often they found specific features to be a problem. A response of “seldom if ever” was given a score of 1, “sometimes," 2, "often," 3, "very often," 4, and "always or almost always," 5. Thus a higher score indicates more frequent encountering of the barrier.

The main barrier impeding entry into a facility (Justice's top priority category for barrier removal) was doors that were too heavy to open easily, making it difficult for a person with limited upper body strength to enter the facility.

Frequent barriers to reaching goods and services (the second Justice
barrier-removal priority) included the following:

Hotels lacked enough assistive devices for the deaf, which restricts the extent to which persons with hearing impairments can fully use the services and features of hotel accommodations, such as knowing that someone is knocking at their door or calling them on the phone, that a smoke or fire alarm is ringing, or that their alarm clock is ringing.

Hotel room showers or bathtubs, toilets, and sinks were not accessible for wheelchairs, obstructing the ability of persons who use wheelchairs to use the rest room provided as part of normal hotel accommodations.

⚫ Tables had legs or pedestals that got in the way of full entry under the table, which prevents persons who use wheelchairs from writing or eating at that table.

• Service counters were too high, which limits the extent to which persons who use wheelchairs can access services being offered.

A lack of raised print or Braille floor numbering on the wall next to elevator doors makes it difficult for persons who are visually impaired to know when they have reached their desired floor.

Barriers related to rest room facilities, the third priority, included bathrooms or stalls that were too small, limiting the degree of privacy for some persons who use wheelchairs and preventing others from using the facilities altogether.

Other barriers included the following:

Public telephones lacked text telephones (telecommunication devices for the deaf, TDDS, TTYS).9

Public telephones lacked amplification systems for the hearing impaired.

• Public telephones were not wheelchair-accessible.

Drinking fountains could not be reached from a wheelchair.

Many Not Familiar With the ADA

Other frequent barriers for which we had only one source of data (either through observation or survey) are shown in the complete results in appendixes II and III.

We found notable lack of awareness of ADA by owners and managers.
Specifically, we found the following:

Text telephones and amplification systems are auxiliary aids. They are required only if the facility customarily offers telephone service to its customers on more than an incidental convenience basis and providing them does not create an undue burden (significant difficulty or expense).

Eighteen months after the passage of the law and during the month preceding its effective date, 31 percent of the owners and managers interviewed reported that they were not familiar with the ADA. Forty-seven percent of the owners and managers reported that they did not know they were expected to remove barriers before the effective date of January 26, 1992.

These figures may slightly overstate the degree of unfamiliarity with the law. That is, there may have been officials very familiar with the ADA in the business or government agency headquarters while the local level managers we spoke with were less knowledgeable.

However, these findings are consistent with the 1992 Gallup poll that found that respondents in 17 percent of businesses surveyed were not at all familiar with the ADA, 25 percent were familiar in name only, 44 percent were somewhat familiar, and 14 percent were very familiar with the ADA.1 Another survey conducted in early 1992 asked business representatives to rank their knowledge of ADA on a scale from 1 to 5." Only 5 percent placed themselves in the top category. While 37 percent were in the second category, 43 percent rated themselves in the middle category.

A significantly smaller percentage of the owners and managers we interviewed in New England (54 percent) were familiar with ADA, compared to those in either the Southeast (73 percent) or Rocky Mountain area (76 percent). Further, we found significant differences in familiarity with the ADA across the owners and managers of different types of businesses and government facilities. Table 2 shows that owners and managers of shopping malls most often claimed to be familiar with the ADA while those at clothing stores made this claim the least.

10 The Gallup Organization, Inc., Baseline Study to Determine Business' Attitudes, Awareness and Reaction to the Americans With Disabilities Act (Princeton, N.J.: February 1992).

"Buck Consultants, Inc., ADA-The Americans With Disabilities Act (Secaucus, N.J.: April 1992).