We also issued individual reports for the following municipalities: City of Auburn, Town of Babylon, City of Batavia, Town of Big Flats, Town of Brookhaven, Town of Chili, Town of Clifton Park, City of Cohoes, Town of Colonie, Town of Columbia, Village of Floral Park, Town of Grand Island, City of Long Beach, City of New Rochelle, City of Norwich, Town of Penfield, City of Rome, Town of Tonawanda, Town of Trenton, Town of Woodbury
Executive Summary
More than one in four adults in the United States have some type of disability and more than one in 10 have a mobility disability with serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs.1 According to the ADA Update: A Primer for State and Local Governments, “by the year 2030, approximately 71.5 million baby boomers will be over age 65 and will need services and surroundings that meet their age-related physical needs.”2 In New York State, almost 27 percent of adults, or about 4 million New Yorkers, have some form of disability.3
Physical barriers to accessibility may exclude individuals with disabilities from participating in basic civic activities like voting, attending governing board and committee meetings, borrowing a library book or having a meal at the senior center. It is important that individuals with disabilities can participate in their local government’s programs and services and have physical access to the facilities where those programs and services are offered.
Using the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Checklist for Existing Facilities4 as a guide, we assessed the physical accessibility to programs and services at selected buildings, including access to department offices, public meeting spaces and restrooms located within these buildings as well as their respective parking lots (together “facilities”) for 20 municipalities, including seven Cities, 12 Towns and one Village (together “the Municipalities”), based on four categories of accessibility:
Approach and Entrance – Such as access to parking, routes to the buildings and accessible exterior entrances.
Access to Services – Such as interior routes, interior doors, signs, seating and service counters.
Restrooms – Such as maneuvering space, access to lavatories and the configuration of stalls.
Additional Access – Such as access to water fountains and public phones.
The checklist was used as a tool to identify potential improvements to physical accessibility. The use of the checklist, however, is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) opining on the legality of any of the Municipalities’ facilities under, or the Municipalities’ compliance with, the ADA. See Appendix A for more information on the ADA Checklist for Existing Facilities.
The selected facilities at the Municipalities were generally physically accessible; however, we identified 1,491 of the 11,916 applicable accessibility components (13 percent), primarily in restrooms, where local officials could consider taking additional steps to increase physical accessibility to programs and services.
Local officials should consider the feasibility of taking additional steps to increase the physical accessibility to programs and services at their existing facilities. Providing accessible facilities demonstrates a commitment to equality of access, ensuring that a broader range of residents have the same opportunities to participate fully in public life, including those with disabilities, the elderly and individuals with temporary injuries.