36 CFR Part 1190, Proposed Accessibility Guidelines for Pedestrian Facilities in the Public Right-of-Way: Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM)

Introduction

The Access Board is an independent federal agency established by section 502 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. 792).¹ The Access Board is responsible for developing accessibility guidelines for the design, construction, and alteration of facilities to ensure that they are readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities. The Access Board’s guidelines play an important part in the implementation of three laws that require newly constructed and altered facilities to be accessible to individuals with disabilities: the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Architectural Barriers Act. As further discussed under the Statutory and Regulatory Background, these laws require other federal agencies to issue regulations which include accessibility standards for the design, construction, and alteration of facilities. The regulations issued by the other federal agencies to implement these laws adopt, with or without additions and modifications, the Access Board’s guidelines as accessibility standards. When the Access Board’s guidelines are adopted, with or without additions and modifications, as accessibility standards in regulations issued by other federal agencies implementing these laws, compliance with the accessibility standards is mandatory.

^1. The Access Board consists of 13 members appointed by the President from the public, a majority of which are individuals with disabilities, and the heads of 12 federal agencies or their designees whose positions are Executive Level IV or above. The federal agencies are: The Departments of Commerce, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs; General Services Administration; and United States Postal Service.