49 CFR Part 37 - Transportation for Individuals With Disabilities; Reasonable Modification of Policies and Practices

B. The Department's ADA regulations contain numerous requirements concerning fixed route, complementary paratransit, and other types of transportation service. Transportation entities necessarily formulate policies and practices to meet these requirements (e.g., providing fixed route bus service that people with disabilities can use to move among stops on the system, providing complementary paratransit service that gets eligible riders from their point of origin to their point of destination). There may be certain situations, however, in which the otherwise reasonable policies and practices of entities do not suffice to achieve the regulation's objectives. Implementing a fixed route bus policy in the normal way may not allow a passenger with a disability to access and use the system at a particular location. Implementing a paratransit policy in the usual way may not allow a rider to get from his or her origin to his or her destination. In these situations, subject to the limitations discussed below, the transportation provider must make reasonable modifications of its service in order to comply with the underlying requirements of the rule. These underlying provisions tell entities the end they must achieve; the reasonable modification provision tells entities how to achieve that end in situations in which normal policies and practices do not succeed in doing so.