ForConstructionPros.com

The difference between working with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations today and working with ADA regulations when the Act was signed into law in 1990 is primarily one of recognition. Contractors initially had to explain the ADA guidelines to their customers, who then had to "buy in" to the regulations before any alterations were made.

Today most property managers and owners know the guidelines exist, even if they don't know what they include. So it's become the job - and an opportunity - for contractors to educate their customers about what they need to do to bring their property into compliance.

Not necessarily as easy as it sounds, partly because of the bureaucratic mess the government has made in developing, implementing, publishing, and enforcing the guidelines.

Here's how it works: According to an ADA Access Board spokesman, the Access Board develops ADA guidelines, which are just that: a set of recommended specs or practices the Board thinks should be followed. Once developed, those guidelines are used as the basis for "standards," which are applied by the Department of Justice (DOJ) or the Department of Transportation (DOT). It is these "standards" that must be applied and followed when restriping or doing most parking lot related construction work.

But just to complicate things a little more, the guidelines and standards are not necessarily the same. When initially put into effect the DOJ and DOT simply adopted the ADA guidelines as a whole, making the guidelines the standards. But since then the DOJ has used the guidelines more as guides and has modified them, with input, to suit what it sees as the most important concerns.