May 20, 2002—The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) has placed in the docket for public review a draft of the final guidelines revising the Americans with Disabilities Act and Architectural Barriers Act Accessibility Guidelines. The Board has placed this document in the docket to inform the building codes community of the Boards actions to promote the harmonization of the guidelines with the International Code Council/American National Standards Institute A117.1 Standard on Accessible and Usable Buildings and Facilities and the International Building Code.
Both the IBC and the A117 Standard are at a point in their revision cycles where it is possible to introduce proposals to make them consistent with the new ADAAG. If the Board had waited until publication of the Final Rule (now anticipated by September 2002), the opportunity to modify the IBC and A117.1 would have been lost for several years. The A117 Committee, which held meetings in December 2001 and February 2002 to begin the revision process for the next edition of the standard, has appointed a task group to review and compare the draft ADAAG with the 1998 A117.1 Standard. The “harmonization” recommendations of this task group will be acted on by the A117 Committee at meetings scheduled for the last week of May.
—Based on a report from BOMAs “Up to Code.”
