Town of Worthington

Chris Palames, Accessibility Specialist, and Austin Design have teamed up together to assist the Town of Worthington with its ADA Self-Evaluation and Transition Plan. 

On Friday, June 10th, we met with Evan Johnson and Peggy O'Neal at the Worthington Town Hall to discuss the approach and processes involved with bringing a town's public spaces up to code in all matters of accessibility.

Chris Palames explained that in the town's current state there would be structural barriers and non-structural barriers to those with disabilities, along with structural and non-structural solutions. For example, a structural solution is to build a ramp that leads into a public space where only stairs existed previously. A non-structural solution, on the other hand, is to move an activity to an accessible location in town if the first location chosen was not an accessible one.

Throughout the morning we moved around the Town of Worthington's public spaces documenting, noting, and measuring entrance ways, walkways, thresholds, types of door handles, wall protrusions (especially dangerous to the blind, in particular if the protrusion protrudes away from the wall more than 4" and is above the height where a cane can detect it), slopes of ramps, handrails, bathrooms, designated handicap parking spaces, turnaround room for wheelchair accessibility, sink/mirror/counter heights, quality of the materials of flooring, walkways, ramps, and more.