How to Build an Accessible Curb Cut

Because this site gets a number of hits on accessibility specifications of actual curb cuts, I thought I would post a couple of resources for misguided visitors. Specifically I’ll outline the little that I’ve been able to find out about curb cuts and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Definition

First off a definition from the Wikipedia entry on curb cuts:

A curb cut (US) or dropped kerb (UK) is a ramp leading smoothly down from a sidewalk to a street, rather than abruptly ending with a curb and dropping roughly 10-15 cm (4~6 inches).

Where

Page 4 of the official Checklist for Existing Facilities (PDF) from the US Department of Justice Americans with Disabilities Act Home Page asks the question, “Do curbs on the route have curb cuts at drives, parking and drop offs?” From this I’m going to posit that these are the three places where curb cuts are required.

Slope

The next paragraph in a discussion on ramps discusses the slope ration and states that “the slopes of ramps (be) no greater than 1:12,” it then goes on:

Slope is given as a ratio of the height to the length. 1:12 means for every 12 inches along the base of the ramp, the height increases one inch. For a 1:12 maximum slope, at at least one foot of ramp length is needed for each inch of height.

More Information

For those who are looking for more information, the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration has a document entitled Designing Sidewalks and Trails for Access, including an entire chapter on “curb ramps” including information on how curb ramps impact different populations, different types, best practices and great diagrams.

If you’re looking for a basic checklist on facility accessibility, check out this Facilities Checklist from the National Center on Workforce and Disability.

Accessible Content Management Systems

I like the idea of using a content management system for on some projects. However, if accessibility is a priority then options are quickly go from many to far fewer. Fortunately, many of the larger open source content management systems have taken on a goal of achieving some level of accessibility, if only as a byproduct of being standards compliant.

The question of whether a content management is accessible is a complicated one, regardless of what measure of accessibility someone chooses to use. Every content management system has different areas which may or not be accessible. Here are some of those factors:

• CMS generated content When a user submits content to be included for display in a CMS, inaccessible tags/structure is sometimes used to present that content to the end user.
• Template System The template system controls how the content is presented. How much does the system allow the site administrator to define his/her own structure and tags? While all systems facilitate template customization to some degree, many will still require inaccessible tags or structure to be used.
• Administrative Features While the above points primarily reference what a site visitor would see, the tool used to input content also needs to be accessible, whether is is the backend of a website or a standalone application.
• Third-party Plugins The content management systems that I have worked with have all allowed people to develop modules or plugins to provide additional functionality to the system. What kind of guidelines are developers required to adhere to when submitting new modules?
• Anything Else?

That’s a short list that’s too general to really be useful for anything, but may be a helpful framework when looking at different content management systems. With all of the standards based design evangelism out there right now most of the major systems are at least discussing development in a direction that will lead to greater accessibility with some projects already claiming some form of standards compliance. That said, I know at least a couple of people who weren’t found existing systems lacking in the area of accessibility and opted to develop their own homegrown system to meet their needs.

I’m hoping to explore this issue in greater detail- do any of you have any experience with an accessible CMS? Here is a (very incomplete) list of links I’ve recently found on the topic…

• Content Management Systems Can Improve Accessibility (warning: one of his first recommendations is to “generate multiple sites”)
• Content Management Systems: Creating accessible content from a Content Management System (CMS) (good overview that mentions some specific things to look for)
• Mambo (now Joomla!) misc: Section 508 Compliance, Accesssible Mambo fork, Project Orange Mambo accessibility initiative
• Plone, “Plone is known as the content management system that was engineered for accessibility from the very beginning, and it has continued to be the world leader in accessibility compliance.”
• “Client output from phpWebSite is valid XHTML 1.0 and meets the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative requirements.”
• Accessible Xoops
• Any other links?

Sorry- comments were turned off earlier, they are on now- thanks.