around. i mentioned earlier about the grade changes. the slopes of san francisco streets are a real issue throughout our disabled access world. this slide is meant to illustrate that typically somewhere along the front of a building, there is a point where the floor of the interior of the building meets the grade outside. at some point that's likely to happen. and in this case, it meets it right where the door is and they did a good job of locating the grade where it meets the floor. it's a little bit messy but they are doing a reasonable job of trying to comply. level landings: the building code says it should be level so you can come to a stop when you

get in the door. that can often be a problem in san francisco where the sidewalk is existing and it's hard to have fully level landings. this is moderately compliant with those requirements, looks pretty good, and this is actually a fairly good installation. look at the door hardware, that's that loop hardware. great hardware for a door. hardware is cheap. look, here is a non-complying lever hardware i will talk about. hardware is relatively inexpensive. we just bought this lever hardware, it's a whole lot better than a round doorknob for a lot of people. doesn't matter if you are blind or me. my mother, who is 84, cannot grab a doorknob. the code says you should not be

providing hardware that needs to be tightly grasped, turned or pinched. so this is good. lever hardware is good because you can hit it and move it and pull it or push it. this kind we see here, this loop hardware, is extremely good for that. the reason this is not compliant, anybody know? it's in the state fire code. it's not in the building code. it says the levers have to return to close to the face of the door so that you don't, as you are walking out, you don't get caught on the doorknobs by the lever sticking out. this was $29.95.ñr is this considered readily achievable in a building? i would say yes, of course. 30 bucks, change your doorknob to a lever hardware, one that's actually complying with the fire code, that's readily achievable. and if you don't do it, it's a problem. the ada says you should be

making these readily achievable barriers disappear. here is something we see all over san francisco. power door operators. so this business has a slight gentle slope up to the door and they could not put a level landing in in front of that door. and on the inside of the door, if you can see this, there is a ramp on the inside. can you see that on this slide? the ramp begins right at the door and goes up. the way that they have achieved compliance in san francisco is to use an administrative bulletin that we allow people to use power door operators. you push that little square button, the door opens and there is no longer a door in the path of travel and you can go right up the ramp. how does that generally work out, paul? . >> they work great. what happens with slopes and doors is that gravity takes over and the chair slopes backwards or slides backwards from the door. so you are trying to hold the chair and open a door while the

chair slides backwards. in berkley, we actually have high and low. we put one down around a foot plate which where somebody using a wheelchair who doesn't have any kind of arm function or can't reach that high, they can hit it with a foot plate. we are finding that more people prefer to kick them than use foot plates on them. people that play soccer, especially during world cup they were very popular things to kick. delivery people use them a lot of time to kick. it's a lot easier than using the buttons in the elevator. same idea as this, just a larger button you can hit to open the door. >> they are very well received in san francisco. people actually -- we consider this to be equivalent to full access. this is not like an alternate, you need special approval, this actually provides us with what we think is almost the same as full access. >> they are also really useful

if you have a really heavy door. sometimes in these really beautiful buildings you have steel and glass and the pressure required to operate the door is more than 20 pounds. a power door operator can help you get that door open when you have a really heavy door. >> how much does one of these cost to install? . >> about three and a half thousand dollars. >> there are some cheaper ones for home installation that are around a thousand or so. would we consider this to meet the ada readily achievable guidelines? maybe, depending on how much money you make in your business. >> before you get off the sidewalks an area of confusion for a lot of small businesses is who is responsible for fixing the sidewalks or putting in curb cuts. where is the area of responsibility? who pays for it?

. >> the sidewalk is a publicly owned way, but it has to be maintained by the property owner who fronts that sidewalk. if your sidewalk is cracked or broken by tree roots or whatever, then the property owner is responsible to fix that sidewalk with the appropriate permit from dpu >> curb cuts are a different matter. the corner curb cuts in the city are a public works function. there are some cases where someone is doing a really large project and public works says that's part of your job; you are going to have to provide the public improvements on the sidewalk to serve this very large building you are doing, but typically that's a public works department function. >> like the level landings of the sidewalk and so on, that's a maintenance issue. >> to maintain it so it's not ponding, yes, it is. that's the role of the sidewalk inspector is to make sure the

proper slope has been placed on that landing. >> to create a level landing at the door, is that a maintenance issue also. >> creating a level landing at the door is sometimes part of your actual alteration or construction project because if you have a non-level landing when you start your construction project, the building department through the permit process may be asking you to upgrade that landing so it is level. when you are in a situation like that, you have to coordinate with the department of public works about just how you are going to be achieving that level landing. they do have standards in place about perhaps warping the sidewalk, raising it up on one side and dropping it down on the other so you can achieve that change in elevation safely. it starts with the department through plan review process then it goes to the public works department to make sure you are going to meet their standard and not present some

kind of tripping hazard. >> here is another blocked by the trash can. this must be accessible. they have very nicely put up a little rail along the path of entry travel from the sidewalk. may not be required, but it's nice that they did it. that's a great example of making a readily achievable barrier removal. couldn't have cost more than a couple hundred bucks to put that railing --. >> that's a good example. the architect and the builder might have understood the concept but the operator doesn't. that's why the trash can is there. somebody is just not thinking. >> in some cases this change of level from outdoor to indoor can be achieved inside the building. here is an example inside the gnc nutrition store. people don't usually like to do this because you have to give

up interior floor space which you are leasing, but in this case it works very well. they have their level landings and it looks like they more or less provide what they need in there. that's great. but they have had to give up all that floor space to do it. in some cases like this case in an older bank building, which is a government office, you simply cannot reasonably put an accessible entry at the main entry. this is, in fact, a historic building and there are limits to what kind of changes you can make and there are also alternatives reasonably allowed under the state historic building code. in this case, where there are lots of people with disabilities who use this office, they have a sign in this, you can see access is on the side of the building, it's about 100 feet down the street. and here it is, here is the accessible entrance on the side of the building and it's theoretically part of the main path of travel, it's not locked, you don't have to ring a bell, you just have an

alternate means of accessible entry to the area. it doesn't take you through the back alleys of the building, theoretically. >> the previous slide was a really good slide to show, even though you don't have wheelchair access at this entrance because there's steps at that location, that you still provide the and rail for somebody who is semi ambulatory coming down the steps to grab on to. even though there is an accessible entrance a little bit further down the road, there's still things that have been implemented there on the stairs. >> but one thing that hasn't been done is striping so people with low vision can see. every tread should have striping. it would seem that the readily achievable standards for the cost of -- how much is this -- $1.29 a foot would provide a

contrasting color stripe, two inches wide located no more than an inch from the front of the tread, i think it says. readily achievable. hand rails, everything else you can reasonably do. just because you can't make it wheelchair accessible doesn't mean you give up. >> that's right. >> here is another example of reasonable signage. the more signage, the better, in terms of trying for small businesses to comply. the more signage, the better. they don't cost much, it's reasonable to put them up, it shows that you are taking an active interest in solving this problem. >> it also gets people in the historic -- if i can't figure out where the front door is, i'm not going to go there. simple. >> moving on to finding your way to -- what was this, a burger king? kfc valencia at hill. this was nothing but trouble. it was so much trouble. because they did a remodel and

there were complaints and it was not an accessible entrance. and the owner came to the city and said, i with like to make my building accessible. i with like to put a ramp which you now see here, but it has to occupy the public right of way because it's outside the building on the public sidewalk. the department of public works did not like the idea of encroaching for the private benefit on to the public right of way, but they finally put it in. public works finally gave them the okay. here is looking down. it's an excellent solution. unfortunately, it does encroach into the public right of way and one of the elements of san francisco's general plan which the planning department prepares is that we should be maintaining our sidewalks for public use. there are other ramps around the city. this is a fully complying ramp that serves a lot of people with disabilities so it has to

be completely complying including nonslip-resistant surface, readily achievable to put in slip-resistant surface. hand rails have to terminate at the wall or otherwise extend, not just a stubby little end. this is the other end of the ramp. here we have somebody using a cane coming down the stairs. you see the tape is coming off of this stair? i wanted to mention the behavioral uses that i keep talking about involve maintenance as well. somebody, you can't just put it in and leave it, you have to walk around and say is everything working? and replace the tape and that's a reasonable expectation. >> well, tape is a good retrofit solution, but a better design solution at the beginning would actually be to cast in place stone that has a darker color so that you have a permanently installed contrasting striping at the

nose. >> here we have stairs in a new building. all new buildings are supposed to have all of their entrances accessible. in this case they say, go around the corner. in many cases in san francisco there are occupancies, commercial businesses on lower floors, basements, second floors, they are simply not accessible. what reasonably can we do? . >> there are probably cases where there simply is nothing you can do. >> there are things we could do. >> put in an elevator. >> and rail that comes up, flattens out at the street line and turns around into the wall so you have something to hold on to, one on each side as is required for commercial stairs. we could make sure that it has the tread parking that we've been talking about. they have a little tiny tread mark that looks like it's an inch wide. more contrast. >> the reason for turning the hand rail back to the building or back on to yourself is so your sleeve doesn't catch on it and pull you down or pull you

over. it's actually a safety issue. when you have stairs like this that look relatively steep, the last thing you really want to do is trip one of your customers coming down into your store. >> that's not a sale. that's not a sale. here we are walking down a stair, i believe this is at the muni station where they have a contrasting color vaguely, barely, almost contrasting color stripe. maybe. an alternative to access that we see, both inside the buildings and in this case outside are lifts in elevators. these are difficult, expensive, hard to maintain, hard to use, hard to keep in maintenance and in fact, in this case down at one of the downtown hotels it's hideously ugly, although that's got nothing to do with it, i guess. but it says push button for attendant to come and help which is not what is allowed or

required. the whole concept of disability access is that people can independently get access. you don't need to call somebody to come and let you in. and i tried to figure out why would they do this here? . >> well, they ought to put a key to have an attendant operate it. you do need a key to operate these for the most part or else have them set up where it's always turned on like alwa ys turned on like para lways turn ed on likethat, ring bell for access the reason is so people don't play with them, so kids don't play with them or kids don't get injured. in all the years i have been doing this i have yet to hear of a kid being injured or somebody really playing with these. they are slow, noisy, they call

attention to themselves. for the most part they are going to leave them alone. they are so noisy you can't get away with anything. . >> and they are not inherently dangerous. somebody can't get caught underneath the platform. >> it won't operate until the door is closed and the little microswitch is under the platform. and they provide access. what does one of these cost; do you know? . >> they are about 20,000 last time i priced one out. >> in a case like this there is no reasonable way to put a ramp in. this was the way to provide access. >> i just want to clarify if a chair lift, the one that elevates along a stair, is ever acceptable. >> oh, yeah, chair lifts are acceptable in some uses. there is some on-going discussion about under what circumstances you are allowed to use an incline platform lift.

we're not talking about the little one you sit in, the home elevator -- you are talking about the one you actually have to sit on and it goes up and down. i have never seen that considered to be compliant in terms of meeting commercial requirements in any way. you can use it in your own home. there are these platform lifts that go up the stairs, they are incline platform lifts, and under some circumstances those are acceptable to use. >> i would say the chair lift in and of itself will never work for commercial enterprise. if i was to use it, where would i put my chair? do i haul it along behind me up the steps? . >> you just can't get out of your chair without help, that wouldn't do. >> for home application they are great, but for commercial it just wouldn't work. >> here we have somebody's front door. it requires that you push down this little button as you grab and pull the thing. it's a little difficult. it's an old knob.

it's got some historic value to it. i think reasonable readily achievable barrier removal might say that you adjust the mechanism so that you don't have to actually push the button down to make it work, possibly. here is a really wonderful see's candy accessible entrance. everything is right. the door has nice hardware, easy to open, it's got everything going for that, but you can only achieve that if you are really gutting something out and building a whole new store. we have a problem here. the problem is that this store has a 10 inch or more plate along the bottom so someone in a wheelchair can have the foot area push the door open. but here there's a door stop that they have screwed on to the bottom of the door that's going to catch up on the feet of the chair. is that right, paul? . >> that is right. what happens is it does catch on the foot plate of a chair so you either get hung up on the

door, you stop or it makes it more difficult to get in and out. >> so they did that -- here is the other way, you put the hook on the outside and hook the door open if you want the hook. it's not that much -- but it's simple. there it is, problem solved. in many cases there are no doors at all. here are these guys, i think we saw these guys in a previous show where they -- who can go into the store with these two big guys standing right in the way. this is where you want your customers to come in. >> i want a clarification. if you are doing a retrofit on a door and putting a 10 inch kick plate on the bottom, would it be suitable to only put it on the push side if the door only swings in one direction versus having to put it on both sides where it's not very useful on the operable side. >> i think so. what do you think, paul? . >> i've never seen a regulation

-- it just says 10 inches on the bottom. but i would think as a practical matter you could have it on the pull side. >> would it serve any function? . >> i can't imagine there's any benefit on having it smooth on the pull side. it's the push side, so you can push the door open with the foot plate. chair. here we are going in. now people are puting stuff in the way. very difficult to get in, there's stuff to trip on, for all of us. wheelchair or not, there's all sorts of stuff. here are wheelchair users going into a small store. these very small mom and pop corner stores are very difficult because of the need to have a lot of goods in there to make the business work. this is a real challenge. this is a store on mission street where they have actually figured it out.

the aisles are nice and comfortable, minimum size but comfortable. she's going in, she can turn, she can get to the counter. it may not have the lowered transaction counter we're going to see in a counter here where someone who can't reach up to the full height of the counter can do business. that's a very cheap and easily achievable standard of improving disabled access. here is another counter with no lowered counter area. this is a sushi shop on kerni street. very open, very accessible, but it doesn't have a lowered area to do either service transaction or for other kind of seating. inside the cala market -- now, markets are required to have at least one checkout stand of a sufficient width for people in wheelchairs to use. and that checkout counter must always be open whenever the market is open. the way that's been solved in most markets is to make them

all accessible, which is great, which we think is a good solution, but not required. here at the cala, every one is accessible and they each have the little international symbol of accessibility on them. they also have a little sign that says, if you need any help at all, ask us. a wonderful thing to do. it's not a physical barrier removal, but it's a good way to try and make sure your customers understand that this is an important issue. here is an example of one of these lowered transaction counters at a coffee shop at market street downtown. it's a newly built facility so we required that they do it. what's the height of the lowered transaction counter? 28 to 34 inches. here is another one, another coffee shop on market street. >> kind of small. >> yeah, there's a width requirement, 36 minimum width for these transaction counters. >> that might work to sit down

and enjoy your cup of coffee and consume your food, but in terms of actually being able to access the sales person on the other side, now you are reaching over two obstructions. >> yeah, they would have to be reaching out this long distance over the counter to set something down. be very difficult. another issue we face commonly are surfaces. the code specifies how slippery or slip resistant things have to be. it's very hard to measure, there are some very clear standards but it's difficult to measure. talk for just a second about one of these other issues that i raised and that has to do with employee accommodation. someone is working in this kitchen here, the requirement in the kitchen is that it be accessible, that is, you can get to your work station. the work station in the kitchen or anywhere else, the work station itself, doesn't have to be accessible with accessible

features unless someone says i need to be accommodated in some way. but the code says you have to be able to get to it. and the standards are clear. you need certain width aisles and all that. . >> which is actually pretty vague when you think about it. all you have to do is be able to get to the work station. it doesn't say, like lawrence was saying, that you actually have to use it. what a person's needs, what dultz he require in order for him to use that space. >> my work station in my office next door, i had to have the computer screen lowered because of some vision issues and we all adjust our work stations based on our private needs. some people have to request that their employer help meet those needs and the employer is required to take reasonable measures to help them and in this andout it has the ada standards for that. >> so the code makes distinctions between an

individual work station that can be modified to meet an individual's need and a general employee area that needs to be accessible to all. >> here is a guy's work station at a sign company here in san francisco. what's interesting is he is inserting little braille symbols on signs. so here is a sign, it's a sign that says women's room and it shows the international symbol of accessibility as well and then it has these little braille dots on the bottom here. we're going to ask tom what they actually say here. what do they actually say, tom? . >> it actually says in what looks like code braille, women. it doesn't say women's room, it says women. that's fairly obvious. >> sometimes i wonder what they actually write on these. >> we change them at night. nasty remarks. >> so these signs, to change

the sign from just saying women that you might have to one that says women in braille cost $9.95 for the sign. and readily achievable, i think it probably is. i wanted to talk just for a second about parking. the requirements for access when you are doing construction include the path of travel to the area of remodel, which includes parking. parking in the path of travel for the area of remodel. there are all these required signs and sizes and shapes and spaces. this is at a cala in the mission, this is their space, highly used as a social space, people sitting on the ground eating lunch and walking around, but it has to have exactly the right signage and exactly painted on the ground the international symbol for accessibility. you have to have a drop off zone next to it which is what the striped area is on the

right-hand side. however, you know, just because you have a blue placard or a red placard in your car doesn't mean you can park any place you want in the city and here yesterday down on california street they are towing someone with a disabled placard hanging on their windshield from being parked in a yellow meter for delivery. okay, we have a question in the back. >> just a quick question. you have parking. what about other ancillary accessory areas like storage? if it's accessible for, say, tenants in the building or employees, does that have to comply with accessibility standards? . >> there is access to storage room requirements in the text of the occupancy specific. i think you find it in the b's and the m's, typically, not in the r's, for example. but as a general rule access is required to a storage room. there are other exemptions in the application chapter for incidental non-occupiable spaces like furnace rooms or

equipment rooms. those don't have to be accessible. >> this is a curb ramp. we don't see too many of these in san francisco, but this is at a drop off zone in front of a place that serves as a medical facility. here are some of those truncated domes that tom was talking about that tom doesn't like. in some cases we use these to demark the path of travel across a vehicular area. this is a car rental shop and this shows, theoretically shows, people where to walk across this vehicle area. >> as tom said, though, you want to use them where it's hazardous where the person is about to enter a hazardous area. if this was just a driveway across a sidewalk i'd say don't put them in because then you are going to have them across every driveway and they become meaningless. you run c