2019: Mankato eyes public access

Access Press
5/10/2019
Regional News in Review

From 1,909 sidewalk ramps to 51 bus stops to 31 crosswalks, the city of Mankato has some shortfalls when it comes to complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

And Mankato is not alone. Area cities and counties have millions of dollars of work to do to become ADA compliant, according to a recently completed comprehensive assessment of public infrastructure in Blue Earth and Nicollet counties.

"Our team walked 175 miles of sidewalk and trail … looked at 80 bus stops … looked at 287 traffic signals," said transportation planner Charles Androsky of the Mankato Area Planning Organization. "So a lot went into this."

Those figures were a reference only to the ADA compliance issues on city-owned infrastructure in Mankato. Over the past two years, MAPO looked at thousands of pedestrian ramps, crosswalks and signal lights and hundreds of miles of sidewalk and trail in North Mankato and in smaller towns in the two counties. In addition, dozens of meetings were held with organizations representing the elderly and people with disabilities, who often have particular concerns about pedestrian barriers.

ADA transition plans nationwide were mandated by federal transportation officials, who threatened that future federal road funding would be cut off if local jurisdictions didn't get the assessments done this year. The initiative may have been a recognition that the Americans with Disabilities Act is about to hit a major milestone. The landmark accessibility legislation, which aims to guarantee that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as other Americans, will be 30 years old in 2020.

“They felt progress wasn’t coming fast enough,” Mankato Public Works Director Jeff Johnson said of the federal government.

Any number of issues can lead to noncompliance in a sidewalk or a pedestrian ramp between a street and a sidewalk, Johnson said. There are obvious issues such as barriers in a sidewalk or crumbling concrete or vegetation growing through the walkway. But if the walkway has too steep of a slope or is too narrow, that can also be deemed non-compliant. Standards also have changed over the years, such as those related to crosswalk signal buttons and the tactile warning bumps on pedestrian ramps that warn walkers with vision problems that they’re nearing the street. (Source: Free Press of Mankato)