Most suburban areas in the United States are created for the able-bodied individuals who own a car. Neighborhoods rarely have sidewalks, and many roads are long connecting points between neighborhoods and shopping centers. While suburbia may be a great area for a casual stroll, it’s not exactly great for those trying to get from home to work.

A wheelchair can mean the ticket to independence for some individuals, but the regular built environment is rarely arranged in a way that is easily navigable by individuals using wheelchairs. Beyond the built environment, social interactions can cause an extra strain on those who rely on wheelchairs as their primary mode of mobility. These social and infrastructural barriers impede the lives of wheelchair users every day.

Individuals with disabilities must navigate a world designed for people with vision and mobility, and one tool that helps to make the world more accessible is navigational bar tiles. These directional tile surfaces consist of raised bars that align with the direction of pedestrian travel. These navigational directional bar tiles help people to locate the entrance to light rails, trains, and bus stops.

A companion to detectable warning tiles, navigational and directional bar tiles serve an essential purpose of guiding individuals with disabilities in the flow of traffic.

The development of larger cities grew exponentially in the past fifty years, leaving us with rapidly built cities that have given too little thought to the disabled members of their population. Now is the time to reassess how to be more inclusive in the built environment so that people of all abilities and diversity experience a living environment that meets their needs.

To serve the community of individuals with disabilities, many state and local governments and some private companies have established paratransit transportation options. Paratransit transportation is meant to supplement public fixed-route bus and rail systems for individuals with severe impairments. From a taxi-like service to a semi-defined route, paratransit services often have varying levels of flexibility.

One result of population growth within cities is something called urban expansion, which is the unrestricted growth of housing, businesses, and roads without any specific planning. Urban expansion influences cities’ social and environmental dynamics, causing a number of disadvantages, including longer commutes, higher transportation costs, pollution, and loss of countryside.

The Americans with Disability Act outlines the standards required to make a parking lot ADA compliant, specifically when it comes to restriping the parking spots. Over time, the paint in parking lots fades, and it becomes more and more difficult to determine the parking spots. At this point, businesses are required to restripe their parking lot and to ensure that the parking lot is ADA compliant.

City planners and researchers claim that more and more people are moving into cities, which is contributing to something called urban density. This term refers to the number of people within an urban area. It’s a crucial factor for city planning — understanding how the city is functioning based on economics, health, geography, and sustainability.

An accessible city benefits all individuals who live, work, and play in that city. This means that the public spaces must be accessible to all, no matter their level of ability. When urban planners design the infrastructure for a city center, several problems and corresponding solutions must be considered to benefit the city as a whole.

The Department of Justice is charged with upholding and enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) with compliance regulations, lawsuits, and more. However, without a specific department for enforcement, it often relies on local governments to enforce ADA compliance. Since ADA covers several accessibilities rules for public spaces, this is a huge undertaking.