Quote:
Originally Posted by LIforrelaxin
or lets take the polar caves for instance... They aren't accessible to people in wheel Chairs... And to do so would destroy what nature has created... Hence I don't think that the ADA is going to require that lifts be put in at the polar caves...
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Back around 2000, a lawsuit forced the AMC to modify the reconstruction of the Galehead hut up in the White Mountains to include a wheelchair ramp and chair-accessible restroom stall doors, to the tune of around $50K it was said. Some time after the rework was completed, a pair of handicapped people, assisted by a crew of 12, managed to haul themselves up a boulder-strewn mountain trail over four miles long to get to the hut, something to my knowledge has not been done since.
It seemed to many that forcing ADA compliance for a location that itself is for all practical purposes inaccessible to the handicapped is a gross misapplication of a one-size-fits-all law. It was argued that anyone who had the courage and raw strength to move a special chair over an extremely rugged mountain trail would have no problem at all getting up the front steps of a mountain hut nearly 4000 feet above sea level. But the "law" prevailed.
I've nothing against standards that make reasonable accommodation for the handicapped, but sometimes the over-militant advocates force absurd results.