Kirkwood ADA Transition Plan

Kirkwood is a vibrant community with charming neighborhoods, shopping and dining. The City identified a need to complete an ADA Sidewalk Transition Plan not only to meet the requirements for federal compliance but to guide future improvements.  City residents have long identified pedestrian accommodations as a key factor to the quality of life within the City of Kirkwood.

Oates assisted the City in identifying barriers to access within the public rights of way throughout the community and developing a scoring system to help prioritize future improvements. The scope of work also included development of an administrative policy and an ADA Sidewalk Transition Plan, incorporation of data into the City’s already established GIS network, and robust public involvement to engage the citizens of Kirkwood.

Oates and the City engaged advocates for the disability community, business community and school district to gather feedback on the travel habits and what has the greatest impact to the usability of the pedestrian network. Oates and the City also engaged residents through an online survey to gather information on how residents are using the sidewalk network.  This data was used to guide the establishment of the scoring system and establish a hierarchy of pedestrian traffic generators within GIS (i.e., schools, downtown Kirkwood, high density housing units).  Evaluation criteria was also developed to categorize the severity of each individual deficiency at a given sidewalk segment or curb ramp.

In addition to the development of the ADA Sidewalk Transition Plan, a key component of this project was incorporating the Plan into several other guiding documents that the City already developed related to bicycle and pedestrian activity. Our scoring system was developed to complement these plans and guidance from these plans was used to form the development of the hierarchy of pedestrian traffic generators.  Additionally, our plan complemented the Downtown Kirkwood study by investigating the requirements for ADA parking within the central business district.