Access Board Issues Comparison of Old and New ADAAG and Intl. Building Code

The Access Board has issued a comparison between the new ADA Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG), the original ADA standards, and the Intl. Building Code. This side-by-side comparison is arranged and ordered according to the format and sequence of the new ADAAG, which the board published in July 2004. Provisions in the ADA standards maintained by the Department of Justice, which currently are based on the original ADAAG (1991), are provided alongside corresponding sections of the new ADAAG. The Department of Justice is in the process of updating its ADA standards according to the new ADAAG. The comparison is available in a variety of formats on the board’s website at (www.access-board.gov/ada-aba/comparison/index.htm)

In updating ADAAG, the board sought to reconcile differences from model building codes, including the Intl. Building Code (IBC). Used by a growing number of states and local jurisdictions, the IBC contains scoping provisions for accessibility and references the technical criteria of the ANSI A117.1 standard, a voluntary consensus standard issued by American National Standards Institute. The comparison includes accessibility provisions of the IBC, including those referenced in the ANSI standard. For further information on the IBC, visit the Intl. Code Council's website at (www.iccsafe.org).

This information was reprinted from the Access Board’s March/April 2006 edition of its Access Currents e-newsletter. For more information, visit (www.access-board.gov).