Campus Facilities
What is Kingsborough's Campus Planning and Design office doing to ensure campus accessibility? Although most of Kingsborough's buildings and facilities pre-date The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, the College is committed to making all of its facilities fully accessible, in compliance with Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and pursuant to The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 and its subsequent revisions. Kingsborough has made a considerable investment over the years in its plan to greatly enhance accessibility throughout the campus and to generally improve its facilities for the benefit of the physically challenged. Today, every building on campus is provided with at least one accessible route and most exterior areas are now accessible via curb ramps, entrance access ramps and other exterior ramps. As part of this effort, numerous Emergency Rescue Areas have been created on the upper floors of the buildings throughout the campus, combined with strategically located emergency telephones to assure a swift response to any emergency. The locations of emergency telephones and rescue areas have been augmented by an array of directional signage on walls, area signage on ceilings, instructional signage for the operation of the emergency telephones and wheelchair symbols painted directly on stairway landings to designate the exact locations of each Emergency Rescue Area. Elevators have also been equipped with two-way communication devices and a campus-wide public address system has recently been installed. Other improvements in recent years include: ADA-compliant alterations to most restroom facilities; lowering public telephones for wheelchair access throughout the campus; the installation of automatic sliding entrance doors and/or automatic push button door openers; the installation of braille signage, curb ramps and other site ramps; the installation of magnetic hold-open devices on heavily used public corridor doors; the ongoing replacement of doorknobs with ADA-compliant lever-type door handles; the creation of new ADA-compliant parking stalls throughout the parking areas on campus; the installation of ADA-compliant lecture room student tables, exterior dining tables and computer lab stations; the installation of ADA-compliant gymnasium bleachers and ADA-compliant lockers; the widening of the heavily used traffic circle (opposite the Administration Building) to accommodate Access-A-Ride vehicles more safely; the installation of ADA-compliant rails at the beach patio steps, the Library main entrance stairs and other exterior areas around the campus; numerous upgrades to existing interior fire alarm systems incorporating new strobe lights and enhanced audible devices to improve safety for the sight and hearing impaired; etc. Every interior alteration project, or any new installation which the College undertakes is carried out in full compliance with ADA law and each fiscal year the College assesses its transition plan with the goal of continuing to improve its facilities for the benefit of the entire College community. As such, new ADA-related improvements are constantly being planned and implemented. |