ADA Parking Lot Striping
In East Louisville, KY

ADA Parking Lot Striping in East Louisville, KY

Accessible parking is the part of a lot most likely to be wrong, and the part most likely to be noticed. It is also the part where the rules are written down in plain numbers, which means there is no reason to guess.

We install and correct accessible parking on commercial properties across Greater Louisville, Oldham, Shelby and the surrounding counties: accessible stalls, van-accessible stalls, striped access aisles, the International Symbol of Accessibility painted at each space, and post-mounted signs at the head of the stall. On existing lots the job usually starts as an audit — count what is there, measure it, compare it against what the space count requires, and hand you a list.

One thing worth saying up front, because it is the most common misconception we run into in Kentucky. Kentucky does not add its own accessible-parking layer on top of the federal rules. The 2018 Kentucky Building Code is an amendments-only overlay on the 2015 International Building Code, and none of its Chapter 11 amendments change the accessible-parking count or the stall and aisle dimensions. The numbers arrive through the unamended building code: Section 1106 and Table 1106.1 set the accessible-space count, and that table matches the federal Table 208.2 row for row — including the rule that where a site has more than one parking facility, the count is calculated separately for each. So the number that governs your lot is the federal number either way, and that is the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design.

How Many Accessible Spaces Your Lot Needs

Table 208.2 of the 2010 ADA Standards sets the minimum, and it is a count, not a percentage, until you get to very large lots.

Total parking spaces provided in parking facility	Minimum number of required accessible parking spaces
1 to 25	1
26 to 50	2
51 to 75	3
76 to 100	4
101 to 150	5
151 to 200	6
201 to 300	7
301 to 400	8
401 to 500	9
501 to 1000	2 percent of total
1001 and over	20, plus 1 for each 100, or fraction thereof, over 1000

Now the part almost nobody publishes, and it changes the answer on multi-lot sites.

The count is per parking facility, not per property. Section 208.2 says “parking facility,” and the advisory to 208.2 spells out what that means: where a site has several separate parking facilities, each one runs its own calculation. A campus with four lots of sixty spaces each does not get the seven accessible spaces a single 240-space lot would — it gets three in every lot, twelve in total. Sites get this wrong in the direction that leaves them short.

Three carve-outs sit outside the table, and the first one is narrower than almost everyone assumes. Section 208.2.1 requires 10 percent of patient and visitor parking serving hospital outpatient facilities to be accessible — and the advisory to that section is specific about what it covers: units located in hospitals that provide regular and continuing treatment without an overnight stay. A standalone doctors’ office or independent clinic is expressly not one, and calculates off Table 208.2 like any other lot. Section 208.2.2 raises the ratio to 20 percent for two named categories: rehabilitation facilities specializing in treating conditions that affect mobility, and outpatient physical therapy facilities. Hospital-affiliated outpatient buildings and physical-therapy practices are where the higher ratios actually apply, and a medical office park usually is not one of them.

Residential is the third carve-out, and it does not use the table at all for residents. Section 208.2.3 keys resident parking to the dwelling units that have mobility features, then requires 2 percent of any additional resident spaces; only guest, employee and other non-resident parking goes back to Table 208.2. Apartment and condominium properties get this wrong more often than anyone.

Van-Accessible Stalls, Access Aisles, and Signage

Van spaces come out of the same pool, not on top of it. Section 208.2.4 requires that for every six, or fraction of six, spaces required to be accessible, at least one is a van space. Four required accessible spaces means one of the four is a van space.

Van stalls have two compliant layouts, not one. Section 502.2 sets a 132-inch minimum width for van spaces, and then the exception permits a 96-inch-wide van space where the access aisle beside it is 96 inches wide. Either arrangement complies. Contractors who only know the 132-inch figure will tell you a lot cannot be brought into compliance when the wider-aisle layout would have fit.

Access aisles are 60 inches wide minimum under section 502.3.1, they run the full length of the space they serve under 502.3.2, and section 502.3 permits two spaces to share one aisle. They have to adjoin an accessible route, and section 502.3.3 requires them to be marked so as to discourage parking in them — whether parking in one is an enforceable offense is state and local law, not the ADA.

The ADA does not require blue. Advisory 502.3.3 says it directly: “The method and color of marking are not specified by these requirements but may be addressed by State or local laws or regulations.” Blue-and-white is convention, and it is what we default to because everyone recognizes it, but anyone telling you federal law mandates the color is repeating something the Standards do not say.

Signs go at 60 inches minimum above the ground, measured to the bottom of the sign, under section 502.6. Minimum, not maximum, and to the bottom, not the middle. Spaces that are van spaces carry an additional “van accessible” designation.