When you own a business in Houston, it is essential to comply with all aspects of the Americans with Disabilities Act to promote accessibility for all in your office. This also extends to your parking lot maintenance, as this is one of the most hazardous areas for individuals with mobility, visual, or hearing impairments. Houston is ranked as the second fastest growing city in America, because of this, prioritizing the growing population and accessibility is the new standard for Houston parking lot maintenance. Aside from just meeting the needs of Houston’s growing population, compliance is vital for avoiding ADA penalties and lawsuits while keeping your visitors safe and happy. When you work with Primetime Facility Services, you can be sure that your parking lot in Houston is up to ADA standards and welcoming to visitors of all types, regardless of their accessibility needs.
Parking Lot Maintenance Prep: Scoping and Location
When most people think about parking lot maintenance, they probably think of touching up paint. While this is one of the most vital elements of parking lot repair, a lot more goes into it than just touching up chips and fading. Before painting one single stripe, it is essential for your parking lot maintenance team to ensure that you have the correct, ADA-compliant amount of accessible spaces per lot. Improper calculations are the fastest, most common way to become involved in an ADA lawsuit for your Houston business.
For most Houston parking lots, the ADA requires 1 handicap accessible parking spot per 25 regular spots. If your lot has 501-1000 parking spaces, 25% of the spots must be accessible. Because of this, at Primetime Facility Services, we prioritize recounting and recalculating your business’s parking spot ratio to ensure that you are up to code and regulations. In many cases, when companies strip parking lots for efficiency, they might mistakenly remove required accessible spaces—leading to major conflict down the line.
Preventing Parking Lot Blockages: The Importance of Accessible Route Planning
Comprehensive compliance doesn’t end with a fresh coat of paint – it extends to planning key aspects of your parking lots, including route optimization for mobility-impaired patrons. The most vital element for this is creating a route from space to the door that is constantly clear and direct. What makes this aspect of Houston parking lot maintenance difficult is that it requires constant check-ups to ensure that temporary obstructions aren’t obstructing the walkways or accessible spaces that your impaired patrons might require.
Protecting Your Measurements: The Importance of Parking Lot Dimensions
The majority of ADA parking lot violations in Houston stem from one simple mistake – measurement failure. While it might seem obvious, most business owners in Houston don’t consider that as lines between spaces fade, they encroach into each other’s spaces, typically shrinking the accessible spots into smaller sizes that are inherently incompatible. Creating a fully compliant and accessible lot requires much more than just a quick fix; it demands constant defense from a reliable Houston parking lot maintenance team like Primetime Facility Services.
In Texas, standard accessible spaces are strict legal minimums that must be met. These demand that spaces be 96 inches wide and 60 inches long. This converts to about 8 feet by 5 feet – ensuring that all sorts of vehicles are able to safely park, and all drivers can smoothly exit and enter the vehicle.
For van accessible spaces specifically, Houston parking lots maintenance can follow one of two options:
- Wider spaces: The first option for van accessibility parameters is 132 inches (11feet) wide spaces with a 60-inch (5 feet) aisle.
- Wider aisles: For the second option, van accessible spaces can be 96 inches (8 feet) wide with an equally wide aisle.
The second option is significantly more accessible, especially for vans that need extra space for unloading wheelchairs or other vital mobility equipment. Regardless of what route you choose, re-striping is the most essential aspect of parking lot maintenance, especially for prioritizing accessibility.
Pavement Integrity For a Handicapped Accessible Parking Lot
In Houston, parking lot maintenance is vital for preventing the clay-rich soil from contributing to pavement shifting and dangerous potholes. This can also cause poor slope and standing water damage that makes moving across your business’s lot extremely difficult and dangerous for handicapped visitors. In the majority of lots, the maximum amount of slope allowed is a ratio of 1:48 across all directions. This is to keep hills from becoming extremely steep and slick, especially during rainy weather. Ensuring that your lot is free of significant dips and rises, as well as keeping it free of potholes, is the single most vital aspect of making your Houston parking lot truly accessible for all.
A huge factor in this section is preventing poor drainage from contributing to potholes or significant degradation. The damage prevention checklist our team will address through our service includes:
- Catch basin clearing: This includes both inspecting and clearing the debris that gradually collects within your basin. Most often, including things like sediment, leaves, and trash. During storms, it is essential that this is clear to prevent flooding.
- Sealcoating: Any cracks that are still in the beginning stages can be seal-coated across the entire lot to prevent them from worsening due to water intrusion.
- Crack sealing: For severe, fully developed cracks, we can seal them to prevent water from entering and forming large, dangerous potholes due to soil movement beneath the surface.
- Localized leveling: Minor pavement depressions can be fixed with leveling patches or minor regarding. This requires immediate attention to prevent violating the 1:48 slope requirements.
Maintaining Accessible Signage and Parking Lot Markings
Faded paint and sun-bleached, damaged signs are not only unappealing visually, but they can also make your parking lot in Houston unsafe for users who need accessible options. At Primetime Facility Services, we can help upkeep some of the most important aspects of your parking lots, which are the visual cues indicating flow and individual spots. One of the most important factors of this category is making sure signs adhere to the 60-inch rule. This outlines that signs must be fixed at least 60 inches in the air to ensure they can be easily seen by all patrons.
Finally, maintaining your paint might be obvious. However, in Houston’s warm, wet, humid climate, it is essential to make sure that integral markers aren’t faded. This includes not just parking spot lines, but also striping for marked off spots, directional indicators, and fire lane marking. If you want to prioritize making your lot accessible for all and making it a welcoming entrance to your Houston building, parking lot maintenance is a non-negotiable.
Parking Lot Maintenance: From Liability To Longevity
True parking lot compliance in Houston isn’t just a one-time problem. It is a crucial aspect of building maintenance that helps prove your business’s commitment to accessibility and safety for your clients and visitors. By working with Primetime Facility Services and striving to maintain your lots’ safety, ease-of-use, and accessibility standards, you can be sure that your parking lot won’t be a liability in the future. Our team recognizes that every Houston parking lot maintenance plan is different, so you can be sure that you are receiving top-notch, professional building maintenance service that will help keep your property fully compliant with ADA regulations. Contact us today for a free parking lot maintenance estimate for your Houston property.
