MISSION VIEJO : City Will Build Wheelchair Ramps

Faced with a choice of spending money on bicycle lanes or wheelchair ramps, the Mission Viejo City Council recently decided to use $21,262 in federal funds to help comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The city will couple that with about $79,000 from gasoline tax revenues to build about 100 ramps throughout Mission Viejo. The $100,000 project will fill a need in the city to provide more handicap access. Enacted by the federal government, the Americans With Disabilities Act requires cities and other agencies to provide the handicapped access to public facilities.

The city had been allocated the $21,262 from a state program that would also allow spending the money for bicycle storage facilities or bikeways. However, the decision to go with ramps for the handicapped doesn’t mean that the city will be ignoring the needs of bicycling enthusiasts, officials said.

“Whenever we rehabilitate a road, we try to put in a bike lane when the road dimensions allow it,” said Mark Chagnon, capital project administrator. “We do that as a matter of city policy in order to complete our bicycle lane system. There are a lot of bikers in Mission Viejo.”

The ramps will be built at the same time as the city’s annual street resurfacing program in order to receive a more competitive price from public works contractors. Some existing ramps will be rebuilt to bring them up to current standards.

Over the past two years, about $49,000 has been spent on wheelchair ramps by Mission Viejo. The $100,000 budgeted for additional ramps will be used over the next three years, Chagnon said.