How many handicapped spots do I need in my lot?
February 14, 2018
If you have parked in a lot you have seen the International Symbol of Access. Normally it is a blue square overlaid with a white image of a person in a wheelchair, hence it also being known as the International Wheelchair Symbol. The symbol is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2018!
Designed by Danish design student Susanne Koefoed at Stockholm’s Konstfack, or the University of Arts, Crafts and Design. An American lecturer, Victor Papanek, had called for renewed attention to disabled persons (both physically and mentally) and Koefoed was charged with creating the symbol. The original symbol was just simply an empty wheelchair but was accepted and adopted by Sweden in 1968.
The following year it at a conference in Dublin, Ireland several other symbols were presented. Koefoed’s design was seen as illegible and Karl Montan, the director of the Swedish Handicapped Institute added the head to the wheelchair to give the impression of a seated person. It became the international symbol in 1974.
The symbol has been used to mark parking spaces in lots, for marking a vehicle used by a handicapped driver, marking public facilities that are wheelchair accessible, to mark the button that will open an automatic door, indicating handicapped-accessible public transportation and the routes that those vehicles use.
In 2015 the symbol was redesigned in an attempt to modernize it. It depicts a figure leaning forward in the wheelchair, almost as if racing. Public reaction has been mixed. The symbol was accepted in several US states but has not been accepted by the federal government or the International Organization for Standardization citing near-universal acceptance of the old design. Some handicapped groups believe the symbol has a prejudice towards people with serious disabilities as not everyone is capable of moving their own wheelchair.
This new symbol was designed by Sara Hendren, an assistant professor of design at Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts. Her goal was to change attitudes toward handicapped persons to hopefully promote better funding and more programs geared toward their needs. So far the symbol has been adopted in New York State and Connecticut and a handful of cities like Phoenix, Arizona and El Paso, Texas.
