The importance of access.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Shortly after public pressure led the U.S. General Services Administration to modify the design of Eugene's new federal courthouse to include a ramp for people who use wheelchairs, a high-powered federal commission began a survey of courthouse accessibility. The commission finished its work just in time for this week's grand opening of the Wayne Lyman Morse Federal Courthouse. Its report echoes the message that ramp advocates stressed from the start.

Eugene's new federal courthouse is a landmark not only for the city, but for the nation. The GSA commissioned Thom Mayne, a daring architect who last year won the Pritzker Prize, to design the building, saying that it would mark the beginning of a "golden age" of courthouse architecture. If Eugene's courthouse were to serve as a template for similar projects across the country, it was vital that the building meet the highest possible standards of accessibility. A failure in Eugene risked condemning a generation of disabled Americans to the unequal treatment imposed by architectural barriers.

Architectural barriers are an affront wherever they're found - but they're especially offensive in a new building, where simple principles of accessibility can be incorporated without costly or aesthetically jarring retrofits. The offense is compounded when the new building is a courthouse. In practical and symbolic ways, a courthouse should communicate the ideal of equality before the law. A courthouse whose design makes access difficult or impossible mocks that ideal.

The Courthouse Access Advisory Committee, appointed in 2004 by the U.S. Access Board, understands the importance of access. The board was created by Congress in 1973 in an effort to ensure that federal buildings honor the letter and spirit of the Architectural Barriers Act. It named the 31-member committee in recognition of the importance of courthouse access - and, perhaps, in response to the ruckus that arose in Eugene when the initial courthouse design provided only elevator access to people in wheelchairs.

Among the committee's members was U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan of Eugene, who made himself fluent in the language of architecture through his collaboration with Mayne in the design of the courthouse. Hogan also learned a thing or two about access issues when people with disabilities protested the absence of a courthouse ramp. These protests were joined by mayors, city councils, county commissioners, congressmen, the Wayne Morse Historical Park Board of Directors and this newspaper, to name a few.

The committee's report covers all aspects of courthouse design, from jury boxes to holding cells, with regard to people with disabilities of all kinds. In general, it concludes that ramps are superior to lifts, both inside and outside courthouses. Good design can often eliminate the need for either ramps or lifts - and the report cites Eugene's courthouse, with its elevated front entrance, as an example of architecture that creates inherent accessibility challenges. Accessible courthouses, the report notes, are often no more expensive than those that include barriers, and many people besides those with disabilities benefit from accessible designs.

"A truly accessible courthouse will provide an equal opportunity to all individuals participating in the judicial process," the committee report notes - which is exactly the reason people fought so hard for a ramp at the Eugene courthouse. Even so, the report says that "New facilities, despite the existence of accessibility standards, continue to be designed and built with barriers."

Imagine how shameful it would be if Eugene's new courthouse had been one of them.