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Title 28

Displaying title 28, up to date as of 8/14/2026. Title 28 was last amended 8/11/2026.
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Program Accessibility

§ 41.56 General requirement concerning program accessibility.

No qualified handicapped person shall, because a recipient's facilities are inaccessible to or unusable by handicapped persons, be denied the benefits of, be excluded from participation in, or otherwise be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity that receives or benefits from federal financial assistance.

§ 41.57 Existing facilities.

(a) A recipient shall operate each program or activity so that the program or activity, when viewed in its entirety, is readily accessible to and usable by handicapped persons. This paragraph does not necessarily require a recipient to make each of its existing facilities or every part of an existing facility accessible to and usable by handicapped persons.

(b) Where structural changes are necessary to make programs or activities in existing facilities accessible, such changes shall be made as soon as practicable, but in no event later than three years after the effective date of the agency regulation: Provided, That, if the program is a particular mode of transportation (e.g., a subway system) that can be made accessible only through extraordinarily expensive structural changes to, or replacement of, existing facilities and if other accessible modes of transportation are available, the federal agency responsible for enforcing section 504 with respect to that program may extend this period of time, but only for a reasonable and definite period, such period to be set forth in the agency's regulation.

(c) In the event that structural changes to facilities are necessary to meet the requirement of paragraph (a) of this section, a recipient shall develop, within a definite period to be established in each agency's regulation, a transition plan setting forth the steps necessary to complete such changes. The plan shall be developed with the assistance of interested persons, including handicapped persons or organizations representing handicapped persons.

[43 FR 2132, Jan. 13, 1978. Redesignated and amended at 46 FR 40686, 40687, Aug. 11, 1981]

§ 41.58 New construction.

(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, new facilities shall be designed and constructed to be readily accessible to and usable by handicapped persons. Alterations to existing facilities shall, to the maximum extent feasible, be designed and constructed to be readily accessible to and usable by handicapped persons.

(b) The Department of Transportation may defer the effective date for requiring all new buses to be accessible if it concludes on the basis of its section 504 rulemaking process that it is not feasible to require compliance on the effective date of its regulation: Provided, That comparable, accessible services are available to handicapped persons in the interim and that the date is not deferred later than October 1, 1979.