When Accessibility Requirements Meet Reality

When I was the parent of a medically complex child, accessibility felt non-negotiable. Ramps, elevators, and family bathrooms weren’t conveniences. They were the difference between participation and exclusion. I believed, and still believe, that we should design spaces that allow as many people as possible to fully engage in everyday life.

Now I’m a business owner, opening multiple trampoline parks. And while I still hold those same values, I am beginning to understand why some businesses hesitate.

The first time this tension became clear was during the permitting process for one of our locations. The city flagged that our plans didn’t include a family bathroom. My reaction was immediate: of course we should have one. It felt like an obvious oversight. But when I raised it with our franchisor, I got a very different response. They told me that in many municipalities, they push back on adding family bathrooms and usually succeed. The main concern they raised was liability: a private, lockable space without surveillance can introduce risks in a facility designed for children. I was stunned. It had never occurred to me that family bathrooms could create real risks for businesses.

With a little digging, I learned that there are ways to mitigate, though not eliminate, those risks. Placing bathrooms in high-traffic areas, monitoring entrances, using locks that indicate whether the space is in use, putting up signs that children under a certain age are not allowed to use the space without a parent or guardian, and adjusting insurance coverage. But even with those precautions, adding a family bathroom does increase complexity and liability in ways that took me by surprise.

Then there’s cost. I initially assumed adding a family bathroom would be relatively simple: a toilet, a sink, a bit of extra space. Instead, I learned that once you include one, requirements often expand. In both locations currently preparing to open, adding a family bathroom meant also installing an adult changing station. While an important accommodation, it doubled the cost of the bathroom from roughly $20,000 to $40,000. Plus the cost of the construction drawings revisions, and we were suddenly looking at $50,000 each, to be fully compliant.

Many people assume that businesses resist accessibility out of indifference or because they’re being cheap. I’m sure that’s sometimes true, but it’s also too simplified. The reality is often more complex. Escalating costs before the business is even open is hard to stomach and often outside of a fairly fixed budget. Liability concerns emerge. Requirements expand in ways that aren’t always visible at the outset.

None of that makes accessibility less important. But it does raise a harder question: how do we design systems that encourage businesses to do more, rather than discouraging them from doing anything at all? Because when the gap between “no accommodation” and “full accommodation” becomes too large, and nothing in between is allowed, some businesses will do what they can to opt out entirely.

I’ve lived on both sides of this. I’ve been the parent who needed these accommodations to exist. And now I’m the business owner making decisions about whether and how to build them. That dual perspective hasn’t changed what I believe. But it has changed how I think we get there.

If we want more inclusive spaces, we have to think not just about what we require, but how we require it, and whether we’re letting “great” get in the way of “good enough”. Are there ways to structure these requirements so that businesses are more likely to opt in, rather than to avoid them altogether? For example, a phased approach where certain accommodations are required upfront and others are added over time might make it easier for businesses to move in the right direction without being overwhelmed at the outset.

It also raises questions about liability. If businesses are taking reasonable steps to reduce risk, like monitoring entrances, are there ways to acknowledge that effort and reduce their exposure? In other contexts, we recognize and protect good faith attempts to do the right thing; for example with Good Samaritan laws. It’s worth asking whether similar approaches could apply here, so that businesses aren’t discouraged from adding accommodations out of fear of what could happen if something goes wrong.

While I don’t have perfect answers, I’ve come to believe that how we structure these requirements matters. If the path to full compliance feels too difficult, fewer businesses will take the first step at all. Finding ways to support progress, while still moving toward meaningful inclusion, may ultimately lead to more accessible spaces, not fewer.