Accessible Icon (dynamic wheelchair symbol)

How to read it

The Accessible Icon is a redrawing of the International Symbol of Access made by the Accessible Icon Project in Boston. Its figure leans forward, “italicized” in the project’s word, with an arm pushing the wheel, and there is one wheel with two cutouts to suggest motion and make it easy to stencil. The project began when Sara Hendren and Brian Glenney started altering the blue and white signs at accessible parking spaces, and in 2011 made a clear-backed sticker that put the new figure over the old one so both showed. The graphic designer Tim Ferguson Sauder then drew the formal icon. The project says the icon is free for use in the public domain, and that money from its sticker and stencil sales goes to Triangle, Inc., a Boston non-profit for adults with disabilities that runs the project with it. It also says the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has accessioned the work for its permanent collection.

Also searched as: Accessible Icon Project, active wheelchair symbol, dynamic accessibility symbol, moving wheelchair symbol, new wheelchair symbol.

Where it is the law

New York is the clearest case. Section 101 of its Executive Law directs the Secretary of State to require that wherever the universal symbol of access of a figure in a wheelchair appears, it instead shows “a logo with a dynamic character leaning forward with a sense of movement”, on new and replaced signs only. Rehabilitation International, which adopted the original symbol, says New York adopted the new one in 2014 and that Connecticut and several Western states have considered it.

The disagreement over replacing the ISA

The US Access Board’s guidance of March 2017 is that a symbol other than the ISA does not comply with the ADA Standards unless it meets their “equivalent facilitation” provision, and that the burden of proving that falls on the covered entity, the business or public body that put the sign up, if it is challenged in court. Where the ADA Standards require the ISA, the Board says, it is required even where a state or local code names a different symbol. Rehabilitation International reports that the International Organization for Standardization has argued against the new design because the original is recognised everywhere, and that some disability rights activists think the new symbol implies prejudice toward people with more serious disabilities. Its supporters, RI says, want the symbol to show an acceptance of disabled people that does not underestimate them. The project’s own answer to people who don’t push their own chairs is that the arm pushing the wheel is symbolic, as all icons are. This page describes those positions and is not legal advice.

Look-alikes

The International Symbol of Access sits upright, square-backed, with its arm straight out in front and a single open wheel. The Accessible Icon’s head is forward of its body, its arm reaches back, and its wheel is broken by two gaps. The project drew its icon white on blue, the colours of the original.