There’s a perfectly healthy gentleman zipping around central Manteca in a powered wheelchair who doesn’t need it.
But he’s not abusing the system, far from it. He’s working to improve the mobility of the handicapped in Manteca.
He’s a consultant the city has hired to check every driveway, handicapped ramp, and change in elevations on municipal sidewalks in Central Manteca.
He’s conducting an inventory of all such slopes in the public right-of-way where handicapped individuals travel in the area bounded by Louise Avenue, Powers Avenue, Center Street, and Main Street.
“It’s part of a city effort to make sure we comply to (American with Disabilities Act) regulations and to determine where we need to make improvements so we can budget for them in future years,” noted Joe Kriskovich who oversees Manteca’s municipal risk management endeavors.
The Sacramento-based consultant rides a power chair over the inclines. He then gets out and takes appropriate measurements.
The entire area is expected to take him 3.5 weeks to cover. It entails almost 42 miles of city sidewalks.
“We eventually will do the entire city,” Kriskovich noted. “We started (there) because it was the oldest part of Manteca.”
The city each year has been spending money to make ADA upgrades. Much of the work has been done at intersections to eliminate curbs for wheelchairs. The biggest current ADA undertaking involves upgrades at the city council chambers.
A new main entrance is being put in place with a wheelchair friendly slope to reach automatic doors that can be activated at wheelchair level by pushing a button. Slope issues are also being changed from getting to the parking lot to the sidewalk as well as inside the council chambers.
City surveying sidewalks for ADA compliance

