ADA Parking Lot Compliance in Sisters, Oregon: 2026 Guide

ADA Compliance in a Tourist Town

Sisters is a small Deschutes County town at the foot of the Cascades, where a Western-themed downtown along Cascade Avenue draws steady tourist traffic and events like the quilt show and rodeo bring big seasonal surges. Most of the commercial parking here is compact — boutique retail, galleries, restaurants, and the lots serving travelers headed over the McKenzie and Santiam passes. The town's small scale and tourism-heavy traffic make accessible parking especially visible, and the ADA applies to all of it: the moment the public can park on your lot, federal accessibility standards govern, with no grandfather clause for the older downtown lots.

If you own or manage commercial property in Sisters, the Americans with Disabilities Act (Title III) controls your parking. This guide covers what compliance looks like locally. For the statewide framework, start with our ADA parking compliance guide for Oregon, then use this page for the Sisters-specific detail.

How Many Accessible Spaces a Sisters Lot Needs

The 2010 ADA Standards set the accessible count by total spaces.

Total Spaces	Required Accessible Spaces
1–25	1
26–50	2
51–75	3
76–100	4
101–150	5
151–200	6
201–300	7

The count rises above 300 toward 2 percent of total on very large lots. Most Sisters lots are small — the downtown storefronts and restaurants typically need one or two accessible spaces. Whatever the size, the van rule holds: at least one in six accessible spaces (rounded up) must be van-accessible, so even a small Sisters lot's single accessible stall must be van-built. See how many accessible spaces your lot needs for the full table. For tourist-town businesses, it is worth remembering the count is based on your striped capacity, not your peak event demand.

Stall and Aisle Dimensions

Dimensions are where small downtown Sisters lots most often slip out of compliance, usually from restriping over faded lines without measuring.

• Standard accessible stall: at least 8 feet wide
• Van-accessible stall: at least 8 feet wide with an 8-foot access aisle (or 11 feet wide with a 5-foot aisle)
• Standard access aisle: 5 feet wide with diagonal hatching
• Vertical clearance for van routes: 98 inches

The access aisle is the striped, hatched zone beside the stall that lets a wheelchair user deploy a ramp or lift. It must connect to an accessible route to the door, sit level with the stall, and carry "NO PARKING." Two adjacent accessible stalls can share one aisle — the efficient layout for a tight Sisters lot. On busy tourist days, a clearly hatched aisle matters more than ever, because it is the first thing visitors try to park in when the lot fills.

The 2 Percent Slope Rule

Every accessible stall and aisle must stay under 2 percent slope in all directions. Sisters sits on sloping high-desert ground near the mountains, so some lots were marginal when built and others have drifted out of tolerance as the asphalt settled. A stall measuring 2.4 percent is a violation even if it looks flat. Slope problems generally require regrading or a patch rather than paint, so they are worth catching during a planned project.

Signage and Oregon's Fine Plate

Federal rules require a sign at each accessible stall showing the International Symbol of Accessibility, mounted so the bottom sits at least 60 inches above the pavement; van stalls add a "Van Accessible" plate. Oregon adds a step many owners miss: under ORS 447.233, the sign must also display the fine amount for parking illegally in the space. A sign missing the Oregon fine plate is non-compliant even when it meets every federal spec. Our ADA parking sign placement page covers the mounting detail.

Keeping Markings Legible Near the Cascades

Sisters gets intense high-desert summer UV and hard mountain-edge winters with freeze-thaw and snow load — a combination that bleaches paint and works at the surface. A washed-out accessibility symbol, faded aisle hatching, or a barely visible stall border can be cited as a failure, not just a cosmetic problem. Inspect striping annually and repaint the symbol, hatching, and borders before they drop below clear visibility. Snow removal in winter is hard on markings too, so plowed lots tend to need refreshing sooner.

When Repaving Triggers Upgrades

Routine maintenance — sealcoating, crack filling, patching, restriping existing lines — does not trigger new ADA obligations, though you can never make the lot less accessible than it is. An alteration does. If you overlay, reconstruct, regrade, or expand a Sisters lot, you trigger the duty to bring the altered area and the path of travel up to current standards to the maximum extent feasible. That is the cheapest moment to fix counts, widen aisles, and correct slope, since the lot is already under construction.

A Practical Sisters Compliance Checklist

• Count total spaces and confirm required accessible and van stalls
• Measure each accessible stall and aisle with a tape, not by eye
• Check slope in all directions on every accessible stall and aisle
• Confirm each sign hits 60 inches and carries the Oregon fine plate
• Verify a continuous accessible route runs from stalls to the door
• Repaint faded symbols, hatching, and borders before they become a liability

Most Sisters lots that fail an audit fail on two or three of these, not all, so compliance is usually a focused fix rather than a rebuild. The honest way to know is a measured assessment. Cojo Excavation & Asphalt serves Sisters and the surrounding Deschutes County area, and one visit tells you whether your lot is compliant or what it takes to get there. Compare costs with our parking lot striping in Sisters guide, and learn the inspection side with what an ADA compliance audit covers.