That’s your experience/opinion but it’s a step too far to claim ADA reqs should be applied universally and are an unalloyed good. For instance, some badly needed housing has routinely been denied because it’s too often impossible to make, say, accessory dwelling units wheelchair friendly. These ADA requirements thus limit supply, in turn raising rents, and causing real harm to younger, poorer people who are without affordable homes. Your example about contrast correction reeks of entitlement as well. I am also older, and bought a pair of reading glasses instead of expecting to push the cost onto society as a whole.
As someone with an architecture, building science and accessibility background I challenge that.
Done well, building new affordable housing with appropriate accessibility does nothing to cut into profit margins for builders. The tax breaks and other pubic dollars almost always deliver more than the cost of ensuring common areas are accessible and a few units have slightly varied doors and bathrooms (mostly.)
That builders don't want to build more affordable housing is its own problem, but not because of ADA requirements. In general, the ADA doesn't say much about low income housing except explicitly government owned and managed housing, BTW. The ADA is overwhelmingly concerned with public accommodations (businesses open to the public) and government and public spaces, not private home construction.)
It's almost exclusively the lower profit margins for price capped construction and not the minimal a11y requirements easily covered for anyone taking public money and who is building affordable housing and not taking government money, that are the root of our affordable housing shortage.
Accessibility is an unalloyed good and your bogus attempt at providing an alternative example is easily shot down. Pick an example you actually know something about and try again.
