The Americans with Disabilities Act guarantees "equal access."  Since 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of the ADA, the I-Team asked people who use wheelchairs in Milwaukee, "What are the biggest challenges you still face?"

At the top of the list: parking problems in places you wouldn't expect.

Until an illness later in life left Judith Pipher stuck using a motorized scooter, she never gave getting around a second thought.

"I haven't been in this chair all my life," Pipher said. There are people who have been in chairs all their lives, because of that, I recognize the difference."

One big difference: better parking, at least in theory, right by the front door no matter where she went.

"It's not catering. It's giving equal access," Pipher explained, "It's trying to level the playing field. It's not to make it better; it's just trying to level it a little bit."

However, as Pipher soon found out, accessible parking in our area isn't always as accessible as you'd think.

At the brand-new Harley-Davidson Museum, Pipher has to deal with big rolling curbs, rather than ramps, at the head of the access aisles between the accessible parking spots.

"I scraped the curb with the foot rest [of my scooter], which means I can't get up the curb," complained Pipher

The only accessible route to the museum's front door takes Pipher out onto the street and around parked cars to a corner curb cut, which she feels is unsafe.

"These cars can back up at any time and they can't see me, because I'm so low," said Pipher.

The United States Access Board, the federal agency that deals with accessible design, specifically recommends that "the accessible route not require persons with disabilities to pass behind parked cars," but it's only a recommendation. The building codes enforced by the City of Milwaukee allow the round-a-bout routes despite the danger.

"It's sickening," said Pipher, "It really is sickening, because people think that people with disabilities aren't important."

We wanted to ask Harley-Davidson why not just install the safer ramps at the head of the parking spaces.

After repeated attempts to schedule and on-camera interview, we received an email from museum spokeswoman Amanda Lee who wrote, "We place a high priority on accessibility for persons with disabilities, and our site is fully compliant with all laws covering accessibility."

But Pipher's biggest beef may be with Bayshore Town Center in Glendale.

"I never noticed it before I started using a scooter either," said Pipher. "It takes doing it to recognize what the problem is."

The problem: none of the parking spaces on Bayshore's interior roadways, the spots closest to most of the stores, are striped accessible.

"You've got to take your wheelchair from the parking structure, parking lots, that are who knows how far away from the store, through snow-covered streets, up and down curbs in order to get in to the stores," Pipher explained.

"It's a typical gripe," said Harvey Rabinowitz, professor of architecture and urban planning at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

Rabinowitz blames a loophole in the law, thanks to Bayshore's unique "town center" design.

"Is it a downtown, or is it a mall? The people who looked at it in terms of the parking issues looked at it as a mall," Rabinowitz said.

Therefore, while the accessible parking spots in Bayshore's parking decks and surrounding lots are in the right place for a shopping mall, Rabinowitz says they're wrong for Bayshore.

"The code hasn't caught up with the design," explained Rabinowitz "There are a lot of things they've learned from Bayshore."

Bayshore management turned down our repeated requests for an interview. In a written statement sent to the I-Team by an outside public relations firm, Bayshore General Manager, Chris Jaeger, said, "Bayshore works hard to ensure that while here, our guests have the most enjoyable experience possible. We have diligently worked to make certain that all areas at Bayshore are in full compliance with ADA requirements."

Still, you'd think, after people like Pipher complained, Bayshore would simply re-stripe a few of the street-side spots to make things more "enjoyable" for people in wheelchairs.

"They're telling people we don't want you here, we don't care about people with disabilities," Pipher said.

Since the Harley-Davidson museum and Bayshore are the crown jewels of urban development in the Milwaukee area, it really surprised the I-Team that both facilities gave us the cold shoulder, sending prepared statements instead of talking to us directly about the concerns raised by advocates for the disabled. As a result, we really don't know what solutions they'll consider, if any.