The planned looping of the public hearing rooms and galleries in the Arizona statehouse makes it, to the best of Arizona officials’ knowledge, the first statehouse in the nation to make communication access in all such rooms available to those with hearing loss via hearing loop/telecoil technology.
The state of Arizona is a leader in addressing the needs and concerns of those with hearing loss through this action and by adopting legislation requiring the counseling of hearing aid buyers in loop/telecoil technology prior to the dispensing of hearing aids that was passed nearly a decade ago.
This project joins many others currently being undertaken or completed by various governmental entities through the nation that includes the Detroit Metropolitan Airport partnering with Delta Airlines to loop all of the Delta gates at that facility making it the 4th Michigan airport to offer such technology. The first was the Gerald Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, MI where all gates and the concourse were looped for several years ago.
In San Francisco, one of the busiest Bay Area Rapid Transit stops will not only follow the lead of the hundreds of looped information/toll booths at all New York City subway stops but go the next step and also loop the platform where trains are boarded and exited and where announcements are normally very difficult to hear.
Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, the long anticipated looping of the platforms at the city's Intermodal Station was completed in March. The station services commuter and long distance trains plus over the road and local buses with 1.3 million passengers a year passing through this busy station.
The list of looped city council chambers in the nation continues to expand with Seattle and Bellvue, WA and St.Louis Park, MN joining those in such diverse locations as Albuquerque, NM, Sarasota, FL, South Pasadena, CA and a host of others around the US showing that government decision makers are hearing the call of the Hearing Loss Association of America and electing to Get in the Hearing Loop.