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America's National Treasures
Visiting the country's national parks is an unforgettable experience—one people with disabilities can enjoy more frequently.
View ForumRoxanne Patin's excited middle-school students touch the bark of a giant sequoia, marvel at fresh mountain snow, and are challenged to create a rope circle large enough to hold the entire class. They are spending the week as residential campers at the Yosemite Institute, located in Yosemite National Park in northern California. But 30 years ago such a trip would have been nearly impossible for these youngsters who have physical and learning disabilities.
When planning facilities and programming for people with disabilities, the National Park Service (NPS) is getting better at providing access for people with disabilities, but more work still needs to be done.
Ramps and pathways allow people with disabilities to access the Old Point Loma Lighthouse's first floor.
"Programmatically, we have barely scratched the surface," says Ray Bloomer, director of technical assistance and education for the National Center on Accessibility and an NPS accessibility specialist.
Moving Forward
Much of the progress made in recent decades was spurred by three important pieces of legislation: The Architectural Barriers Act of 1968, the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, and the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). The Architectural Barriers Act requires buildings be made accessible for people with mobility limitations. Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act mandates programs for people with disabilities but doesn't stipulate how they are to be conducted. ADA goes a step further and states that any state, local, or federal project that receives federal dollars must be accessible.
Recent park planning is being guided by the principle of universal design, which seeks to increase accessibility for all visitors. For example, a bronze sculpture of Yosemite Falls serves people with visual impairments but also gives everyone a tactile experience. The Yosemite rangers frequently pour a cup of water on this sculpture to demonstrate how water moves over the glaciated landscape.
Though NPS has shown interest in improving accessibility, a recent panel of park visitors with disabilities gave critical testimony before the Resources Subcommittee on National Parks about their experiences. One witness said her daughter, who has a hearing loss, was unable to obtain audio aids at any of the national parks they visited. Another reported people with physical disabilities were prohibited from using Segways at the Jefferson Memorial and Zion National Park because they were considered motorized vehicles.
According to Karl Pierce, chief interpretive ranger at Cabrillo National Monument near San Diego, the greatest challenges to making parks more accessible are adequate funding, staffing, time, and technological limitations. Another challenge is the tension between the NPS mandate to leave park resources "unimpaired for future generations" and its obligation to make them accessible. These dual goals can create hard choices for managing historic and natural resources in the national parks.
Check out the complete article in the May 2008 S'NS.
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