About
Access Recreation is a Portland, Oregon ad hoc committee that had developed guidelines for minimum information that should be provided about hiking trails and outdoor facilities, that would benefit hikers with disabilities, and which should be applied to agency websites, printed materials and at trail sites.
Based on the success of the guidelines, as of 2014 AR was awarded two Nature in Neighborhoods (NIN) grants from Metro to conduct 36 trail reviews and to produce 18 videos over a three-year period. Click here for the dedicated AccessTrails website.
Access Recreation was conceived by Georgena Moran who had discovered, as a wheelchair user, that the primary obstacle to being able to hike trails was a lack of useful information.
The committee is made up of dozens of representatives from federal, state and local park agencies and many other organizations that support people with disabilities.
A message from Georgena Moran, Access Recreation Project Coordinator
Living in Portland, Oregon, I feel fortunate to be surrounded by so much natural beautyand to have such great hiking and outdoor resources all around me. But, as a wheelchairuser, I also feel the frustration of not having access to reliable and meaningful informationabout those hiking opportunities. I feel that printed materials and online resources varygreatly in the information provided and often are offered with little understanding of whatis most useful to people with different types of disabilities.
My belief is that there are actually many trails that could be used by people withdisabilities, but what is lacking is the information to make an informed decision. Theconcept is simple and empowering – people can make their own determinations if theyare just provided the right information. Conversely, it is frustrating to make the effort to visita site only to discover that it is unusable and perhaps for the most inconsequential reason.
Several years ago, I decided to improve that situation and convened a team thatincluded representatives from federal, state and local parks departments to developcommon standards for providing information that would better inform people withdisabilities. This Access Recreation Committee developed Guidelines based on itscollective experience and with the expectation that public agencies in the region wouldstrive for a common standard of trail description and information sharing.
A generous grant in 2011 from the Recreational Trails Program of the Oregon Parks andRecreation Department has now made it possible to further develop these Guidelines andto publish this web-document. These Guidelines do not propose to alter existing trails asmuch as to improve the quality of information that is provided about them. The team issensitive to the difficulty public agencies have to implement many new programs, so theunderlying premise was to divide the Guidelines into two phases:
- Primary information that can be provided readily and at no cost to the respective agency.
- Additional information that can be added over time as funding becomes available.
I hope you will find as much benefit from our effort as the enthusiasm we have felt inassembling this document for you.
Sincerely,Georgena Moran
Georgena Moran
Access Recreation Project Coordinator