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Here!  Here!

posted 2 years, 9 months ago
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Greetings!  Sadly, I misssed the show today, but will listen to the re-broadcast tonight.  A friend emailed me to check it out because my wife and I have started a charity with the goal of building an inclusive playground at Arbor Lodge Park in North Portland.  We believe the ADA has not gone nearly far enough with regards to playground structures.  The current playground structure at Arbor Lodge Park receives the ADA accessible stamp along with the side view logo of the stick figure in the wheelchair, when it is actually very far from an accessible play structure.  All it took was a small ramp in the corner of the grounds which leads someone using a wheelchair into a pit of wood chips.  Accessible?  You can get down to that level, but even the strongest person would be quite challenged to navigate a wheeled device across those chips to get to the structure.  Our daughter, Harper, is certainly unable to navigate to it.  Even someone able to power across the chips to the structure would be very hard-pressed to make use of it at all.  The structure offers a "transfer station" to help make sure that the park is following the letter of the law, if not the spirit of it.  Our parks and school yard play structures are lagging far behind where they should be.  If the park at Arbor Lodge truly has earned the "ADA Accessible" stamp, then the ADA is not written nearly stongly enough.  In the meantime, we're taking matters into our own hands by fundraising to build an inclusive playground at our neighborhood park, Arbor Lodge Park.  Check it out at:  www.harpersplayground.com

Thanks,

Cody

posted 2 years, 9 months ago
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