Wheelchair Accessible Parks are part of the American’s With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. The ADA was established on July 26, 1990 by President George Bush, and was developed to ensure that Americans with disabilities (and those who are in wheelchairs for any reason) will be treated equally in terms of employment and in regards to accessing buildings and any types of public facilities.

When the ADA became effective, it became obvious that many public locations, including national, state, city, and even local parks and recreation areas needed renovations in order to be in compliance with it. As recently as 1997, President Bill Clinton stated in an address on “An Update to Enforcing the ADA,” that there is much more to do before all public recreation areas are in compliance with the ADA, and many are still in need of drastic modifications.

It has been almost 10 years since President Clinton reminded Americans that there is much more to be done to ensure that everyone (using a wheelchair or not), can enjoy all parks and recreation areas equally. The official wording of the ADA states that all public accommodations must be in compliance with the Act, and that a park, a zoo, an amusement park, or any other place of recreation is considered public, even if it’s on private land.

Knowing the words of the law, it can all assume that by now… 16 years after it was enacted, all parks and recreation areas are now completely wheelchair accessible. Right? Wrong.

It is true that most parks are handicap accessible. Most will offer wheelchair facilities, such as bathrooms and wheelchair ramps, and all probably all have handicap parking spaces. However, a person in a wheelchair may experience different types of handicap facilities at individual parks, and may find that some sections of a park are more accessible than others.

Most parks included in the United States Department of the Interior’s National Parks Service are wheelchair accessible. Even if the parks were not originally designed to be wheelchair accessible, they have been modified over the past 16 years to be more accommodating.

Luckily, today’s world is high-tech world and searching for information on the internet is easy. It’s relatively simple to determine which parks in the United States (and even the world) are wheelchair accessible. There are numerous websites that lists an unbelievable amount of information meant to provide information, tips and resources for people in wheelchairs. Included are lists of various parks and recreation areas that are known to be wheelchair accessible.

Also, most parks which have a website (usually the larger ones) will list the park’s specific handicap amenities. Most ensure that the park has handicap parking, wheelchair accessible ramps, paths or trails that can accommodate a wheelchair, etc.

The most obvious problems with wheelchair accessibilities are with smaller, older playground areas parks. Not only do many older parks not necessarily have wheelchair accessibility, but the play areas do not accommodate children in wheelchairs.

Most modern playgrounds, and those which are in the planning phases and not yet built, will commonly abide by the following rules: they will provide a play area suitable for ALL children, no matter their ages and abilities. New play areas will also include ramps for wheelchairs and also play equipment for handicap children, such as swings with backs, water fountains that are wheelchair accessible and picnic tables that can accommodate a wheelchair.

Parks in the United States are striving for complete wheelchair accessibility, but are they are not all compliant with the ADA yet. It seems that such modifications should not take two decades, but evidently it has for some locations. Regardless, the internet can provide a resource and lots of information for determining which specific parks are wheelchair accessible and which parks are the best ones to visit.