What is Inclusion

Here is a slide from a talk given at Ted by one of the founders of Magical Bridge playground. it shows that ADA compliant playground design  only covers wheelchairs users who are only 10% of the people with special needs

 My definition

 

A senior who uses a wheelchair, asked me if I could let her know if there were any inclusive playgrounds in NYC. I asked her
to define inclusive playground  She said a park that would have activities for her to participate in. I could not think of many

parks in NYC that are inclusive for her as person with a disability specificallyt any near where she lived. . Distance to a park is very important, especially so for
people with special needs, and the parks that are inclusive for her are not convenient, so she will not use them.

 

  my definition of inclusivity

 

If a park offers activities that you want to do then it's inclusive for you  , if it doesn't offer activities you want to do then it is not inclusive for you

 

 

Philadelphia is
now addressing this issue, they passed a bill that all their parks become inclusive. However some cities have trouble affording
even 1 inclusive park , much less to make all their parks inclusive. Following are ways, modeled on partransit, to create
affordable convenient inclusive parks.

Paratransit works so that “individuals with disabilities who are unable to use accessible mass transit for some or all of their trips
must be provided with paratransit." How about in addition to “mass transit “( fixed recreation equipment) parks provide
“paratransit” ( flexible inclusive recreation equipment) so as to meet the recreation needs of people with special needs who
unable to use their parks fixed recreation offerings.

 

this site is not about Recreation programs for people with special needs where the person has to travel to the program. This is about taking the park a few blocks away from a special needs person and giving them activities that they can do in that Park a part where they could get to everyday without having to travel and doing so today not years from now.