How to Make Your Park More Accessible

Parks offer people a space to enhance their social interactions, health and well-being. However, some lack features that allow people with disabilities to reap these benefits fully. City planners, park managers and landscape designers must make parks accessible to accommodate people of all abilities. These accommodations include wide pathways, auditory aids, floating docks with security curbing and clear signage.

Learn more about the importance of park accessibility and how to make your park more accessible so everyone can enjoy and benefit from it.

Why Park Accessibility Matters

Parks offer health benefits like mental restoration and a better mood for people of all abilities. Park accessibility helps people of all backgrounds enjoy the beauty of a public space and make memories together.

Accessibility in public areas like parks is a crucial aspect of upholding the rights and dignity of all people. Here are some of the benefits:

• Improves quality of life: Accessible environments provide welcoming physical spaces for individuals with disabilities where everyone feels like a part of the community.
• Encourages inclusion: Inclusive spaces remove physical and social barriers, allowing people with disabilities to engage in community activities.
• Meets legal obligations: All public parks must meet the Mandate of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires all public sites to be accessible to people of all abilities.
• Offers more stable walkways: Making your park accessible involves adding railings, slip-resistant flooring and widening pathways. If your park is by water, floating docks and boat slips provide more stability on the water to people of all abilities.
• Provides benefits for all: Accessible spaces benefit people with disabilities, older adults and families with strollers. Accessible features make the park more fun and comfortable for all.

Legal Requirements and Guidelines

The Department of Justice adopted the ADA Standards for Accessible Design in 1991 and revised them in 2010 to provide more guidance on accessible spaces. The ADA guidelines ensure that recreational areas and parks are accessible to people with disabilities by outlining standards for recreational facilities, parking, restrooms and pathways.

Accessible parks must meet the ADA’s standards by providing accessible features. For example, they should include:

• Visual or auditory aids
• Specialized equipment and ramps
• Restrooms with grab bars, spacious stalls and noticeable signage

Parks must also structure their layouts to accommodate people with disabilities by positioning accessible parking spaces near the entrances. Ensuring clear, wide and slip-resistant pathways also helps people who use mobility aids, such as wheelchairs, walkers or crutches.

The ADA’s comprehensive standards help people of all abilities enjoy parks to the fullest and easily navigate them.

What Are Pathway Accessibility Standards?

A key element to consider when making local parks, recreation areas and state parks accessible is pathways. For people with disabilities to access the different features of your park, they need to be able to reach each one easily. You need to provide them with physical, sensory and cognitive cues that make navigation simple:

• Sensory accessibility: To help people with hearing or visual impairments, incorporate features like audio descriptions, Braille signage and visual alarms.
• Physical accessibility: Include elevators, tactile paving, wide doorways and ramps to make navigating your park easier for people with mobility impairments.
• Cognitive accessibility: Design your park simply. Avoid clutter, include plain-language signage and provide alternative forms of information to make it clear to people with cognitive disabilities.
• Inclusive amenities: Ensure your park’s facilities accommodate people of all abilities, from seating areas and restrooms to recreational spaces. Keep inclusivity at the forefront of your design process.

Creating Accessible Pathways

Pathways are crucial to park accessibility. You must ensure they are easy to navigate. To do this, make them level, slip-resistant, stable and wide enough for people with mobility impairments or aids to traverse quickly. Keeping pathways clear and free of any obstacles or barriers also benefits people with disabilities.

Another way to make pathways more accessible is to use high-contrast markings and colors. These help people with visual impairments easily distinguish different areas, objects and surfaces.

You can make pathways more accessible by including seating and shelter along them. These allow people of all abilities to rest, relax and protect themselves from the elements. Having a mix of seating with and without armrests also benefits more visitors. For example, it’s easier for people in wheelchairs to transfer to a picnic table or bench without armrests.

Providing relief areas for service dogs along your park’s pathways is also a beneficial accessibility feature.

Following Design Standards

The ADA details design practices to guide you through making your park compliant. They include the ideal pathway width, ramp slopes and parking space requirements.

Follow these guidelines for ADA compliance at your park:

• Pathway width: Pathways must be at least 36 inches wide, and passage points and doorways must have at least 32 inches of clear width.
• Ramp slopes: Create a 1:12 height to ramp length slope to make ramps wheelchair accessible. Top, bottom and interval landings must be level.
• Routes: To make park areas accessible, ensure pathways lead directly to all park areas, like restrooms, change rooms and playgrounds.
• Signage: Place signs at accessible heights and ensure that fonts and symbols are large and easily read. Include tactile and Braille signs for people with visual impairments.
• Parking: Use signage to designate parking spaces for people with disabilities, and position them as close as possible to the park entrance. Ensure parking spaces are at least 96 inches wide for cars and at least 132 inches wide for vans, both with access aisles at least 60 inches wide.
• Waterfronts: If your park is on the water, include sloped entries and transfer aids like a kayak launch to make entry points accessible. Ensure changing areas offer enough room for wheelchairs to maneuver in.
• Lighting: Include well-lit, uniform lighting levels along pathways to provide optimum visibility.
• Traffic flow: Ensure comfortable navigation by keeping pathways clear of obstacles.
• Inclusive design: Create spaces using universal design principles to make them accessible to people of all abilities.

What Are Some Examples of Inclusive Playground Features?

Contrary to popular belief, accessible playgrounds aren’t the same as inclusive playgrounds. Instead, accessibility is a piece of the inclusivity puzzle. Inclusive playgrounds allow people of all ages and abilities to play, grow and learn together.

To do more than offer park accessibility, focus on making it inclusive. A good starting point is inclusive playgrounds, which help children of all abilities develop emotionally, socially, physically and cognitively. They offer each child the right level of challenge while meeting their interests and needs through different play experiences.

Visitors can get more than wheelchair accessibility with inclusive playgrounds. They offer play options for children and adults of all abilities:

• Sensory play areas: To accommodate children with autism spectrum disorder, incorporate play equipment like sensory domes, water features, tactile panels and musical instruments.
• Wheelchair-accessible swings: Provide swings with safety harnesses and back support.
• Rubberized mats or poured-in-place rubber: Use surfaces made with rubber that support mobility devices and are smooth, soft and shock-absorbent.
• Wide ramps and transfer platforms: Accommodate people who use mobility aids with elevated platforms for comfortable transferring from wheelchairs and ramps with gradual slopes for easy navigation.
• Braille labels: Assist people with visual impairments using signs with Braille.
• Round tables: Round tables without legs in the center provide easy access to tables from all sides.
• Shaded seating areas: Offer quiet, shaded, wheelchair- and caregiver-accommodating seating and tables.
• Net climbers: Incorporate net climbers for structures so children of all abilities can climb them.
• Light features: Create visually stimulating pathways by illuminating them or using color-changing lights.
• Color-coded paths: Guide children through the playground using color-marked routes.

How to Create an Accessible Dock Design

The ADA aims to ensure people with disabilities have equal access to public spaces, including boating facilities. If you want to make an accessible park on the water, you need to accommodate features like kayak launches, fishing piers, docks and swim platforms for them.

To make your park on the water ADA-compliant, you must fit recreational facilities with various accessibility features. Here are key structures to add to your docks:

• Railings: Railings make your dock safer and easier to traverse. They’re ideal for areas that are windy or have rough waters. You can accommodate people of different abilities with EZ Dock modular railings, which you can easily modify to suit ADA standards. Adding lights on these handrails also improves safety in low light.
• Gangways: When docks are challenging to access from the shore, gangways are an effective solution. EZ Dock offers durable, easy-to-clean gangways with different kits to suit your needs.
• Floating walkways: If you want a walkway on the water, EZ Dock EZ Trail is the perfect floating option. It’s environmentally friendly and meets ADA guidelines.
• Boat slips: The ADA has guidelines regarding the number of accessible boat slips required among your total. For example, at least 2 out of 50 must be accessible.
• Security curbing: You can make your docks safer and ADA-compliant by including short barriers around the perimeter of the pier or walkway. This security curbing prevents wheelchairs from rolling off them.

EZ Dock floating docks and walkways offer various customization options, allowing you to make them ADA-accessible. They also provide the added benefits of a stable chamber design and slip-resistant polyethylene material, which is ideal for people with mobility impairments.

What Are the Best Waterfront Access Solutions for Accessibility?

Waterfront access is integral to enhancing the accessibility of parks on the water. An excellent solution to achieve this is using the ADA drive-through EZ Launch system. It features a transfer bench that makes it easier and more comfortable for people with disabilities.

This kayak launch offers more stability for people with disabilities when launching and docking their watercraft. It even comes with a security curbing to keep wheelchairs on it.

The EZ Launch system is built for paddlers and offers straightforward boarding, launching and recovery. Users can easily glide onto it thanks to the rollers and guide rails it features. It follows ADA guidelines, and you can configure it to exceed universal accessibility standards.

People with disabilities can also benefit from the EZ Launch’s stable polyethylene floating chamber system and the ample space around its transfer bench. EZ Dock Kayak and Canoe Launches are ideal and accessible for paddlers of all abilities.

Incorporating Seating and Rest Areas

You can enhance your waterfront areas by providing rest and seating areas for users. Whether they’re after quiet spaces, a spot to take a load off or a place with a beautiful view, dock benches offer comfort on the water. These benches are a must-have for any floating dock or walkway.

Opt for EZ Dock polyethylene benches, which are easy to install on your floating dock. They offer extra durability and weather resistance and benefit people with mobility impairments. Their polyethylene material also makes them easy to maintain, only requiring regular cleaning. They even feature cupholders, armrests and waterproof cushions for added comfort and convenience.

Why Choose EZ Dock for Accessibility Solutions?

Innovation is the foundation of EZ Dock, so we make products that accommodate people of different abilities. Our dedication to continuous improvement has helped us create stable, accessible, low-maintenance and long-lasting items.

Here’s why EZ Dock stands out for accessibility solutions:

• Stable: Using a rotomolding process that ensures consistently thick and durable walls, we make flotation chambers out of marine-grade polyethylene. This design enables our floating platforms to be one of the most stable by trapping air. Their stability makes them ideal for people with mobility impairments.
• Customizable: Our products are modular, meaning you can customize their layout and add various features to improve park accessibility. We offer a range of accessories and configurations, like the EZ Dock EZ Launch Systems, to help you meet or exceed ADA standards.
• Accessible: We work with experts to configure our products to meet the U.S. Access Board Regulatory guidelines, ADA standards and global accessibility requirements. Many of our items offer ADA accessibility features like gentle transitions and slopes; wide, stable platforms; slip-resistant, high-traction surfaces; and methodically placed railings.
• Low maintenance and long-lasting: Our products are easy to maintain, requiring minimal upkeep. Polyethylene is peel-, crack- and fade-resistant, and unlike wood, will never rot or splinter, meaning people of all abilities can enjoy its use for decades with proper care.

Make Your Park Accessible With EZ Dock

EZ Dock offers durability, accessibility and flexibility with every product. We have over 26 years of experience creating long-lasting, low-maintenance floating docks to suit your needs. Whether you want to make an accessible floating walkway or several accessible boat slips, we offer customization options to help you realize your vision.

Request a quote or contact us today to start designing floating docks, walkways and EZ Launches that will make your park accessible for decades.