Articles from prior issues of The Advocate

January/February, 1999

Disabled Access Committee Meets in Colorado
by Steve Bonowski, Colorado Chapter (CADE)

IN JUNE, 1997 THE FEDERAL Access Board appointed a regulatory negotiating committee (RegNeg) to develop a federal regulation to govern trails accessibility for disabled persons. The Access Board (full name: Architectural & Transportation Barriers Compliance Board) was created by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to monitor compliance with federal statutes concerning the disabled. More recently, the Board has been responsible for implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The RegNeg is composed of trails advocates, primarily from the East Coast area and advocates for the disabled. It’s worth pointing out here that the term “disabled” doesn’t include just wheel chair users, but also persons with heart conditions, other mobility problems, the blind, the deaf, and others. The RegNeg’s work involves more than a review of trails in urban areas, such as greenways (the Platte River Greenways in metro Denver is an example). The Committee’s jurisdiction will also include back country trails. Trails in designated federal wilderness areas are exempt from provisions of the ADA, so won’t be covered in the Committee’s work.

The RegNeg held one of its periodic meetings in October, 1998 at the Easter Seal Handi-Camp in Empire, Colorado. This writer attended parts of the four day
meeting as an observer for the Colorado Mountain Club. The Committee’s work is presently focused in two major areas. First is general scoping provisions for the regulation. Second is the area of technical provisions in trail construction. It should be noted that the regulation will apply only to new trail construction, both brand new as well as rebuilt or reconstruction trails. The actual term for all this is “newly constructed and altered outdoor developed areas.”

The scoping provision will address what percentage of trail construction in a given area must be accessible for the disabled. In an urban area, the percentage is expected to be fairly high. With paved greenway trails, there probably is no reason why a new trail shouldn’t be 100% accessible. The problem will come with back
country trails, which are the most primitive type of trail (there are also one or two intermediate trail types between urban and back country trails).

It is expected that the percentage of primitive, back country trails, accessible to the disabled, will be quite small. However, it is noted that in the Rocky Mountain Region of the Forest Service, there is a directive in place that allows wheelchairs to be used in designated federal wilderness areas. So, one should not assume automatically that back country trails can’t be used by persons with disabilities. One potential problem is a suggestion that if a proposed new trail is in an area that isn’t accessible, the land manager would be required to construct a second trail in the same general vicinity that is accessible. In this time of major budget
shortfalls for land managers, such a provision could be a major stumbling block in getting needed new trails constructed.

Other problems might include what happens with a new trail that enters a designated wilderness area after a couple miles. Does the trail automatically become inaccessible once the wilderness boundary is crossed? There is another issue for states like Colorado that may have wilderness bills under development. What happens with new trail construction that starts in a regular back country area that is then made a designated wilderness area? There is also a concern regarding if the trails members of the RegNeg have enough understanding of Western public lands and trails issues. Technical provisions will include such things as width of trails; design of campgrounds & fire rings; slope and grade of trails; construction materials; etc. The RegNeg has one more meeting scheduled for
January. The current plan is for the proposed rule to be published in the Federal Register for public comment sometime in March. Given the vagaries of the regulatory process, it is quite possible the rule may not be published on time.

NADE members interested in learning more about the trails access issue can contact this writer at

PO Box 280286
Lakewood, CO 80228

or write to

The American Hiking Society
1422 Fenwick Lane
Silver Spring, MD 20910