Accessible Trails "A Leap of Faith"

October 30, 2000
by David Startzell, Executive Director of the Appalachian Trail Conference
reprinted from Pathways Across America published by the American Hiking Society, with permission.

Are New Federal Rules a Nightmare or Just Misunderstood?

"Accessibility for the disabled" is coming to the National Trails System. Like other national parks and forests, the Appalachian and the other national scenic and historic trails are subject to federal laws passed over the last thirty years regarding access for people with disabilities. New federal accessibility regulations that will affect how all trails are constructed could be in place by next year.

Advisory Committee Convened
The proposed new regulations were developed by an advisory committee of twenty-five people appointed by the United States Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, better known as the "Access Board." Peter Jensen, from the Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC) Board of Managers, and I served as representative and alternate, respectively, on the advisory committee. About half of the committee were people with disabilities or representatives for groups associated with particular disabilities; the other half represented various federal and state agencies and groups such as ATC and American Trails, as well as recreational businesses such as Kampgrounds of America (KOA). Beginning in 1997 and concluding last year, the advisory committee met on ten occasions, for three to four days each time, with sessions often extending from early morning to late at night. The meetings functioned as a process of negotiations designed to come up with a reasonable plan for making all U.S. recreational facilities more accessible to the disabled. The committee's report, issued in January, will be sent out later this year for public comment after a final review by the federal Office of Management and Budget. It would be difficult to participate in such a process and not come away with a heightened sense of awareness of the challenges that people with disabilities face in gaining access to outdoor-recreation areas.

Compromise At Heart of Outcome
For the most part, the outcome satisfied members of the disabled community and recreation providers alike. But, compromise is at the heart of any negotiation, regulatory or otherwise. In that respect, neither side got everything it wanted. The disabled community wanted a "bright line;" they wanted the recommendations to be very clear about the number or percentage of recreational elements required to meet accessibility standards. They feared some recreation providers would exploit ambiguities in order to avoid meeting the requirements. With respect to the recommendations affecting trails, there is no "bright line." Considerable discretion will remain with the recreation provider. Recreation providers feared that, even if considerable discretion were permitted, regulations could be misinterpreted, requiring them to make modifications to accommodate access for disabled people, even where such modifications were never intended. The final recommendations do not necessarily remove that risk.

Agreement Required "Leap of Faith"
In a sense, both factions were forced to take a "leap of faith" and accept that, somehow, a commonsense interpretation of the recommendations will prevail. Only time will tell whether such faith is justified. The greatest emphasis of the recommendations is on people with mobility impairments, who require the assistance of wheelchairs, motorized scooters, or prosthetics, and, to a lesser extent, people with vision or hearing impairments. The proposed regulations are not mostly aimed at long wilderness trails, such as the Appalachian and other scenic trails, but at beaches, campgrounds, public parks, and other facilities in areas with road access. Assumption of Accessibility Should Be In New Trail Design The committee recommended an "exceptions-based approach" for trails. This means the decision-maker begins by assuming that accessibility can be incorporated into the design and construction of the trail or trail segment. In other words, to paraphrase one of the committee members, "access should be 'on the table' whenever decisions are made affecting outdoor-recreation facilities, including trails," in much the same way as we presently consider slope, surface conditions, and a host of other issues.

Exceptions Provided In Certain Conditions
With this "exceptions-based" approach all trails will not be required to meet accessibility standards. In the first place, the standards apply only to new construction or substantial alterations to existing trails or trail segments. New shelters, bridges, and new sections of trail longer than five hundred feet, however, will not be exempt, and trail designers will have to consider access issues as they are being designed. Even so the proposed policy includes exceptions that may permit them to be built in many circumstances and locations without elaborate access features. The affected segment must be connected to an accessible trailed or to another accessible segment. The regulations would not apply to trail segments "in the middle of nowhere." Another general exception would effectively eliminate from consideration trail segments characterized by "extreme" conditions: severe slopes, cross-slopes, and/or surface impediments. Such conditions are quite common along primitive, mountain crest footpaths such as the AT, CDT and PCT. Routine maintenance is excepted from the regulations. That means trail organizations are free to do work that maintains their trail's current form, or restores it to that form, without having to build in new "accessible" features.

Other exceptions include where modifications would cause substantial harm to natural or cultural resources; where they would substantially alter the nature of the setting or the purpose of the trail; where they would require construction methods prohibited by federal, state, or local laws; or where they would not be feasible due to terrain or prevailing construction practices. Clearly, one or more of these circumstances may exist along many sections of the national scenic and historic trails. Thus in the proposed regulations the AT and the other scenic and historic trails as they presently exist are largely exempt from new access requirements. The changes will be incremental, as new tramway and trail facilities are built, and even those changes should be of the common-sense variety.

Unresolved Issues
A few unresolved issues, presented as questions in the final report, will be highlighted during the public-comment phase. Based on the feedback received, a final determination will be made by the Access Board.

One particularly relevant unresolved issue concerns how accessibility requirements are applied to remote campsites that only can be reached by a trail that does not "meet accessibility standards. About half the group believed that recreation elements associated with such sites- including shelters, privies, fire rings, picnic tables, tent platforms and pads, and so forth- should meet accessibility standards. The other half of the group, including ATC, argued that the modifications would result in unnecessary expenditures of limited financial and human resources at sites few, if any, disabled people are likely to ever reach. Our view is that a more logical approach is investing in sites that can be readily accessed by disabled people.

The committee considered how likely disabled people are to actually use primitive or back country facilities and trails. It probably is fair to say that the prevailing attitude among the representatives of the disabled community was: "If you build it, they will come." However, a number of recreation-providers with experience in designing and building accessible recreation facilities did not necessarily support that. People with various disabilities- including serious vision and mobility impairments-have explored portions or even the full length of the Appalachian Trail without the benefit of accessibility modifications. But, our experience simply is too limited to draw reliable conclusions about the extent to which use by disabled people is likely to be generated by expanded opportunities for such use.

Cost Implications
The disabled community generally believes that equal (or at least proportional) access fundamentally is a civil-rights issue that does not lend itself to traditional cost-benefit analyses. Some recreation-providers, on the other hand, believe that accessibility requirements stemming from the Americans with Disabilities Act and other related legislation simply represent an "unfunded mandate."

I believe each side came to recognize some basis for both perspectives. In any case, the Access Board is required to develop and consider some financial-impact analyses before adopting any final regulation. That information also should be available for inspection during the public- review period.

Will Accessibility Change the Nature of A.T. Experience?
The most commonly voiced concern is that modifications could fundamentally alter the nature of the experience of the Appalachian Trail and other back country national scenic and historic trails. The Appalachian Trail, for instance, has been designed, constructed, and maintained for seventy-eight years to provide a primitive, mostly back country experience with opportunities for physical challenge and to "lie lightly on the land." When people think of wheelchair-accessible trails, they tend to think of flat, paved pathways that would be altogether incongruous with the character we have striven to establish and maintain along the A.T.

This is a legitimate concern, but extensive grading and paving are not necessarily required in order to meet the recommended accessibility standards, and no one is suggesting that a primitive foot-path, such as the A.T., should be modified in that way. New Appalachian Trail construction or reconstruction tends to make greater use of sidehill terrain to facilitate drainage anyway. It has a somewhat wider tramway, gentler slopes and cross slopes, and more self-maintaining erosion-control devices, such as drainage dips. Many of these same techniques' also can be employed to make the Trail more accessible to people with varying degrees of disabilities.

Modifications to accommodate wheelchair or scooter access definitely can be quite expensive when compared to "normal" construction practices. Since neither ATC nor the Appalachian Trail- maintaining clubs have unlimited financial resources, funds targeted for accessible-trail projects could divert funds away from other projects.

Are Volunteer Resources Up To the Task?

A greater concern may be the impact on our human resources: our volunteers. Those volunteers already devote an incredible number of hours to Trail construction and maintenance. If compliance with accessibility regulations significantly increases demands on those volunteers, the burden could prove to be "the straw that breaks the camel's back."

My hope, is that this new challenge will prove to be manageable if we focus on trail segments that can be most easily modified to accommodate accessibility and where there is the greatest likelihood for ready access by disabled people. We also will need to program these projects in ways that do not exceed our available resources or create excessive or disproportionate demands on trail organizations.

Public Review Next
Next comes the public-review process. We hope many trail organizations, Appalachian Trail-maintaining clubs, as well as individual ATC members and Trail users, will participate by commenting on the recommendations developed by the advisory committee. ATC also will be submitting additional comments. Even if the public comment phase results in some changes to the recommendations, my expectation is that new regulations will be adopted within the next year or so.

I am suggesting to our Board of Managers and leaders in the Trail-maintaining clubs that we may want to begin now to incorporate "accessibility awareness" into our decision-making processes. We make decisions almost every day affecting Trail construction and reconstruction projects all along the A.T. Considerations related to accessibility traditionally have played little or no role in the design or construction nrocess

Adoption of New Rules Expected
Those days may soon be coming to an end. Through expanded education and training programs, I hope staff and volunteers engaged in the Trail project can develop the skills necessary to incorporate more opportunities for people with disabilities to experience at least selective portions of the Appalachian Trail. But, I believe we should create those opportunities in a way that does not alter the primitive character or the challenging recreational experience that makes the A T and other scenic and historic trails such special places. That will be our greatest challenge. I think we can do it!