Casting Beyond Limits: Accessibility and the Spirit of the ADA

By Elanah Sherman, Avalonia board member

I remember some freelance accessibility work I did many years ago in partnership with an esteemed trainer on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). My partner (who has a mobility disability) was under contract with a major Connecticut city to evaluate about 20 sites. One site we were dispatched to was a municipal hockey rink.

After arriving, we looked at one another ruefully, both thinking the same thing: They want us to do this?

We did it, and a year or two later, an adaptive hockey program began using the facility.

Assumptions are hard to let go of. They shape our expectations, close off imagination, and consign us to the margin of human possibility. Alternatively, consciously adhering to the central principle of the ADA – equal opportunity – short-circuits our conjectures, leading to new ways of thinking about ourselves and others.

It was quite a while after the passage of the ADA in 1990 that fishing wharves gained the attention of advocates. Improvements slowly began happening at Connecticut’s state parks and municipal wharves. In the meantime, organizations formed of disabled anglers who sought and advocated for fishing opportunities. New construction and renovations are still occurring as the principle of equal opportunity for people with disabilities becomes increasingly embedded in how we consider an environment.

The fishing area at Yannatos Preserve in North Stonington is a case in point. Avalonia Director of Stewardship, Toby Glaza, immediately apprehended the potential for a fishing area that would offer a high level of accessibility. Toby installed the unique accessible parking that Avalonia has borrowed from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, and which we now install in most of our parking areas.* He graded the path leading from the parking to the wharf, and he put up a rustic fence at the edge of the fishing area. He consulted with an Avalonia member who has a mobility disability as to what more was needed to create a safe and welcoming environment. As it stands, some additional grading to soften the slope is probably an advised final step.

Now, this intimate and peaceful oasis offers to many people, regardless of disability, the serenity of casting a line.

*Please note: The accessible parking in some of the photographs in the above article do not yet have the red and blue bumpers installed.