Trail Accessibility Advisory Council

Are you interested in joining Wissahickon Trails' Trail Accessibility Advisory Council?

Submit your interest form by July 11, 2023

Wissahickon Trails seeks to understand and improve the accessibility of our trails and preserves so that more members of our community may use and enjoy them. Most of our trails are natural surface, and many lie in floodplain areas. For these reasons, they cannot be made fully ADA compliant; our goal is to determine ways in which we might be able to increase accessibility despite trail settings, and to provide the information necessary for individuals to make informed decisions about whether they will be abe to safely and comfortably use our trails.

About the

Trail Accessibility Advisory Council

Over the next six months we will be working with an accessibility consultant, Freya McGregor from Access Birding, LLC, to learn more about how to make our trails more accessible for people living with disabilities and other access challenges.

We are seeking input from people who live with an accessibility challenge that impacts their ability to get out on trails and into nature, or who are a caregiver for someone with an accessibility challenge. A group of 6-8 people will be invited to join the Trail Accessibility Advisory Council to provide feedback and recommendations based on their own experiences and needs to help inform future access improvements for our trails.

Timeline

The Trail Accessibility Advisory Council will hold three virtual meetings that will last 1.5 hours and, ideally, an in-person session during late-September 2023 at a time that will be arranged based on each Council member’s availability. These meetings will help us ensure our work is relevant, effective, and impactful.

Closed captions will be provided during the virtual meetings, as will an ASL interpreter, should one be requested. Virtual meetings will be held on Wednesday evenings from 7-8:30pm Eastern on:

July 26, 2023
September 6, 2023
November 15, 2023

If you cannot commit to attending at least two of these virtual meetings, we thank you for your interest in participating but request that you do not submit an Expression of Interest form.

Please submit this interest form by Tuesday, July 11th, 2023. We will email you to let you know whether or not you have been selected for the Council by Friday, July 14th, 2023.

Honorarium

In gratitude for sharing your valuable time and expertise with us, a $300 honorarium will be provided to those who are able to participate in the virtual meetings, and $500 will be provided for those who can attend the virtual meetings and the in-person meeting. This honorarium is designed to compensate you for your time, energy, and any travel expenses you may have from attending the in-person meeting. Additional funding from Wissahickon Trails to help cover travel expenses is not available.

Tell Us About Yourself

If you are interested in being part of the Trail Accessibility Advisory Council, please complete this Expression of Interest form. This will help us ensure that members represent as diverse a group as possible. If you know of anyone who may be interested in being part of the Trail Accessibility Advisory Council, please share this opportunity with them as well.

We are excited to also include a small number of people who have lived experience as caregivers to someone with a disability -- perhaps your partner or spouse, child, parent, sibling, or someone else you know. We want to make sure that people with many different needs have the opportunity to participate in this, and we're very grateful that you are interested in joining us.

The information you provide will not be used against you in any way, and will be considered confidential. The only people who will have access to your responses are Wissahickon Trails staff and consultants who have a justifiable need for this information, particularly so we can ensure that the Trail Accessibility Advisory Council includes a broad group of people.

Additional Details

Virtual meetings will be facilitated by our consultant Freya McGregor, from Access Birding, LLC, who is a disabled birder and works at the intersection of access, inclusion, disability and the outdoors. Margaret Rohde, Wissahickon Trails' Conservation Manager, will co-facilitate these meetings.

There will be additional opportunities for supporters of Wissahickon Trails to provide feedback to help us improve access and inclusion for people with disabilities and other health concerns, and we hope you will contribute to those opportunities as well.

Questions?

If you have any questions about participating in the Trail Accessibility Advisory Council, please email Margaret Rohde, Conservation Manager, Wissahickon Trails at margaret@wissahickontrails.org or call Wissahickon Trails’ office at 215-646-8866.

CLICK HERE TO FILL OUT THE FORM

Thank you again for your interest in helping us make our trails a place that everybody can visit and enjoy. We are excited to begin this work!