Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 25, 1993 TAG: 9308250056
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RANDY UDAVCAK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
At Big Stony Creek in the Jefferson National Forest, a group of landscape architecture students have just completed a project that will allow visitors, whether on foot or in wheelchairs, to cast a line into the mountain stream or just savor its wilderness beauty.
For the past two weeks, the students have widened and reinforced trails, built a bridge and constructed an elevated fishing platform that can be used by people in wheelchairs.
The project is a combined effort of the landscape architecture department at Tech, the Blacksburg Ranger District, the Virginia Commission on Game and Inland Fisheries, Trout Unlimited, Giles County 4-H and the U.S. Forest Service.
"You've got 30,000 miles of trout stream in Virginia, and you've got probably less than two miles that people with disabilities can get to," said Dean Bork, a professor in the landscape architecture department. "So every foot really makes a difference."
The new trail will be a unique feature in this part of the Jefferson National Forest. "I'd say there are about six facilities that have some level of accessibility," said Sheryl Mills, a landscape architect with the Blacksburg Ranger District, "but as far as streams, Barber's Creek [in the Newcastle Ranger District] and this one are the only two."
Mills says the project was born from a new school of thought in the design community toward making facilities accessible to disabled people. "The idea is not to segregate them, but to let them enjoy the facilities along with their families, friends and fellow anglers."
For example, the site does not contain any labeled handicapped parking spaces but instead features a lot with six bays, each wide enough to accommodate a van with a side-mounted wheelchair lift.
Before beginning work on the trail, the students and other volunteers installed structures in the stream to create areas of greater depth and shade to enhance the stream's trout habitat. "This way we get the fish first, and then we bring the people in," Mills said. "A lot of things had to be done before work on the trail could begin."
A portion of the trail was widened to 3 to 4 feet, with wider sections every so often to allow wheelchairs to pass each other or turn around. The students built a bridge to span a particularly treacherous portion of the trail. An elevated fishing platform, with wheel stops at its edges, was built to extend nine feet out over the water.
Phase II will continue reinforcing part of the trail and possibly construct additional platforms and wheel stops along the way.
The project and others like it came out of a study by Dan Mahon, a graduate student in the landscape architecture department. Last summer, Mahon traveled to all 38 recreational sites in the Jefferson National Forest to determine their accessibility for people with various disabilities. During his travels, he met with disabled people to discuss their concerns and even carried along a wheelchair to assess the challenges first hand.
According to Mahon, the design of this summer's project drew from the lessons he learned last year.
For example, the students built the bridge using steel grating instead of boards for the floor to prevent moss and algae growth that would make a wooden surface slick. It also allows a more panoramic view to all users, whether they cross the bridge on foot or in a wheelchair.
Other decisions, however, were more ad hoc, allowing for some creative interpretation in the field.
Near the the entrance to the trail, a flat space in a clearing was turned into a wheelchair-accessible picnic area.
"We sort of discovered this while we were out here working," Mahon said. "What we're doing here is providing a picnic stop that's adjacent to the parking area, so that visitors coming to the site, instead of going all the way down the trail before they actually see the creek, have the opportunity to come out here and see the creek before they actually commit to fishing it."
Bork added that the area may serve other purposes. "It's also a possibility that we may have users for whom this is as far as they can make it from the car," he said. "So it gives them the opportunity to experience the creek a little bit."
According to Bork, one of the greatest challenges has been to keep multiple users in mind. "There are so many different kinds of disabilities that it's a real challenge not to let `wheelchair' snap into your mind when you say `person with disability,' " Bork said. "There's vision-impaired, people who are hearing-impaired, and people who have cognitive and way-finding problems. So you have to kind of fight through that and think about who the broadest group you're designing for are."
At the same time, the team had to keep nature in mind - how to make the stream accessible without destroying the wilderness experience.
In addition to the freedom and enjoyment the project will provide visitors, the project has spawned a dialogue between academia and government agencies. Recently, Mahon began giving presentations to local officials in the areas he visited last summer on making recreational areas accessible to people with disabilities.
"The Forest Service and the Park Service are really putting a push on this stuff right now, and they're putting a lot of dollars into research and training of their people," Bork said. "So we learn as much from them as they can learn from us."
by CNB