With more groups asking Monroe County officials for better access to parks surrounding Irondequoit Bay, a new survey aims to capture the community’s needs.
The county is asking for public input on trail use in parks near the bay, including Ellison, Tryon, Lucien Morin, and Abraham Lincoln parks, along with Irondequoit Bay Park West.
"We will likely hear from a bunch of these stakeholder groups, be it from birders to hikers, mountain bikers, preservationists," Bob Kiley, the county's deputy parks director, said during a recent Monroe County Legislature committee meeting. "And really this is critical for our understanding, and ultimately the consultants' understanding of what the needs and wants and desires are of the community as a whole."
Anita O'Brien sees the survey as an opportunity for the disability community to tell the county how its parks could better serve them. O'Brien is a founder of Rochester Accessible Adventures, an organization that works to ensure that people with disabilities have access to inclusive sports, recreation, and tourism.
"Having those voices in at the planning stage is incredibly important because then inclusion and accessibility isn't an add-on," O'Brien said. "It's not being thought of after the fact when it's usually more expensive to retrofit."
It also provides parks users who have disabilities an opportunity to point out specific improvements that would address barriers or obstacles. O'Brien said that could mean a suggesting a shift away from single-track trails to wider multi-use trails that can accommodate adaptive bikes. Or it could mean pointing out rocks or tree roots that impede use of existing trails.
The group Greater Rochester Off-Road Cyclists is urging its members to ask the county to open the park trails to bicycles. In 2009, the group successfully pushed for the county to open Tryon Park and Irondequoit Bay Park West to mountain bikes, despite some opposition. County law otherwise prohibits the use of bicycles on park trails.
The survey is available on the Monroe County Parks Department website. The county will accept responses to the survey through Oct. 6.
This story is reported from WXXI’s Inclusion Desk.
