Resources:
Transit
More trail
information online
Outdoors
Elsewhere
Miscellaneous
Books
Transit:
- AC Transit (Alameda
and Contra Costa County bus ervice, including routes to and from San
Francisco via the East Bay Bridge)
- BART
(Bay Area Rapid Transit)
- Golden
Gate Transit (North Bay, including bus service
from San Francisco across the bridge and ferries to the city and Angel
Island)
- SF
MUNI (Trains, buses, streetcars and cable cars in the city)
- UC
Berkeley Shuttles I'm told these are open to the public
for a modest fare, wheelchair accessible, and free to people with
disabilities. Route H runs every 45 minutes weekdays from Berkeley
BART up Centennial Drive, stopping at the UC Botanical Garden (and
the Lawrence Hall of Science).
- West Marin Stagecoach
This service provides access to Point Reyes Bear Valley Trail and
S P Taylor Park, two of the best wheelchair hikes out there! The web
site says they have wheelchair access and other disability accommodations.
More trail information online:
- A Wheelchair Rider's Guide: San Francisco Bay and the Nearby
Coast by Bonnie Lewkowicz. .http://www.coastalconservancy.ca.gov/Publications/wheel.htm
is a downloadable, and searchable, PDF version of the 2006 book, a
terrific resource covering most parks adjacent to the Bay and those
on some of its tributaries as well. It was a project of the Coastal
Conservancy Association, and the book is available free from them.
For information call: (510) 286-1015
- Bay Area Hiker All-Access and Easy hikes; a lot of good info
and photos. She's conservative about where a wheelchair could go;
if you're not, check out the rest of her site. bahiker.com/extras/allaccess
- Bay Area Ridge Trail Tracker The Bay Area Ridge Trail Council
is an organization trying to create a trail circling the bay along
its ridges, and they've posted some information about segments of
this project, including wheelchair access, here http://www.ridgetrail.org/trail/trailtracker.pdf.
As usual, only the very accessible trails are flagged.
Outdoors Elsewhere:
- AccessibleNatureTravel.com
A travel guide for folks with wheelchairs, walkers, canes, or strollers,
listing recommended getaways in Northern California.
- Accessing Arizona is a blog, with some fine photos, "designed
to give people with disabilities some realistic information about
wheelchair accessible places to visit in Arizona," maintained
by Loren Worthington of Phoenix. http://www.accessingarizona.com/
- Great Wheelchair Accessible Hikes is a website maintained
by Chris, a high school student in California who says, "I'm
creating a new accessible hiking website with an emphasis on great
hikes which would be worth their own trip to hike. I'm gathering information
on hikes all over the U.S. and even Canada." He's already posted
hikes in northern California that are new to me, and his site is under
development: http://www.greatwheelchairaccessiblehikes.com/index.php?pr=Home_Page
Miscellaneous:
- Access Northern California: A wide range of information about
access to public facilities: www.accessnca.com
- Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors [BAADS] BAADS.org
This is a great organization that will take you for a sail on
the Bay any Sunday, or teach you to sail and provide the boats so
you can go out any time, at very low cost, and no matter what your
disability.
- Berkeley Partners for Parks(BPFP): a citywide nonprofit organization
working for citizen support of parks, public recreation, open space,
paths, greenways, community gardens, and environmental restoration
in Berkeley, California. http://www.bpfp.org/
- City of Berkeley Disabled Family Camp: this is held the weekend
after Memorial Day every year, at Tuolumne Family Camp near Yosemite.
See Events
- City of Berkeley Over 50 Camps: one in June and another in
August, at Echo Lake Camp. See Events
- Golden Access Pass Information http://www.nps.gov/fees_passes.htm
These disability passes, for free entry to National Parks and Forests,
and half-price camping, are available only at Park offices and entrances.
- Handicaching http://www.handicaching.com
If you've wanted to try geocaching, these folks are working to
rate geocaches for accessibility. If you're already out hunting, they
need your reports.
- RollingRains.com Scott Rains
is another blogger on wheels we wish we could keep up with.
- Adaptive Summiteers Association http://www.summiteers.org/index.htm
"a nonprofit organization formed to educate, encourage and
enable the physically disabled to fully enjoy the great outdoors.
Our goal is to work to make wilderness areas accessible through education,
information, and technology without harming and/or altering the environment."
Books:
- A Wheelchair Rider's Guide: San Francisco Bay and the Nearby
Coast by Bonnie Lewkowicz. Published by the Coastal Conservancy
Association, and available free from them. This came out in May 2006,
and has almost 200 pages of information. For information call: (510)
286-1015. Or visit http://www.coastalconservancy.ca.gov/Publications/wheel.htm
for a downloadable, and searchable, PDF version. This is a terrific
resource for information about most parks adjacent to the Bay and
those on some of its tributaries as well.
- California Parks Access: a Complete Guide to the State and
National Parks for Visitors with Limited Mobility by
Linda and Allan Mitchell, Cougar Pass Press, Escondido, CA, 1992.
Describes accessible features of all 270 State and National Parks
in California, including many parks in the Bay Area. Seriously out-of-date,
and mostly about access to restrooms and visitor centers, but still
useful for planning camping trips.
- Rails-to-Trails: California by Tracy Salcedo-Chourre,
Globe Pequot Press, Guilford, Connecticut, 2001. This guidebook is
one of a series put out by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, and the
name says it all. The good news is (surprise!) most of the trails
created on old railroad rights-of-way (17 of which are in the Bay
Area) are wheelchair accessible, and the book does give this information.
The bad news is that the trails are usually in very developed areas,
and heavily used. Also, the book gives almost no details about the
problems that the less wheelchair-friendly trails have. Borrow this
from the library and get a few leads from it; they could sure give
us more access specifics if they want our money.
- Easy Access to National Parks: The Sierra Club Guide for People
With Disabilities
by Wendy Roth and Michael Tompane, 1992. Worth a look, but no substitute
for getting whatever material is available on current access from
each park that you contemplate visiting
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