Walking is more than a hobby for me. It is something that I love to do. It is something that I find great meaning in, and that brings me great joy. When somebody loves something, they often find that they want to share it. That is a large part of why I’ve started this blog. I want to share this love, and I want to share it with as diverse a group of people as I know how. That includes people with disabilities. I am thinking specifically of people with mobility impairments, who may be users of Personal Mobility Aids (PMAs).
To this end, with each route I blog about, I will endeavour to include information about the route’s accessibility. As much as possible, I will include information about specific obstacles along the route. I will highlight any sections of the route which I suspect may be completely inaccessible. I may also include suggestions for alternative routes or detours.
These efforts must come with three important caveats:
First, many of the routes I blog about were walked before I knew I was going to blog about them. As such, I would not have paid special attention to the accessibility of these routes. Where this is the case, I will say so explicitly. I will also make this disclosure in cases I have regretfully neglected to account for accessibility.
Second, I am not a person with a disability; at least not a mobility impairment, not permanently, and not now. I will try my earnest best, because I believe this is the right thing to do, but I will fail. Sometimes I will forget. Other times I will simply fail to recognise something as being an obstacle or impediment. I ask that readers who are persons with disability take my efforts as acts of good faith, and forgive any obstacles or impediments I may have missed.
Finally, soon after I began paying special attention to accessibility on my walks, I began to realise that obstacles and impediments are everywhere. There are many walks which I will not be able to recommend at all. This realisation made me stop to wonder if I should make any representations about accessibility at all. I don’t wish to give the impression that I am specially catering my walk to people with disabilities, when I am not. In such case, I will state that I do not believe a route is accessible. I will highlight examples of obstacles along the way. I hope that by doing this I will help to raise some tiny bit of awareness about the challenges people with disabilities face every day.
If you have any comments pertaining to this statement, or to accessibility in general, please leave a comment in this post. I will respond accordingly.
If you have any comments pertaining to the accessibility of a specific route, please leave a comment in the respective post. I will update the post, and leave your comment published for readers who may seek advice there.
“It is the greatest of all mistakes, to do nothing because you can only do little.” – Sydney Smith
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