Working Together for a More Welcoming and Inclusive Community

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  Better ways for a family with disabilities to enjoy Downtown Park

  by Elentukh213, over 2 years ago

  Hello! We are a family with young children (ages 3, 5 and 1) and both parents have a disability. We love spending time near Downtown Park - it really feels like the center of our community, and we think it’s very special that our “suburban” community has such a space. We live in a more suburban part of Redmond so we drive to this park specifically to feel that sense of community. However as a family with young kids, we have a couple of challenges with enjoying the park. The lack of a defined playground area there - with playground... Continue reading

  Hello! We are a family with young children (ages 3, 5 and 1) and both parents have a disability. We love spending time near Downtown Park - it really feels like the center of our community, and we think it’s very special that our “suburban” community has such a space. We live in a more suburban part of Redmond so we drive to this park specifically to feel that sense of community. However as a family with young kids, we have a couple of challenges with enjoying the park. The lack of a defined playground area there - with playground equipment to capture the kids interest and possibly a fence for safety - means our kids run too far away from us too fast, near busy streets. They instead play on the stage which is often slippery on wet days, with lots of sharp edges. Ultimately there are too many ways for them to get hurt here and not enough ways for them to play safely. And with disabled parents we can’t take that risk because we can’t get to them fast enough in such a large undefined area. So we avoid this park even though we’d really like to make use of it. We often look at this park and think - wow with so much space, the only thing they have for kids here is a water feature we can only use 3 months a year? It seems almost discriminatory against families with young kids - like we aren’t wanted there (for most of the year). It feels like we could carve out a small portion of this park to create a state of the art inclusive play area - in other cities we lived in before buying our long term home in Redmond, we saw some very cool accesible playgrounds that were not an eyesore and didn’t take over the whole vibe of the rest of the park.
  Finally: Accessible parking could also be improved at Downtown park. The only spots I have found are along an extremely busy road and it’s unclear if my state placard allows me to park in the garage by Woodmark unpaid. Thank you for your consideration. I was so impressed with this feedback gathering process.
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  Redmond Needs More Inclusive and Accessible Parks

  by OliviaM, over 2 years ago
  My name is Olivia Murphy, and I am an 8th grader who lives in Redmond. As a Girl Scout, I am working on my Silver Award, and I am interested in helping communities build more accessible and inclusive playgrounds. I have been visiting each of the Redmond city parks over the last couple of months to see which parks have accessible play equipment for kids who have different abilities. I was shocked to learn that nearly all of the parks in Redmond lack play equipment that can be used by children who might have a wheelchair or other mobility device... Continue reading

  My name is Olivia Murphy, and I am an 8th grader who lives in Redmond. As a Girl Scout, I am working on my Silver Award, and I am interested in helping communities build more accessible and inclusive playgrounds. I have been visiting each of the Redmond city parks over the last couple of months to see which parks have accessible play equipment for kids who have different abilities. I was shocked to learn that nearly all of the parks in Redmond lack play equipment that can be used by children who might have a wheelchair or other mobility device, children who have sight impairments, and children with sensory needs. For example, many of the park systems have bark or mulch in the play areas. If you have a wheelchair, this makes it almost impossible to get to the play areas. There are virtually no signs in Braille, and limited play equipment that can benefit kids with sensory needs, such as those on the autism spectrum. Only two parks I've visited so far even have an accessible swing, and that's about the only equipment I have seen that can be used by someone in a wheelchair (and in both cases they would need to be lifted out of the wheelchair and be put in the swing, which is difficult for caregivers of older children and adults). I think we can do better in our city, and I am putting together a report that I hope to share with the mayor and the parks and recreation department. ALSO, the park guides in Redmond have icons for things like play fields or water features, but there is no icon for whether a park has accessible walkways or playground equipment! Why not? I think this is important and would help people figure out which parks are accessible to them if they need it.

  
  

  I am interested in partnering with our city leaders to help find solutions for those in our community who cannot fully participate in our play spaces due to varying abilities. For example, we can raise funds for accessible swings and merry go rounds, put in solid surfaces instead of bark for mobility devices, and put in some signs in Braille, just as a start. Other communities have done this (like Harper's playground in Oregon, Magical Bridge playground in California), so why can't we? We could have one of the first truly inclusive playgrounds in King County, and one of the only ones in the entire state of Washington. I would really like to help with this effort!
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