QUEENS PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS FOUND . . .

Inaccessible for disabled
By VICTOR ROSS
The Parks Dept. has agreed to make eight Queens facilities more accessible for people with disabilities, based on a five-year study issued by State Comptroller Alan Hevesi.
The report named twelve recent Queens park and playground repair projects that failed to meet legal requirements of the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
State auditors found that all completed Queens construction projects, between 2000 and 2005, had no signs showing accessible walkways or ADA-approved entrances for disabled visitors.
Councilman Joe Addabbo (Dem. Howard Beach), a member of the Council’s Parks committee, called for an expeditious oversight meeting to deal with the city-wide findings of the five-year, fifty-site, study. “The report is promising,” he said, “because it also highlights the problems faced by disabled persons visiting the beaches (the Rockaways) in my district.”
Pleased that Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe had accepted the report’s findings and was committed to make city parks more accessible, Comptroller Hevesi declared, “New York City’s parks should be open to all.”
Benepe also announced the appointment of Assistant Commissioner Nancy Barthold, to facilitate local compliance with ADA regulations. “We look forward to working with the State Comptroller and our non-profit partners to implement these suggestions as part of our commitment to work on behalf of all our visitors,” declared Benepe.
The Parks Dept. facilities, said the Comptroller’s report, are not required to be ADA-accessible but the department is required to help the public locate those that are accessible. At all of the fifty-sites, auditors found no signage indicating accessibility or directing users to ADA-accessible entrances. Ideally, signage should also direct persons with disabilities away from potentially hazardous conditions like excessive slopes, steps and stairways,
The report pinpointed potential Federal violations in twelve construction projects, conducted in eight Queens parks, playgrounds, and museums as par of a city-wide study to determine if ADA accessibility requirements were being met by the Parks Dept.
Two Queens problem projects highlighted the city-wide report:
A $654,000 renovation of the Gorman Playground on 30th Ave. in Jackson Heights did not include converting restrooms to ADA standards.
Access ramp facilities were not included in plans for the renewal of the Queens County Farmhouse, on Little Neck Parkway, Glen Oaks.
Additional sites were examined by the study in the Flushing Meadows, Grover Cleveland, Kissena and Rochdale Parks, and the Lefferts and Russell Sage playgrounds.