New York’s DEC is Working to Increase Outdoor Accessibility with New Policy

When it comes to conversations surrounding accessibility, increasing the accessibility of the outdoors is not always considered. Through the advocacy of disabled stakeholders, however, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation developed a policy draft last month that aims to standardize a framework for evaluating which OPDMDs — defined as mobility devices that are not classified as wheelchairs — can be used on their lands and where.

The draft classifies OPDMDs — which range from a scooter to a golf cart — into seven categories and outlines where these classes are approved for use, are eligible for future review, are completely incompatible, or can be considered case-by-case.

A 2011 amendment to the Americans with Disabilities Act outlined that organizations must create a policy for the use of OPDMDs. According to McCrea Burnham, who works as ADA Coordinator for the division of Lands and Forests, the DEC had been doing this on a case-by-case basis starting in 2012 until now.

“We really felt strongly that we needed to update our motorized access for people with disabilities policy, and we wanted to really daylight and make it more efficient and less of a burden for folks to get access to our state lands using other power draw mobility devices,” Burnham said. “So this was a needed policy.”

But it was discussions surrounding new amendments to the Adirondack State Land Management Plan in 2025 on increasing accessibility that sparked the need for an actual policy from the DEC on OPDMDs. Jason Thurston, Outreach Coordinator for John Dillon Park and Chairman of the combined Adirondack Park Agency and DEC Accessibility Advisory Committee, which consists of disability justice advocates who has advised the department on accessibility issues like this policy, said wheelchairs are not always suitable for the terrain, and OPDMDs help mitigate that issue.

“The real issue is that wheelchairs are allowed on any hiking trail or any place that people can walk, but most wheelchairs will not go there,” Thurston said. “I use a power chair and it has like four inches of clearance, and the traction isn’t very good. So unless it’s a smooth trail, then I’m not able to go on it and somebody with a manual chair isn’t really gonna be able to go on it.”

What has remained at the heart of discussions, since the Adirondack State Land Management Plan, is how to strike a balance between opening the door for OPDMDs for the DEC’s outdoor recreational opportunities while continuing to protect lands from possible degradation, especially the Forest Preserve — which is protected under the “Forever Wild” clause in the state constitution. At the public meeting for the policy on Wednesday, February 4, Kathryn Carroll — a committee member and the disability and program coordinator for the Association of Aging in New York — provided comment on the necessity of the policy in helping people who use OPDMDs the time and information to prepare.

“For people with disabilities, particularly people with physical mobility disabilities who rely on mobility devices on a daily basis, finding a device that works for them can be incredibly difficult and time consuming,” Carroll said. “Devices that go beyond your standard wheelchair, whether manual or power can be cost prohibitive, and these devices take up space, practically speaking and, you know, require storage and are difficult to transport.”

However, other environmental organizations, including Friends of the Forest Preserve, Adirondack Mountain Club and Conservation at the Adirondack Council emphasized outlining specific regulations to ensure the protection of state lands and monitoring the ecological impacts once this policy is established. Jeff Senterman of the environmental nonprofit Catskill Center said the organization plans to submit written comment in support of the policy, with the understanding that the land itself remains a priority.

“We are supportive of increasing accessibility to the forest preserve and to all state lands. But specifically in the Catskills, we just want to ensure that we understand that accessibility is a nuanced issue on the Forest Preserve,” Senterman said. “There are appropriate sites for full accessibility. There are appropriate sites where accessibility will be made as great as possible, but sometimes full accessibility would simply not be possible. We want to ensure that the policy that guides the other power driven mobility devices really, um, doesn’t sort of open a back door to further vehicle accessibility.”

Other concerns for people, including Thurston himself, was the fact that the policy still requires people with mobility disabilities to apply for a permit, even for sites that have already been approved for OPDMD use, as the department has been doing. Burnham said the department wants to ensure efficiency as they also work on establishing an online-self-issuing permit system for users, and Akins said it could preemptively curb confusion.

“It’s a benefit to the user to be able to have something on their person,” Akins said. “They’re doing something different than the rest of the public. They might be using an E-bike, where only manual bikes have been permitted in the past. So just like that disability hangtag, it signals to say, this is why I’m doing it. And so you’re not being looked sideways by your fellow recreationists or by our rangers that need to know who’s permitted and we have a clear method to make sure that it’s easy for people to be able to get that access.”

The policy comes amid other efforts by the DEC to increase accessibility, including launching an interactive map highlighting accessible recreation areas in 2024 and working with $5 million in funding towards making improvements for accessibility. Governor Kathy Hochul in her 2026 State of the State Address also outlined a commitment to “expanding access to state parks for all New Yorkers.” However, the accessibility of DEC and trails, parks and campgrounds like Camp Satinoni has remained an ongoing fight for disabled stakeholders, Thurston said, who said accessibility can start with finding sites that could be made accessible through minor upgrades and ensuring that disabled recreationists are made aware of these places. He looks to fully accessible sites like John Dillon Park as a model.

“It was not long after I attempted to go on trails and realized that they were not accessible that I found John Dillon Park,” Thurston said. “There’s one trail that they have that’s two-and-a-half miles long that goes out to another body of water where there’s another two lean-tos, so it’s a five-mile round trip and it goes really through the forest and it’s the most remote experience I’ve had since my accident. And it’s one of the very few places that has an accessible trail that does go that far into the wilderness, and so that’s something that’s very important is to be able to have access to that.”

The policy is open for public comment until March 9, and a final policy is likely to be released sometime this summer, Burnham said.

Image Credit: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation