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Resources:
transitinfo.org (links provided here to local transit systems not listed below) 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: 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 East Bay Regional Parks District Trail Accessibility Reports: More than two dozen parks are listed, with details of grade, width, surfacing, elevation change, and so forth. www.ebparks.org/accessibility/trail_access.htm The East Bay Regional Park District's catalogue of their paved trails http://www.ebparks.org/activities/biking/paved Trails of the Diablo Valley paved multi-use trails in the East Bay: geocities.com/Yosemite/Trails/6016/paved Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District full-access trails: openspace.org/activities/accessible_trails.asp On the Level http://www.OnTheLevelSF.com: a guide to accessible excursions in San Francisco Accessible Features in California State Parks http://access.parks.ca.gov/ Accessible Trails for Wheelers and Slow Walkers: access information about Washington and Oregon trails http://accessibletrails.com/about.htm 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/ Rails toTrails Conservancy: You can search here for trails created on railroad rights-of-way around the country. They don't get very steep! Unfortunately most of them in the Bay Area are not in natural areas. //www.traillink.com/TL_Active_Pages/TrailSearch/default.asp 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. Bay Nature Magazine: http://www.baynature.com/ Beach Wheelchairs: http://www.coastal.ca.gov/access/beach-wheelchairs.html This is the Coastal Commission's list of places in California where a beach wheelchair can be borrowed free and for nothing, with phone numbers. 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/ California State Parks Disability Pass Application http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/737/files/dpr818a.pdf This pass is available for $3.50 to anyone with a DMV disabled parking placard, and entitles you to 50% off all fees at state parks and preserves. City of Berkeley Disabled Family Camp: this is held the weekend after Memorial Day every year, at Tuolumne Family Camp near Yosemite. See Events 4 Wheel Bob (Intrepid wheelchair hiker Bob Coomber of Livermore) http://www.4wheelbob.com/ 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. Golden Gate National Recreation Area Accessibility http://www.nps.gov/goga/planyourvisit/accessibility.htm 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." 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. 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
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