Listings include such criteria as accessible restrooms, entrances, interiors, whether a location provides braille language assistance for their patrons (e.g., menus in restaurants, by restroom doors, for interior navigation, etc.), location, business hours and images. SARANAC LAKE — Accessible Adirondack Tourism, a nonprofit dedicated to providing people with disabilities — and those who accompany them […]
Listings include such criteria as accessible restrooms, entrances, interiors, whether a location provides braille language assistance for their patrons (e.g., menus in restaurants, by restroom doors, for interior navigation, etc.), location, business hours and images.
SARANAC LAKE — Accessible Adirondack Tourism, a nonprofit dedicated to providing people with disabilities — and those who accompany them — with information one ADA-compliant features for businesses throughout the region, has recently completed their 100th location posting on their website accessibleadirondacktourism.Org.
Nick Friedman, founder, president, and executive director of Accessible Adirondack Tourism, co-founder of the Adirondack Nature Festival for People with Disabilities, and member of the New York State DEC/APA Accessibility Advisory Committee, notes that “Nearly everyone knows someone with a disability, local resident and tourist alike. A relative who cannot use a door knob due to arthritis; a friend who has a mobility impairment; someone with poor, low or no vision (eye glasses are assistive technology as well); loss of equilibrium; a teen who needs crutches due to an athletic injury; a walker or wheelchair user. One in five New Yorkers has a disability, and with 7 million visitors to the Adirondack region each year, this can mean that 1.4 million people with disabilities can benefit from this information annually. If each person with a disability is accompanied by just one other person, this number doubles to 2.8 million visitors to our region.
“This achievement would not have been possible without generous assistance from the Adirondack Foundation, and the Cloudsplitter Foundation, who provided grant funds for the 2024 assessments and the placement of the results within the Accessible Adirondack Tourism website, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation which provided full access to the entirety of their locations, and the many welcoming business owners who embraced providing people with disabilities the ability to make informed choices on where they can comfortably enjoy the richness of the Adirondack region,” Friedman said.
Each listed business’ physical location has been subject to in-person assessments for Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, and their website and social media pages (as applicable) were subject to electronic testing for compliance with the ADA by conformance with the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines. This information is posted within the Accessible Adirondack Tourism’s website to provide people with disabilities, their families, friends and companions, the information they need to make informed choices about where to shop, dine, lodge and recreate within the 14-county Adirondack region.
“If a person with a disability is traveling with a group, this number multiplies further, as groups favor activities which embrace all of their members, and providing a reliable source from which they can choose their activities, even just to have a meal together. is a valuable resource,” he added.
“ADA compliance reviews can consist of hundreds of factors such as designated parking, whether or not a vanity is under a sink which can render it unusable to a wheelchair user, if flooring presents a trip hazard, an aisle which offers merchandise for sale is too narrow for someone using a walker, their promotional text is unreadable to someone with color blindness, or the native code of their website is not compatible with screen readers without the use of external plugins or systems which force users to abandon their favored accessibility solution in favor of one chosen by a third-party,” Friedman said.
While 100 locations may seem like a small number, each location listed must be assessed in person to ensure the reliability of the information presented in the website.
With most of the assessments having been completed within the area of Saranac Lake, if funding permits, comprehensive assessments will be undertaken in the Malone and Lake Placid areas, as well as additional locations managed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, during the summer of 2025 to further build out the informational resources of the Accessible Adirondack Tourism website.
