According to an equity survey conducted by the Lane County Parks Department, people cited physical barriers as the biggest hurdle when it came to visiting parks. Some of the barriers listed were lack of access to ADA-compliant playgrounds, all-terrain wheelchairs, and trail systems designed for people of all abilities.
One of the two "Accessible Trails" located at Mount Pisgah Arboretum on March 5, 2025.
Sajina Shrestha
Recent projects at Mount Pisgah Arboretum, south of Springfield, are designed to make the facility more accessible. The facility is located at the most visited park in Lane County, Howard Buford Recreation Area.
Among the completed projects are two “Accessible Trails.” These are trail systems that loop around the arboretum and have minimal incline.
Ilana Jakubowski, the executive director at the arboretum, explained how the nonprofit used recommendations from a 2022 Accessibility Assessment to improve the trails.
“We just worked off the existing trail system to level it out more and brought in some materials to lower … or lessen the slope of the trail,” said Jakubowski. “We put down some gravel trail surfaces on this trail to make it more accessible as well.”
The trails are now 3 feet wide or wider, with little to no slant. This ensures mobility devices have plenty of space to move through without rolling off the trails.
Brett Henry, the parks manager at Lane County, said these improvements help everyone enjoy the outdoors.
“I’m just thinking about like, my daughter who’s 3 years old. She won’t go on a trail that has too many barriers or that’s too steep,” said Henry. “So [it’s about] just really making it more accessible for everybody.”
The entrance at Mount Pisgah Arboretum on March 5, 2025
Sajina Shrestha
Besides the accessible trails, Mount Pisgah also hosts two all-terrain track chairs on three days of the week. Visitors can reserve the chairs online through David’s Chair, a nonprofit that provides track chairs for people with mobility issues.
Jakubowski predicts that reservations for track chairs will increase in the coming months.
“I would say currently we have about an average of 50% of those time slots filled,” said Jakubowski. “We are definitely anticipating those numbers increasing as the weather gets nicer and people are just more drawn to want to be outdoors.”
Beyond these existing projects, the Lane County Parks Department is also working to make the entrances and waterways more accessible.
The department is looking to pave the arboretum’s south parking lot, making it easier for people on different levels of the lot to access the main trail.
They are also working on the Water Access Project. When completed, it will be the first fully ADA-accessible pathway to launch onto the Willamette River. Henry notes that this launch will also clear out some traffic congestion near the entrance.
“We noticed a lot of people were trying to access the water in summer, and they were going under the bridge. And when they were doing that, they were parking there at a 4-way entrance and so was blocking a lot of access,” said Henry. “And so, we wanted to move it to kinda disperse that traffic out.”
He also said projects like these are crucial in making sure everyone can enjoy the outdoors.
“Having accessibility like this, I think, will impact a lot of people,” said Henry. “Folks who have lived experiences need the opportunity just to go out to places that they never could reach before.”
The arboretum is open from dawn to dusk every day of the year.
Sajina Shrestha is a reporter with KLCC. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.