Suburban playgrounds are focusing on accessibility. How can Philly keep up?

To Thomasina Lee, it was clear that the mother and her child could not understand each other.

Lee, a North Philly resident, was at a local playground when she saw a boy crying and frustrated with his mother. Lee is an early childcare educator and recognized that the boy was nonverbal and neurodivergent. He was trying to communicate with his mother, but she couldn’t understand what he wanted.

“You could see the tears well up in her eyes,” Lee said.

The mother got frustrated and ended up leaving the playground with her son. Lee understood their struggle.

“I’ve been there before,” she said.

Lee’s 10-year-old son, Taahir, is autistic. He uses a communication device to tell her what he wants and needs, and Lee said she wished that the mother and son at the playground had something similar. The experience inspired her, and she cofounded a nonprofit called Taahir’s Village that donates communication boards to Philly playgrounds.

“We need to create an inclusive environment for everyone,” she said.

Parks and playgrounds in the Philadelphia region are continuing to prioritize accessibility with new designs that accommodate special needs, as well as retrofitted additions like communication boards. But while Philadelphia is making efforts to boost its accessibility, cost and space constraints mean it still lags behind the suburbs.

According to Dan Hendey, senior education manager for the Pennsylvania Recreation and Park Society, the designers of the first American playgrounds mostly did not consider that children with disabilities might want to use them.

“Population wasn’t always taken into account … but as our profession has grown, we’ve realized that there’s sometimes just simple things we can to do increase accessibility,” he said. That can include wider pathways that fit wheelchairs, parking lots for those who need to drive to the playground, communication boards, sensory play panels, or fencing that makes neurodivergent children feel contained and safe.

The Pennsylvania Recreation and Park Society recently launched a park finder tool through its PA Good For You initiative, which people can use to locate parks with accessible features. It is available at goodforpa.com/park-finder.

“I think everyone has a universal right to be served by our communities, and I believe many park services and park agencies are in that line of thinking,” Hendey said. “We strive to serve everyone in our community, plain and simple.”

He and other parks professionals concerned with accessibility look at planning and renovations through the lens of universal design. That refers to a set of principles and a way of thinking that considers how something could be built so everyone can use it, not just for people with disabilities or without them. It encourages people of different backgrounds to come together, as opposed to being siloed based on what they can access.

Philadelphia has taken some steps in recent years to embrace these considerations. In 2016, City Council passed an Inclusive Parks and Playgrounds bill, which ensured that all parks and playgrounds in Philadelphia managed by the city that undergo renovations must have play areas for children with special needs. And since the city launched its $500 million Rebuild initiative, dozens of playgrounds, parks, and recreation centers have already or are scheduled to receive these upgrades.

Ideally we’d have accessible features for everybody in every playground, and I think one day we will, but it’s going to take a lot of time.

The Pennsylvania House nearly unanimously passed a bill in 2023 that would require the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to prioritize grant funding for projects that construct or upgrade playgrounds for the inclusion of children with special needs. The bill remains in the Pennsylvania Senate.

But Philadelphia is still far from having all of its playgrounds be truly accessible. The city manages over 200 playgrounds and tot lots, and Gwendolyn Vilade, director of inclusion with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, estimates that only half of them currently have some accessible features. She said that “accessibility” can also be an imprecise measure, since specific features won’t be relevant for every child’s disability.

“Ideally we’d have accessible features for everybody in every playground, and I think one day we will, but it’s going to take a lot of time,” she said.

Vilade said that funding is always a challenge to building accessible playgrounds, whether the money comes from Rebuild, community groups, grants or elsewhere. But it’s not the only barrier. Vilade said that some Philly parks just don’t have enough space to accommodate features like wide pathways or large ramped equipment.

Still, she remains optimistic about Philly’s potential for improvements. Vilade is prioritizing the addition of communication boards to playgrounds, and said there is an array of new accommodating equipment and technology on the market that can be implemented.

Plus, several Philly parks are already recognized for their accessibility. Champions Park Playground at 910 Tustin St. in Northeast Philly is one that stands out to Vilade because of its wide wheelchair-friendly spacing, single-level equipment, accessible swings, parking lot, and other features.

Most of the region’s models for accessible playgrounds, though, are in the suburbs, where cost and space are often less of an issue. Warminster Township in Bucks County recently reopened its largest playground after completing renovations that embrace universal design.

“We knew we had this opportunity … to go beyond minimal accessibility,” said Jessica Fox, director of Parks and Recreation for Warminster.

Fox said that their design goal was to create a sensory-rich environment with challenges for children of all abilities. The new Warminster Community Park playground has elements like musical instruments, sensory play panels, sign language and communication boards, and wide conveyor belts so children who use wheelchairs are able to grip and climb without their mobility devices. It has playground staples, too, but they were built in a way so everyone can use them.

“The three biggest things that kids love to do are swing, spin, and slide,” Fox said. “So we made sure that our swings, our spinners, and our slides were all inclusive.”

When Lee takes her son Taahir to visit different playgrounds, she notices the contrast in accessibility between the city and suburbs, even with relatively straightforward interventions like communication boards.

“I see them further out,” she said. “Not in urban communities.”

She is determined to close that gap, even though her resources are limited. The communication boards that Taahir’s Village donates can cost about $2,500 each, and, lately, Lee and her cofounder have resorted to paying out of pocket for them as they seek more grant funding.

“We might not have the equipment that these other playgrounds have, but we will have the communication boards to create an inclusive environment,” she said.

“They have them further out in different areas, [and] we should be able to have them too because our children need them.”