Dozens of attractions across New York state recently received wheelchair accessibility checks from an accessible-travel company.<\/p>\n
Wheel the World, in conjunction with Visit Syracuse, now has roughly 19 local organizations as verified partners on its website.<\/p>\n
“It was a chance for us to kind of spread our reach, and help promote [Syracuse] a little bit better,\u201d said Danny Liedka, president and CEO of Visit Syracuse.<\/p>\n
And for wheelchair users like SUNY ESF student Maeve Stone, accessibility is one of her biggest obstacles to seeing new sights.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really isolating and upsetting because, especially being so young, I want to do so many things and go to so many places,” Stone said. “If there are no elevators, no ramps and it\u2019s very hilly or very scary, I simply don\u2019t go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even when Stone has high energy and feels minimal pain from her fibromyalgia and POTS, the antiquated nature of many Syracuse locations has impeded her from enjoying the city in the past. She said the accessibility checks are “extremely helpful.”<\/p>\n
Franklin Fry, executive director of the Redhouse Arts Center, said bringing in Wheel the World to conduct reviews was a no-brainer.<\/p>\n
Fry wants people like Stone not to have to worry about mobility, which is why he said he talks about accessibility for all every day in his morning meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s part of our DNA,” Fry said. “Visibility gives people power \u2026 it’s my obligation to make sure that we’re lifting everybody up.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the winter, Wheel the World brought in its own experts with tape measures to check door access, elevators, ramps and other sight-specific properties, which Stone said allows her to be a “better member of (her) community.”<\/p>\n
Visit Syracuse estimates Wheel the World has an economic impact just shy of $1 million in Syracuse, and that the website has driven or influenced around 500 trips to Syracuse, a representative told Spectrum News 1.<\/p>\n
Liedka of Visit Syracuse said the city has been working on this partnership for a couple years, and this is year two, but at least five new locations signed on in March.<\/p>\n
For historic sights like the Erie Canal Museum, which executive director Natalie Stetson said often have design flaws damaging wheelchair accessibility, many will greatly benefit from the measurements.<\/p>\n
\u201cKind of the highlight of a visit to the Erie Canal Museum is boarding our canal boat,” Stetson said. “But right now, there are there are individuals who wouldn’t be able to board it safely. And so, we’re getting a new ramp installed to make that possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stetson also noted the museum will be adding new push buttons and other added features to be more accommodating. Her goal, along with Fry and several other attractions in Syracuse, is to help Stone and the rest of the disabled community enjoy Syracuse more comfortably.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt warms my heart when I see places that are accessible,” Stone said, “Because it also means that the people making that institution think of people who are maybe not the norm.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to Syracuse, Wheel the World also recently verified attractions in cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Albany and more tourist destinations throughout New York state.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of attractions across New York state recently received wheelchair accessibility checks from an accessible-travel company. Wheel the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11179,257,2025,17202,6592,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,200],"class_list":["post-227029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-app-good-news","tag-central-ny","tag-community-news","tag-david-jacobs","tag-good-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}