Blue Spring State Park: New tracked chair aids accessibility outdoors Orlando Sentinel Tuesday, October 30, 2023, by Partick Connolly
Central Florida volunteers, supporters and park rangers including George Koutsakis, president of Friends of Seminole State Forest, fourth from left, Katherine Hallum of Friends of Blue Spring, fifth from left, Blue Spring State Park rangers, state Rep. Rachel Plakon, center, and Greg Pauch of the Mesara Family Foundation, fifth from right, gather at Blue Spring State Park in Orange City to celebrate a new tracked chair program for visitors with mobility impairments on Oct. 26, 2023. The chairs can be reserved free of charge through an online system
Blue Spring State Park is known as a wintertime haven for manatees and a summertime oasis for visitors who seek out its azure-blue waters to swim and cool down.
While the park’s boardwalk, restrooms, campsites, and boat tours are accessible to all guests, the rugged sugar-sand trails are hard to experience for people with mobility impairments. A new tracked chair program aims to fix that.
The state park will now have access to a motorized wheelchair with all-terrain rubber tracks, which can be reserved Monday-Friday free of charge through an online system. This appropriately colored blue EcoRover chair is made available through Friends of Seminole State Forest, which debuted the program earlier this year.
Another chair can be reserved Monday-Friday at DeLeon Springs State Park, and visitors can use a chair for exploring Seminole State Forest on the weekends. In the Sunshine State, an estimated 13.5 percent of adults have a disability that affects their mobility, not to mention out-of-state visitors who might benefit from the program.
“This park gets 700,000 visitors a year. DeLeon Springs gets 300,000,” said George Koutsakis, president of Friends of Seminole State Forest. “Between the two parks, that’s a million people per year that will have direct exposure to the tracked chair program.”
The group’s second chair was obtained thanks to a $15,000 donation from the Michigan-based Mesara Family Foundation. Greg Pauch, who serves on the foundation’s board of directors, made the trip down to Florida to see the new EcoRover for himself.
“It’s even more impressive in person than just seeing something on the website. It’s built well and moves smoothly,” he said. “As soon as these are available, people are going to start flocking to them; I can almost guarantee it.”
Track chair users must be accompanied by a friend or family member, who can also control the chair with a wired controller if the person in the chair cannot operate the hand controls.
Katherine Hallum, a member of Friends of Blue Spring State Park, has been hoping and working to implement such a program in the park.
“I started thinking along these lines because a friend of mine, who I would backpack, hike and bike with, ended up in a wheelchair,” she said. “We haven’t been able to provide people who have mobility challenges with access to our trails. Now they’re going to be able to see a different piece of the park or animals they haven’t been able to see before.”
What started several years ago with a trip to Colorado, where Koutsakis first witnessed similar powered chairs being used in a state park, is now expanding to impact more people right here in Central Florida.
“I’m thrilled we can include the state parks in the program. It’s just fantastic,” he said. “When you see the joy that this gives to people, it’s priceless.”
