May 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 64

parks & recreation at work

public accommodations regarding accessibility, dimensions, and other details of
benches, lockers, fixtures, floors, and bathrooms in locker rooms. Some state requirements are more stringent than the ADA's. In
addition, some agency and club directors
use the American College of Sports Medicine's Health/Fitness Facility Standards and
Guidelines, Third Edition.
Certain locker room standards and
guidelines have resulted from public
health and privacy issues, such as better
cleaning and a shift from gang showers to
individual showers.
" We have to do our best to provide
people a reasonably safe environment
for working out and pursuing their goals, "
says Stephen Tharrett, a co-editor of the
American College of Sports Medicine's
book. " Locker rooms have become much
nicer from an environmental perspective.
They've gotten away from the gym-type
lockers to more like a home. "
In Tharrett's book, standards are considered musts, and guidelines are less
emphatic. Safety-related standards and
guidelines for locker rooms range from
temperature and time recommendations
and cautionary signs for saunas, whirlpools, and steam rooms to suggestions
for tile flooring to prevent slipping. Other
safety-related standards address background checks for staff and public access
to an automated external defibrillator.
Compliance with the ADA, a standard
in the book, was part of the renovation
at the Coast Guard Yard's locker rooms.
With the old showers, a curb separated the
shower and floor, which prevented wheelchair-accessibility. Now all showers are
wheelchair-accessible without a threshold.
None of the old sinks, mirrors, paper
towel and soap dispensers, and other fixtures was accessible, but they are now,
and there's an ADA-compliant toilet in
each locker room. Lockers with accessible
shelves, hooks, and operating mechanisms
replaced non-compliant lockers. The new
benches are lower, and clearance around
them allows wheelchair mobility.

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One user of the Coast Guard center is
in a wheelchair. " She loves the idea that
now she can wheel herself into the locker
room, have access to a locker, use the toilet without assistance, and wheel herself
into the shower, " Parmer says.
In addition to ADA compliance, safety is
essential at the new Community and Recreation Center at Boyce Mayview Park in
Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh. At the center, completed in 2009,
cameras are located outside locker rooms,
and staff members circulate through locker
rooms regularly. Signs at lockers remind
members to bring their own locks.
Other signs prohibit cell phone use in
locker rooms. " With cell-phone photos
and technology today, we believe privacy is of the utmost importance. We want
people to be comfortable here, " Paul Besterman, the town's director of recreation
and leisure services, says.
" Prohibiting cell phone use has become a big personal security thing in
locker rooms around the world, " says
Tharrett, who is a Dallas-based consultant for the club industry.
The new municipal recreation center in North Richland Hills, Texas, north
of Fort Worth, will have plenty of security features when it opens in spring 2012.

The locker room is equipped with a/c
and ceiling fan ventilation to condition
space and disperse any water that
does get spilled or tracked on floor.

www.NRPA .ORG

The U.S. Coast Guard Yard locker room
in Baltimore features ADA compliant
ventilated plastic lockers, high ceilings,
new protected lighting, and lots of
floor circulation. The seamless epoxy
floor is slip resistant and even. Wall
materials are a sanitary epoxy special
coating used for industrial kitchens.

A sauna was incorporated to assist
recovery of personnel undergoing
physical therapy at the USCG Yard
clinic and USCG mandatory physical
training. Available for use by all.

May 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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