My Quest

By: Scott Reddoch

A while back, I was telling a friend about a project that I’m working on. He asked me a question that I had to give a lot of thought to: “Why are you doing this?” I had a reason, but found myself looking for the words. No one had ever asked that. My answer was a little clunky and disorganized. I was embarrassed. It seemed like I didn’t know what I was doing.

The project is called routeskout and is a deeply personal endeavor. It started shortly after I was released from the hospital. There, they have wide halls and oversized doorways to push beds around. The rest of the world isn’t like that. Instead, I faced barriers and a group of people mostly not concerned with folks like me. One day, I was trying to find a barber shop that I could fully access. Not just if the building had a ramp, but also checking the sidewalk and parking. When in a wheelchair, your trip depends on it.

My dad and I would do this in advance of visiting. It was really time-consuming. It became known as route scouting. One particularly busy day of scouting, a light bulb went off. I had spent years working with surveys of sidewalks and streets, plus I knew a lot about being in a wheelchair. I could create something that solved the problem that I was sure others were having.

So that’s what I set out to do. I am making a “system” that maps sidewalk conditions. I hope to put the information in the hands of cities and ADA coordinators and wheelchair users. I want people to be able to see the map on a website instead of blindly going somewhere and hoping they can get to it.

I know many places aren’t accessible to wheelchairs. Even when they are, the sidewalk may not be. That’s why I do it. I’m the man for the job. It would be a tragedy to not use my experience to make things a little better for others.