(upbeat music) - Sometimes I think people think it might be a little hard to convert this canalway into an accessible recreation space, but I also know that we did it already.

We converted this industrial use canal into a space of recreation, and we needed to take it that next step so that everything that we're doing is done through more universal design perspective.

That we are intentionally and strategically planning to bring people here with intellectual, physical, emotional disabilities and the whole family along with them.

(upbeat music) Rochester Accessible Adventures has a pretty distinct mission that we want to work with businesses and industries in the recreation, sports and tourism basis and encourage them and teach them and empower them to include people with disabilities whenever their programs are running.

On the shores of Erie Canal, I used to come with adaptive cycles and I ran a program from here for people with disabilities.

On Monday nights, people with disabilities could come, they would be matched with the equipment that they would be using along the canal and off they would go.

I then turned and asked Erie Canal Bow company's owner, Peter Abley, if he would be willing to have us work with him to revamp how he operated because he was a provider of cycling and kayaking rentals along the canal way, and he said yes.

And so we were able to begin working with him with a deep dive into his complete operations, programmatic, the backend operations as well as equipment.

(upbeat music) In that first summer of his operations as an inclusive business, he had a 31% increase in revenue because of people with disabilities that were now coming here and coming with family and friends.

And that was the new narrative for Erie Canal Boat Company.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) With a program like On the Canals, we're assisting that every program that's funded through On the Canals would be inclusive of people with disabilities as well.

Not a program for people with disabilities but inclusive of every family and friend group, every individual with a disability that wants to play and engage in those adventures.

(bright music) - In my role as inclusion specialists, I work with recreational businesses.

We look first and foremost at their social inclusion, their administrative practices, their website, their registration processes to help them from the start, let people with disabilities know that they're expected and welcomed at their business and programs.

And then we look also at their operations, how they run their programs, how they can be more inclusive.

And then at the physical space, if you can't physically access a business, the other part doesn't happen.

- When we start developing our villages and towns through a lens of inclusion, we're recognizing that there is incredible spending power by people with disabilities, $4.9 billion in discretionary income.

And we can tap into that if and only if we are places that are designed inclusively.

With 80% of upstate New Yorkers, living within 25 miles of the canal and knowing that there are 3.9 million people living with a disability in New York state, these businesses stand to win.

The villages, the towns, the cities stand to win when they are designing their economic development strategies and plans from a lens of inclusion because they're going to get all of those people, not just part of those people coming to play.

(hopeful music)