Four-time Paralympian Billy Bridges discusses the toboggan run and how the project came about. CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Monday, December 25, 2017

The city of Winnipeg has opened a slide and toboggan designed to allow everyone to get in on the fun.

On Friday, the city unveiled a its first wheelchair-accessible slide, which doubles as a toboggan run in the winter, at St. Vital Park in the southern part of Winnipeg.

Four-time Paralympian and two-time Paralympic medalist in sledge hockey Billy Bridges took part in the slide’s inaugural run with his daughter on his lap.

“Having a two-year-old daughter, tobogganing was always something I never thought I’d be able to do with her, at least consecutively more than one run at a time,” Bridges told CTV News Channel.

For the most part. the slide looks like a traditional slide you’d see in an everyday playground, except surrounding the structure is a ramp that allows someone in a wheelchair to get to the top.

“It’s was such a cool idea, but such a massive undertaking with this ramp,” Bridges said. “You can access (the ramp) from the road and anyone who requires help can be pushed up this ramp.”

The slide is available for anyone to use, has two slides at different heights and a heated area for people to keep warm.

The city says the final cost of the slide is roughly $750,000 and was paid for through Winnipeg’s parks and open space capital funding program in 2014, 2015 and 2016

Original at https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/wheelchair-accessible-toboggan-slide-opens-in-winnipeg-1.3735330