Slopeless in Seattle

If you want to avoid the hills of Seattle then you can use AccessMap, a map which provides walking directions that avoid hills and other accessibility barriers.

Streets on AccessMap are colored by the steepness of their incline. The map also includes the locations of marked and unmarked crossings. When you ask for directions from one part of Seattle to another you can assign the maximum uphill and downhill steepness that you are comfortable with. The map includes a number of preset options which are designed for wheelchairs, powered chairs and walkers with canes.

After a query the suggested route for your journey is shown on the interactive map. If you click on the 'Trip Info' button you can view an elevation of your suggested route, the total distance of the route and the estimated time. If you select the 'Directions' button you can see step-by-step instructions for the trip.


If you are a wheelchair user in Seattle, or anywhere else in the world, then you can use Wheelmap, to find out how accessible buildings and services are. The colors of the markers on the map indicate how accessible a venue is. Green markers indicate that a building is fully wheelchair accessible. Orange markers show a location is only partially accessible and red markers indicate venues which cannot be accessed by wheelchairs.

Wheelmap is a crowd-sourced project which means that anybody can add information to the map. The grey markers on the map indicate venues that Wheelmap has no information about. If you have information about the venue's accessibility to wheelchair visitors you can simply click on the marker and select whether it is wheelchair accessible, partially accessible or not accessible.