Author: Jane Bringolf

Mapping the inconveniences of urban life

A man in a wheelchair is separated from the crowd by a low concrete barrier Town access audits are not new, but these alone do not gauge accessibility for everyone.  Mapping the inconveniences of urban life for people with disability gives a better understanding of why isolated access features are insufficient to provide access for everyone.

Access features are required in new works and major refurbishments. That means a lot of infrastructure remains inaccessible in our cities. It also means that accessible places aren’t joined up very well, or not at all. 

In a book chapter about the urban circle of life of people with disability, Katarzyna Ujma-Wasowicz explains her mapping project.  The project involved a diverse group of people with disability. The aim was to see how they navigate the built environment. This sounds like a simple and obvious thing to do, but few planners and architects do this. 

The mapping process

The mapping process involves the person with disability specifying a path from home to a destination and back home again. An auditor or researcher follows the person and takes detailed notes along the way. The results of these observations can inform decisions about the most critical rectifications needed. 

Ujma-Wasowicz acknowledges that designers think, “in best faith” about access for each disability group independently. At the end of the chapter she has a section on Post-Pandemic and Universal Design. Ujma-Wasowicsz notes that COVID has changed our behaviours but these changes don’t affect everyone equally. She proposes a universal design approach for design strategies in the summary. 

 “Therefore, a holistic approach to planning is necessary, where one of its elements should be audit of public spaces accessibility. The “urban circle of life” can be a useful tool for such inspection.”

The title of the article is, The Urban Circle of Life of People with Disabilities: Mapping urban inconveniences.  The chapter and the book, Mapping Urban Spaces is available online from Taylor Francis. It is open access. 

This is a wordy read, but worth the effort if wanting to replicate this process and model. Although some local councils have embarked on similar exercises, there is little written about them in the literature. 

 

Measure exclusion to get inclusive transport

People walking on a wide pedestrian crossing. They are blurred as if they are walking quickly. Measure exclusion to get inclusive transport.It’s easy to measure the things we can see, but not so easy to measure the things we can’t see. So how do you measure the people who don’t use public transport? And how then can you measure why they don’t? When it comes to travellers with disability we have to measure exclusion to get inclusive transport. But how can we do this?

Bridget Burdett has some thoughts on this thorny issue. In a Linked In article she poses a ‘hierarchy of response’: reactive advocacy, consultative planning and proactive inclusion. 

A graphic showing the hierarchy of response.
Hierarchy of response. Bridget Burdett

Reactive advocacy is when people with disability demand  accessible transport. This is usually when things are really obvious. Some changes are made, such as adding a ramp, and then the fuss dies down, but not much else changes. 

Consultative planning involves asking people with disability what they need. Disability advocacy groups are invited to give their stories and opinions. Similarly to putting in a ramp, it makes decision-makers feel they are doing a good job.

Proactive inclusion is where transport planners understand and measure the problem. Of course, it still requires advocacy and consultation. 

Burdett explains how to measure exclusion based on the number of mobility aids present in the community.

The title of the article is, Until we measure exclusion we won’t get inclusive transport. Bridget Burdett is a transport planner and chair of the Transportation Group New Zealand. There are links to Bridget’s case studies on transport and disability.

There are more posts on transportation in the Transportation Special Summer edition of the CUDA newsletter. 

Also by Bridget Burdett, Transportation: You get what you measure. 

Housing and Indigenous disability: Lived experience

A small house with a large veranda sits on orange soil in a remote location. Indigenous people need accessible housing.All new housing should be designed for accessibility to the silver level of the Livable Housing Design Guidelines. This is one of the recommended policy actions from AHURI research on housing and Indigenous disability. A systematic inspection process for new builds to ensure compliance with the guidelines is also needed. They also recommend a new classification in the building code for “housing for Indigenous people”.

Researchers found housing conditions were poor, inaccessible and that few people were aware of modifications for making life easier. 

Indigenous Australians have a high rate of disability and chronic illness but there is little housing available to support them. Disability is under-reported in this population, particularly in remote areas. This is because the concept of disability varies between urban and rural locations. In urban areas where people know about the NDIS their understanding of disability is similar to the non-indigenous population. Remote communities relate to disability as wheelchairs.

The title of the executive summary is, Housing and Indigenous disability: lived experiences of housing and community infrastructure.  The AHURI website has the full report, a positioning paper and a policy bulletin.

Note that since this publication, the Livable Housing Design Standard has been mandated in the 2022 National Construction Code. It has the Silver features of the Livable Housing Design Guidelines. 

Making Mosques Accessible

People at the mosque door taking off their shoes. One person is sitting. Making mosques accessible.
Bolo Hauz Mosque in Uzbekistan.

The classic design of a mosque makes access difficult for people who have difficulty with mobility, removing shoes, hearing the call to prayer, and generally using facilities. The three critical elements for making mosques accessible are the prayer hall, the ablution area and sanitary facilities. 

People cannot enter the mosque with a personal mobility device or shoes. This is to stop dirt from the outside entering the mosque. But it also creates major barriers, especially for older people. The United Arab Emirates, and Dubai in particular, is keen to promote the inclusion of people with disability in all aspects of life. Consequently, the Ministry of Community Development commissioned an access plan and that includes mosques. As a result, Nazem Fawzi Al-Mansoor has come up with a checklist for making mosques accessible. 

The title of the short conference paper with the checklist is, Universal Mosque/Masjid Design. It was presented at the 3rd Universal Design Conference held in UK in 2016.

The checklist includes some basic features found anywhere such as the width of doorways. Seats for shoe removal, space to park mobility devices, and an accessible ablution area feature in the list. 

Mosque detailMosque detail
Mosque BukharaMosque Bukhara

Photos: Bolo Hauz Mosque, Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Beyond minimum standards

Urban landscape with shade trees and lots of casual seating with people sitting. Going beyond minimum standards.Why does the design of built environment continue to fail people with disability? Many have asked this question since Selwyn Goldsmith raised it in the 1960s. Many have found answers. But these are not enough to make a difference to the results. New buildings continue to pose barriers in spite of regulations and standards. Going beyond minimum standards is therefore a big ask. 

Imogen Howe, an architect with 10 years experience, wants to find the answer in her PhD study. Her research questions are something we can all think about:

    • Why and how does the Australian built environment continue to marginalise people with disabilities, despite the Disability Discrimination Act (1992)?
    • How does building design reproduce exclusion and segregation? How is this underpinned by design assumptions and approaches both contemporary and historic?
    • Do building and design codes in Australia, NZ, Canada and the UK address dignity?
    • How do we educate becoming architects about the need for inclusive design and then how to enact it in their designs?

References are made to key thinkers and writers on the topic such as Amie Hamraie, C.W. Mills, Joss Boys and Michel Foucault. 

These questions are posed in an article framed as a discussion piece in Academia.edu. The key provocations for the discussion are: eugenics and stigma in design, society structures, and how could this be different. The title of the article is, “The need for inclusive design: going beyond the minimum standards in the built environment”.

Beyond compliance with universal design

Front cover of the guide. A guide book from Ireland on the built environment draws together Irish standards with a practical universal design approach. Many of the standards mirror those in Australia so most of the information is compatible. Parking, siting, pedestrian movement, steps, ramps, lifts, seating and bollards are all covered. 

Building for Everyone, External environment and approach covers each of the features in detail. While the style of tactile indicators varies from the Australian design, the advice on placement is still useful. There is a reference list of related documents including Australian Standards. The guide is undated, but probably published circa 2010. This means some of the technology, such as parking ticket machines is a little outdated.

There is also a section at the end on human abilities and design. It covers walking, balance, handling, strength and endurance, lifting, reaching, speech, hearing, sight, touch and more.

Published by the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design in Ireland it is very detailed. Checklists help guide the reader through the material. This booklet links with others in the series, particularly the one on entrances and circulation spaces. The good aspect of these guides is the perspective of a universal design approach rather than proposing prescriptive design parameters.

Universal design approach to transportation

Much of our transportation infrastructure was designed last century when the focus was on getting people to work and school. People with disability were not considered as part of the working or school populations at that time. But times have changed and “average” must evolve to “inclusive” because there is no such thing as the average user. The time has come for a universal design approach to transportation.

Universal design makes transit stations more functional for a wider range of people, based not only on disability but also on factors such as age and size. It helps all users navigate unfamiliar environments.

Train station entry hall in China.

A magazine article on inclusive transit systems suggests one way to think about the transit system is to recall an experience in another country. Was it easy to use? Did you feel you could confidently and independently navigate your way to your destination? How was buying a ticket? If you got confused, potentially, new users will be confused at home too. These are good benchmarks for home country design. 

The more intuitive, accessible, language-neutral and understandable the transit environment becomes, the more everyone benefits.

A scene of the station showing people near the ticket barrier gates.

Transit Universal Design Guidelines

The Transit Universal Design Guidelines (TUDG) promote the value of implementing a universal design approach that supports all user groups. And it doesn’t start and end at the station door. The environment leading up to the transit system must be part of the plan. That includes footpaths. The article picks out three key elements.

Key elements

User Groups: consider who you are ultimately designing for. This section includes accommodations required to satisfy the needs of specific user groups. This includes individuals with visual, hearing, speech, or mobility disabilities and needs, among others.

Aspects of Accommodation: identify features and techniques that can enhance the end user experience — from handrails, to hearing assistant systems, to tactile pathways, to mobile ticketing apps.

Implementation: understand the process and approach for implementing universal design through advocacy, engagement, and evaluating and finalizing design options. With this approach, transit agencies can attract new and retain existing ridership and provide solutions that are inclusive and universal from the start.

The Transit Universal Design Guidelines are comprehensive and stretch to 53 pages. The document aims to be a decision-making tool for transit agencies, designers and policy-makers.

The title of the article is, Designing More Inclusive, Accessible Transit Systems for All. 

For more information on accessible and inclusive transit systems and transportation, check out the the Transportation section of this website. 

A Melbourne tram moves along a quiet street after the rain. A cyclist is in the background.

Tactile or 3D?

A metal model showing a town layout in relief with Braille on buildings and streets. There is a church and lots of houses and a town square represented.Which type of map is best – tactile or 3D? Three researchers from Monash University carried out a study to see if 3D printed models offered more information than tactile graphics such as maps. There were some interesting findings that were presented in a conference paper. The abstract gives a good overview:

From the abstract

Tactile maps are widely used in Orientation and Mobility (O&M) training for people are blind or have low vision. Commodity 3D printers now offer an alternative way to present accessible graphics. However it is unclear if 3D models offer advantages over tactile equivalents for 2D graphics such as maps.

In a controlled study with 16 touch readers, we found that 3D models were preferred, enabled the use of more easily understood icons, facilitated better short term recall and allowed relative height of map elements to be more easily understood.

Analysis of hand movements revealed the use of novel strategies for systematic scanning of the 3D model and gaining an overview of the map. Finally, we explored how 3D printed maps can be augmented with interactive audio labels, replacing less practical braille labels. Our findings suggest that 3D printed maps do indeed offer advantages for O&M training. 

The full title of the paper is, “Accessible Maps for the Blind: Comparing 3D Printed Models with Tactile Graphics“.  The article is also available on ResearchGate. 

Shared space or contested space?

two cyclists ride into a city square which is a pedestrian precinct. Shared space or contested space?
Pedestrian zone with cyclists

Policy makers are concerned about growing motor vehicle usage, pollution, and poor health outcomes due to lack of exercise. Consequently, transport and planning experts are keen to get people out of their cars an onto bikes and public transport. Creating pedestrian malls is looking like a policy favourite too. But this often means that pedestrians have to mingle with slow moving traffic, light rail, and cyclists. Alright for some, but not for everyone. So is it shared space or contested space?

Older people in particular don’t like to share walkways with cyclists. And for many older people, the car is their mobility device. With poor footpath maintenance, or no footpath at all, people unsteady on their feet will still get around by car. So not an easy problem to solve.

Centre for Excellence in Universal Design in Ireland has done some research on this topic which is titled, Shared Space, Shared Surfaces and Home Zones from a Universal Design Approach for the Urban Environment in Ireland .

front cover of the report. black background with a collage of pictures and the title in white lettering. Shared space or contested space?
Front cover of the Executive Summary

It comes as two documents, a short executive summary, and the full document.

The study explored “contemporary national and international practices and thinking on Shared Spaces, Shared Surfaces and Home Zones and to investigate these concepts from a Universal Design approach in the Irish urban environment. This report sets out key evidence based findings and provides key recommendations in relation to the implementation of Shared Spaces, Shared Surfaces and Home Zones in Ireland”.

Manchester and Brussels: A place to grow old

A city square in Belgium showing heritage architecture. People are milling about in the square in Brussels.
Brussels city square

The WHO Age Friendly Cities and Communities framework remains a robust method for creating age-friendly places. We can learn a lot from cities that signed up to the WHO Global Network that began in 2007. A book chapter compares Brussels and Manchester as a place to grow old. It shows that different policy approaches result in quite different outcomes.

The first part of the chapter covers introductory material and detail about the 8 domains of the WHO program. The interesting part, especially for local government, is the comparison of approaches and outcomes for Brussels and Manchester. Brussels, for example, focused on social housing for older people and street safety. Manchester focused on lifetime neighbourhoods and quality of life.

Manchester was more inclusive of different ethnic backgrounds than Brussels which also has a diverse population. In short, Brussels was about keeping people safe, and Manchester was about living life. The paper goes on to discuss the barriers to implementing the programme and developing age-friendly policies. There are some good recommendations at the end of this paper which was published in 2015. 

The chapter title is, Developing Age-Friendly Cities: Case Studies from Brussels and Manchester and Implications for Policy and Practice. It begins on page 277.This chapter is one of several interesting papers in Environmental Gerontology in Europe and Latin America.  

You can find out more about the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group and a short video on what they are aiming to achieve. 

WHO Age Friendly Cities

WHO age friendly logo of 8 petals showing the 8 domains of life.Age Friendly Cities has its founding concepts in healthy ageing. Well if it’s healthy for older people it’s healthy for everyone. These cities should be walkable, compact and have infrastructure that supports liveability. But planning laws haven’t this and continue to address ageing in terms of age-segregated living arrangements. 

Canada was at the forefront of the development of the WHO Age Friendly Cities program in 2006. But that hasn’t been enough to overcome entrenched planning and development processes. No Place to Grow Old: How Canadian Suburbs Can Become Age-Friendly, found that although planners and others have concerns about an ageing population, their thinking hasn’t adapted. Consequently, little has changed in the last ten years. 

The survey found that older people were seen as a special-needs group rather than establishing inclusive policy solutions. The report makes some useful recommendations and the findings are applicable to any urban area in any location.

You can find a list of Australian cities or communities that are members of the WHO Global Network of Age Friendly Cities on the WHO website. You can also find out how your community can become a member of the Global Network.

The graphic above depicts the 8 domains of life that need to be considered in making a community age-friendly. 

 

Automated driverless vehicles: Where are we?

Graphic of a little red car depicting an automated driverless vehicle.A good question to ask about automated driverless vehicles – where are we? Five years ago there was much talk about how automated driverless vehicles would change the way we get around. While the promise is still there in terms of technology, we are still a long way from regulation and planning. That means accessible self-driving vehicles are a long way off.

An article in The Conversation explains the six levels of automation from driver assistance to full automation. Many new cars have a level of driver assistance such as keeping the car in lane, and speed control. But they require the driver to take over if necessary.

Regulators are struggling to keep pace. They need to come up with standard tests for safety and benchmarking their algorithms. The public is unsure about automation, but can see advantages especially for those who cannot currently drive. 

What do drivers think?

A yellow automated driverless vehicle is parked by the footpath.
Automated driverless vehicle

What do people really think about autonomous vehicles? A survey found two main types of response: one cognitive and one emotional. Overall there is a general acceptance of autonomous vehicles – the cognitive response. However, concerns were expressed over safety, trust and control – the emotional responses.

Negative views held by a few tended to be based on emotional factors. The key point is that assumed resistance factors, such as those relating to ethics, hacking and liability, are not top of mind in the community. This means education and information can be better tailored with this information in mind. 

The title of the article is, Dimensions of attitudes to autonomous vehicles.  Published in Urban, Planning and Transport Research, it is open access.

It will be about passengers

A small black and white pod shaped automated driverless vehicle.Driverless cars will be about passengers not drivers. Although a subtle difference, it focuses thought on users as passengers rather than drivers. And this is important because there will be more diversity of users than there are currently drivers. But this raises accessibility and other issues which are discussed in two papers.

When it comes to assistance it is usually the driver that helps riders with disabilities with getting in and out, and pointing them in the right direction. A report from Intelligent Transport Systems discusses these issues in a matter of fact way. Policy makers and vehicle designers need to think across all these issues. The title of the report is, Driverless Cars and Accessibility. 

David Williams in his article alerts us to the size and influence of tech giants and how they can utilise the data they can collect. His concern is for high-tech companies manipulating and controlling our lives further. He provides a table of vehicle enhancements and the time it took or is taking for the market to fully embrace them. The title of the article is, Driverless cars: benefit to humanity or road to an Orwellian dystopia?

What about trust?

Automated driverless vehicle on the road.The race is on for designing a self driving car that everyone trusts. While this is essential, it also needs to be a car that everyone can use. Mark Wilson writes for FastCompany about his test “drive” experiences of these vehicles. Reading his detailed experiences from a universal design perspective, there is still a way to go in the overall design. The developments so far show much thought about convenience, such as your smartphone linking to the car so it knows it’s you. They are using the phone to give instructions. This is a technology that needs to be followed closely as it has the potential to improve inclusion or inadvertently cause more exclusion. A very interesting article; “The fate of self-driving cars hangs on a $7 trillion design problem“.

 

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