Are infrastructure designs for bus stops with cycle tracks making streets less inclusive? Image from Inclusive design at bus stops, by Living Streets.

The main factors

• The cycle track passes in front of, behind, or between, elements of the bus stop area.
• Passengers wait on an island or on an ordinary stretch of the pavement, and whether they alight onto the cycle track, near the cycle track, or onto an obvious island
• A bus stop island is part of something bigger (e.g. with multiple shelters, seats, trees, etc), smaller and well defined (e.g. dominated by a single bus shelter), or so small and/or insignificant that people wouldn’t wait on it.
• Cycle tracks are one-way or two-way (unidirectional / bi-directional).
• A bus stop island is separated from the rest of the pavement by a cycle track, by a road, or by some less conventional access arrangement (e.g. mostly used by cyclists, but open to some other vehicles)
• Pedestrians are crossing an area of cycle track, cyclists are crossing an area of pavement, or whether cyclists and pedestrians both cross something that feels to be neither quite part of the pavement nor of the cycle track.

Recommendations for bus stops

• working with the disability community on local projects
• amending design guidance to be clear that cycle tracks are not part of the footpath or carriageway, and options for designs
• the risks of disadvantage to a wider group of pedestrians, particularly people who are blind, should be acknowledged.

Appendices are instructive

Inclusive design at bus stops with cycle tracks: Appendices 2-6 – MARCH 2024

Wheelchair users can stay in their powered wheelchair in taxis, trains and buses, but not in aircraft. Every wheelchair user takes a deep breath and hopes their wheelchair will come through the flight without damage. The risk of personal injury in wheelchair to seat transfers is also a worry. The other inconveniences and indignities just add to air travel with a wheelchair.

Currently, people are potentially put on a flight in a seat that is not appropriate for them. Travellers and airlines risk injury in transfer and in flight. It also risks serious damage to their wheelchair which is set up for their individual requirements.

Preliminary research from the US Transport Research Board (TRB) found no major design or engineering challenges stand in the way of securing personal power wheelchairs in commercial aircraft. The TRB concluded that installing wheelchair securements is a win-win for wheelchair users, airlines, and everyone else involved in transporting wheelchair users. Consequently, that means it is up to the willingness of airlines to make the necessary changes.

No major design or engineering challenges stand in the way of securing power wheelchairs in commercial aircraft.

Transport Research Board.
Photo credit Heike Fabig (in Daily Mail)

Airport experience begins arrival kerbside

While there are mandates for minimum standards for the built environment, airport layout design make life difficult for people with disability and older people. Many airports were designed decades ago when traveller comforts were not considered. Arriving kerbside or at the drop-off is where the problems begin.

Assistance is not available outside the terminal entrance which becomes the first hurdle to overcome. In many instances, help is not available until check-in processes are complete. A kerbside or drop-off check-in would solve that. Or at least provide a means for travellers to contact service staff to help them from the kerbside point.

The US Airport Cooperative Research Program has a detailed report that identifies the issues and provides solutions. The title of the report is, Assessing Airport Programs for Travelers with Disabilities and Older Adults. The aim is to assist airport designers and airline operators to make their places and services accessible and inclusive. There are 8 chapters to the report.

Airport facilities

Chapter 7 of the report is about Facility Accessibility. It begins with access on arrival at the airport and the provision of accessible ground transportation. The advice for the design of terminals is to adopt a universal, inclusive approach. That includes addressing long distances between the key points for travellers who don’t use a mobility device.

Self-service kiosks, elevators, power outlets, seating and lighting, along with catering for people with a diversity of cognitive conditions are covered in detail. Case studies provide information about restrooms, adult sanitary change facilities, provisions for assistance animals, and quiet rooms.

The policy push to encourage people to walk and use public transport is one way to reduce emissions and improve health. However, whether to choose the car or public transport, or not to go out at all, depends on many factors. So, do people choose the car because they are constrained from using other forms of transport? Or do they use the car because it just suits them better? 

A review of the literature found that people with poor health, older age, low income and lack of access to a car are less likely to get out and about. Difficulties with public transport are linked with walking difficulties. So the design of the public transport system itself is not the total problem. 

Some retirees might engage in several activities in one day making public transport a time consuming business. On the other hand, some retirees may only leave the house for medical appointments and grocery shopping. The paper based on the literature review goes into these issues in depth. 

Some conclusions

Policies aimed at reducing car usage by older people with physical and mental impairments, must be approached with caution. Car mobility represents a crucial means of maintaining independence for older people. 

The advantages of allowing older people to drive, despite minor disabilities, often outweigh the risks they may pose to themselves and others. It is noteworthy that France, togethr with the Netherlands and the UK, are nations with the most lenient procedures and minimal medical examination requirements for driving license renewal. However, these countries also report the lowest fatality rates for car drivers within this age group.

The links between mobility, safety, and older people shows that people aged over 65 are considerably more vulnerable to fatal incidents as pedestrians than as drivers. So there is an intricate balance between considering the mobility needs and safety of the older drivers and pedestrians.

Universal design helps

Researchers found that physical difficulties are contextual, and decrease when universal design measures are taken. Universal design is not a luxury for a few individuals. Physical accessibility helps a lot a people to move around more smoothly and comfortably. 

The title of the article is, Older adults’ immobility: disentangling choice and constraint. It looks at people who are not in the workforce and spend most of their daily lives in their homes.

In a nutshell: the motor car becomes a mobility device as people age and walking becomes more difficult. 

From the abstract

Our research challenges the prevailing notion that immobility only occurs in exceptional circumstances. Our work shows instead a close link with individuals’ activity levels and constraints on their schedules.

Retirees and non-working population groups exhibit higher immobility levels than workers. This is influenced by factors such as poor health, old age, low income, lack of access to a car, or rural residency.

Driving and walking difficulties are significant contributors to immobility, with age being a primary explanatory factor. However, living in dense urban areas tends to reduce immobility levels across household categories. Difficulties with public transport, as such, do not trigger immobility, but they are entangled with walking difficulties.

Implications for public action include targeting age-specific interventions for reducing car dependency, and approaching policies aimed at curbing car use by older people cautiously.

Implementing universal design measures to enhance physical accessibility also helps to make mobility smoother and decrease perceived walking difficulties. Finally, this paper underlines the interconnectedness of mobility, social isolation, and sedentary lifestyles.

Making walking and wheeling more inclusive is the aim of the Walking for Everyone Guide. At 122 pages the online guide sets an ambitious and inclusive agenda for the future of walking across diverse communities. Community-led engagement is important to ensure changes meet the needs of residents. This is how you get local place-based needs met – there is no one-size-fits all.

Walking is often ignored in transport policy. Even when it is, the budget allocation takes it from the top of the hierarchy to the bottom. Consequently, basic elements like footpaths are not delivered. Despite almost every journey beginning and ending with walking and wheeling, streets are not inclusive.

Valuing and promoting lived experience enables transport planners to understand different experiences especially where they conflict. The Guide reminds us that solutions will sometimes require compromise, but marginalised groups should come first. After all, their needs will improve experiences for other walkers.

The Guide presents a framework of recommendations targeted national and local governments. There are three key themes:

1. Improving governance, planning and decision making
2. Creating better places for everyone to walk and wheel
3. Supporting everyone to walk and wheel

Each of the themes is dealt with in detail. In Theme 2, Creating better places, they tackle road safety, air quality and physical severance by roads. In the UK, cars are allowed to partially park on the footpath in narrow streets, but Living Streets recommend this practice end. This is because it often limits the movement of people using assistive mobility devices.

Close the mobility gap

A key point in Theme 3 is to close the mobility gap by making walking and wheeling inclusive. This includes ensuring everyone who needs a mobility device can get one. These devices include assistance dogs, personal assistants and support workers as well as equipment.

The Guide is well presented with attractive photographs depicting a diverse population of pedestrians. It includes a socio-economic context and next steps which is a call to action for government, business and community sectors to work together. There is a useful list of reference documents at the end.

The title of the guide is Walking for everyone: Making walking wheeling more inclusive and was developed by Living Streets. Images are from the Guide.

Tools for Inclusion

Living Streets Scotland also has a useful Tools for Inclusion publication. This one is a guide on devising an Equality Impact Assessment at local government level. The report looks at the use of Equality Impact Assessment in delivering the obligations of the public sector to address the inclusion of people with disability. The findings of their study show there is still a long way to go. The report has several useful recommendations.

Lucinda Miller asks the same questions any follower of universal design and inclusive practice asks. “Who are our built environments planned for?” Disability access standards are framed around people with physical and sensory disabilities. But what about people with invisible disabilities? Miller puts a neurodivergent lens on public transport and challenges the way policies are ‘decorated’ with the language of access and inclusion.

“What does ‘public’ mean if it does not serve the needs of all people in the community?”

Creating inclusive environments is not only bricks and mortar, but also the belief systems held by society.

Cover image by Miller and Leddie

Miller highlights the gap between the words and deeds in policy documents. There is a chasm in the translation of access and inclusion in addressing invisible disabilities.

The thesis reviews both disability literature and policies and looks at ethical considerations. New South Wales state and local government policy is the basis of the policy review.

The diversity of lived experience must be baked into the design recipe – the planning instruments – rather than bolted on as an afterthought.

Discussion and recommendations

The Disability Discrimination Act and the Disability Transport Standards define disability as both mind and body, but are skewed towards physical disabilities. These documents guide planning instruments and so the diversity of invisible disabilities goes unrecognised in action plans. Consequently, environments are accessible to some, but not inclusive of everyone.

Recommendations include mandating hidden disability training and taking a whole-of-government approach to universal design. A universal design approach should be at everyone stage of projects and include people with lived experience.

The title of the honours thesis is, The Invisible City: Public Transport through Neurodivergent Lenses. Miller’s concluding remarks begin:

“This thesis explored how terminology such as accessibility and inclusive in policy and urban design translate to public transport from neurodivergent perspectives. It revealed that accessibility currently equates to a compliance-based mindset favouring minimum design standards. In contrast, inclusive is less concrete and highly decorated in strategic documents, yet its translation is absent from public space.”

From the abstract

Designing public transport to accommodate people with physical disabilities has gained momentum. The consideration of invisible disabilities, the experiences of neurodivergent individuals, navigating public space is yet to catch up.

This thesis interrogates the terms ‘accessibility’ and ‘inclusive’ in transport planning, and examines how these terms translate to the built environment.

This thesis emphasises the social value of public services in its fundamental role in serving communities. Despite the importance of compliance-based thinking there is a need for a cultural shift that moves beyond minimum standards..

The diversity of lived experiences should be embedded in planning instruments – “baked in, not bolted on”. It accentuates the Transport ‘Customer’ as more than a transactional member of the community.

The design of public transport must reflect the spectrum of disability, where transport journeys are about dignity. All users and their intersecting needs should feel a sense of autonomy over their right to participate in everyday life.

The design of driveways and their impact on footways is often forgotten in street design. That’s because not many people realise that crossing over driveways and roadways at side streets to continue a journey is part of a footway. Consequently, the design of continuous footways has a role to play in creating walkable neighbourhoods.

Living Streets is a UK based charity focused on safe and accessible walking and wheeling. As part of a major project to encourage walking they have produced a report on inclusive design and continuous footways.

The research project included a literature review, GIS mapping, working with professionals, working with people with disability, which led to detailed site work. The issues raised in this project are likely to be similar in other jurisdictions.

Key conclusions are:

• There’s confusion over what constitutes a continuous footway, their design, and what their use aims to achieve
• Many designs being called continuous footways in Britain do not convincingly continue the footway
• Most of the designs called continuous footways in Britain do not provide high levels of pedestrian priority

• The use of these designs can create problems not just for some disabled people, but for a wider group
• Where there are fewer vehicles travelling at lower speeds, it’s easier to establish pedestrian priority
• What we call “real” continuous footways might be more effective in prioritising pedestrians

Many pedestrians find crossing over delivery driveways and car parking driveways unsafe. This is largely due to drivers and pedestrians not knowing who has the right of way.

Design issues

Researchers found that some designers wanted to design for maximum pedestrian safety, but were forced to compromise by “highway engineers”. People who are blind or have low vision are particularly impacted where the footway is not clearly delineated by kerbs or clear transitions. This results in that journeys not made when pedestrians feel unsafe.

Design factors having potential significance for pedestrians are:

• Continuity of main carriageway kerb
• Lack of visible (kerb) radii at the main carriageway
• Continuity of markings (white line)
• Height different and ramp design
• Visual continuity of materials and colour of footway
• Contrast between footway and carriageway colour

Findings from the study

Overall there was a broad failure to prioritise pedestrians at all study sites even where designers were aiming to prioritise pedestrians. Failure to reduce vehicle speeds and use visual cues so that drivers know when they are crossing a footway were two findings.

The title of the Living Streets report is, Inclusive design at continuous footways. There is a separate document of appendices that has many illustrations. The Living Streets website has more about the project and links to further documents.