Pedestrian paths: Safety and accessibility for all users

摘要

The proposal includes an assessment of quality, under the point of view of accessibility and safety of pedestrian Paths. The aim of this project is to understand how safe and accessible our pedestrian Paths really are (especially for disabled people). In an urban context, pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users. We propose a new assessment methodology that aims at improving the quality and safety of pedestri-ans' accessibility to our streets: are our roads really safe and accessible for everyone? Which are the main ob-stacles/design mistakes in planning a pedestrian route accessible to everyone, in particular to disabled people? What are the principal suggestions to improve the quality of our streets? The project will provide objective evidence in response to all these questions through the comparison of different situations in order to highlight their strengths and weaknesses; such comparison will follow the criteria of efficiency, safety and accessibility; a 5 level rating is used (excellence in case of 5 stars, serious problems if 1 star) in order to inform on the present state of roads safety and accessibility, highlighting the lacks, deficiencies and shortcomings that re-strict a city actual practicability; proposals are made for the correct design of pedestrians safety; the study provides helpful suggestions to remove the obstacles that make it difficult, in particular for disabled people, to walk along our streets. The methodology illustration will include definition of the following: parameters and indicators for the assessment, checklists, test protocol and evaluation grid. The evaluation will be conducted considering three test criteria (functionality, safety and accessibility) and three categories of disabled pedes-trians (blind, deaf and wheelchair people). The results of two pilot tests on the following types of pedestrian route will be presented: from house to school, from public transport stop to touristic place or commercial area.