John Parkin John.Parkin@uwe.ac.uk
Professor in Transport Engineering
Accounting for the Needs of Blind and Visually Impaired People in Public Realm Design
Parkin, John; Smithies, Nicola
Authors
Nicola Smithies
Abstract
Public realm schemes are being introduced in urban areas without the usual delineation between the footway and carriageway provided by kerb edges. Concern has been expressed about the resulting spaces on behalf of the approximately two million people in the UK who are blind or visually impaired. This paper questions these concerns and presents the results from a questionnaire and in-depth interviews, and observational studies of blind and visually impaired people navigating in urban streets and spaces with and without shared surfaces. They show that blind and visually impaired people can identify many different surface types and delineators, and they use these, along with other features of the urban environment, in creative ways to identify their location and guide themselves. Shared Space schemes need to preserve a safe area for pedestrians, they need to provide a rich physical environment of contrasts in terms of surface tactility, colour contrast, and the enhancement of sound and other sensory clues. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Feb 1, 2012 |
Publicly Available Date | Jun 8, 2019 |
Journal | Journal of Urban Design |
Print ISSN | 1357-4809 |
Electronic ISSN | 1469-9664 |
Publisher | Taylor & Francis (Routledge) |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 17 |
Issue | 1 |
Pages | 135-149 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2012.646139 |
Keywords | public realm, blind, visually impaired |
Public URL | https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/949903 |
Publisher URL | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2012.646139 |
Files
Parkin and Smithies paper for Journal of Urban Design.doc
(750 Kb)
Document
You might also like
Planning for cycling
(2014)
Other
Cycling Futures: From Research into Practice
(2015)
Book
Cycling infrastructure for reducing cycling injuries in cyclists
(2015)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About UWE Bristol Research Repository
Administrator e-mail: repository@uwe.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search