Disabled needs prove a stumbling block to shared space

21 February 2008

Effective delineation between a shared-space ‘carriageway’ and a ‘safe space’ for the blind and partially-sighted makes it more difficult for wheelchair-users to move around.

This was the finding of tests in a University College London laboratory of a number of possible ways of demarcating a pedestrian path within a shared-space highway, where traditional kerbs and footways are removed.

The Guide Dogs for the Blind’s trials into seven delineators suggested by the Department for Transport and the Disabled Persons’ Transport Advisory Committee found ‘none emerged as meeting the needs of both groups of disabled people’.

The finding is a blow to highways authorities’ hopes of resolving the issue, which has seen highways authorities such as Brighton & Hove City Council rethink shared-space schemes (Surveyor, 12 July 2007).

One of the best two forms of delineation were a 30mm slope kerb, which most of 15 mobility-impaired people could climb, but one-third of the blind and partially-sighted could not detect.

The other was a 20mm-high central delineator, easily detectable by the blind and partially-sighted, but half the mobility-impaired claimed was difficult to traverse.

The Guide Dogs for the Blind has been calling for clear delineation in shared-space schemes since 2006, a line supported by the DfT’s Manual for streets.

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