Determinación de las Características de Calidad (CC)

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY ACCESSIBILITY?

Accessibility refers to the extent to which streets enable older people to reach, enter, use and walk around places they need or wish to visit, regardless of any physical, sensory or mental impairment. Accessible streets have local services and facilities, are connected to each other, have wide, flat footways and ground level signal-controlled pedestrian crossings.

HOW ACCESSIBILITY AFFECTS OLDER USERS OF THE OUTDOOR ENVIRONMENT

Reaching their Destination

We have outlined in earlier chapters how features of the outdoor built environ-ment are all too often designed with the average healthy young adult in mind.

For example, the UK government states that 10 min is a comfortable walking time to reach services and facilities and calculates this is the time it takes to walk

about 800 m (Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR), 2001). Llewelyn-Davies (2000) recommend that residential dwellings should have a post box and a telephone box located within 2–3 min (250 m) walk-ing distance and a newsagent within 5 min (400 m) walkwalk-ing distance. They also

Figure 7.1 Older people generally cannot walk as far or as fast as younger adults.

suggest that local shops, a bus stop, a health centre and a place of worship should be situated within 10 min (800 m) walking distance. These calculations appear to be based on younger adults as people in their mid-70s will generally take around 10–20 min to walk 400 m to 500 m and cannot walk further than 10 min without a rest (American Institute of Architects (AIA), 1985; Carstens, 1985).

The majority of older people today will have been car drivers when they were younger but many eventually have to stop driving for safety or financial reasons at the very stage of life when walking and using public transport can be difficult and onerous. We found that 60 per cent of our participants with-out dementia and 75 per cent of the participants with dementia used a car when they were younger but that 40 per cent of those without dementia who drove and 100 per cent of those with dementia who drove have now given up driving. Greenberg (1982) found that older car users make around 25 per cent more journeys than older people without access to a car. This suggests that older people who do not drive do not stay at home through choice but because of the problems they encounter as pedestrians in the outdoor environment.

As Greenberg explains:

age does not obviate the desire or necessity to go shopping, see the doctor, visit friends, and undertake other everyday activities – but it may alter the method and frequency with which they are done. Greenberg (1982, p. 405)

Peace (1982) found that older people are more likely to use local facil-ities within walking distance of home, shop more often and make regular visits to medical facilities. As we outlined in Chapter 3, our research found similar patterns. Most of our research participants with dementia and all of those without dementia go out alone, over half in each group daily. All go shopping and around half also regularly visit the local post office, park or take walks around their local neighbourhood. Yet recent UK government research found that older people, especially those aged 75 years and over, experience far greater difficulties in accessing local services than younger people (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) and Department of Health (DoH), 2001). This is hardly surprising if their design needs are not taken into consideration. Many of our participants are frail with reduced mobility or the unsteady gait often experienced by people with dementia. Those without dementia talked about places they have ceased to visit because they no longer feel able to cope with heavy traffic, crowded streets or a lack of essential public facilities, such as toilets and seating. They are also less likely to visit unfamiliar places than when they were younger due to the anxiety of not knowing their way around or where to find public facil-ities. Lavery et al. (1996, p. 183) note that, ‘It is no exaggeration to say that the

“average street” can be a very unfriendly place for older people’ with many barriers, such as uneven or steep footways, poor lighting, inaccessible bus

stops, or insufficient public toilets, seating or shelter. These unfriendly streets force older people experiencing temporary or permanent incapacity to either stay at home or to restrict their activities to local services and facilities, regard-less of their quality or suitability (Peace, 1982).

Our participants with dementia are even more restricted in their inde-pendent use of the outdoor environment than other older people. As they are no longer able to drive or to use public transport on their own, they have to limit their independent trips to places within close walking distance of home.

We talked in Chapter 5 about the anxiety carers experience when the person they care for fails to return home at the expected time. This often means that people with dementia are prevented by their carers from going out on their own because of the fear that they will become lost or involved in a traffic accident. All these problems make the accessibility and proximity of local services and facilities and the usability of streets and spaces essential factors in designing Streets for Life.

In the past, the movement of motorised traffic was often given priority when designing street layouts but, as Hillman (1990, p. 42) says, ‘Roads go places, streets are places’. Planning policy now promotes the design of streets and neighbourhoods to help reduce car journeys by providing good quality local services and facilities and by making walking, cycling and using public transport pleasant and viable alternatives. Inclusive urban design recognises that successful neighbourhoods are those where the design of buildings, streets and spaces is based on the needs of all users at a human rather than vehicular scale. For people who are unable to drive this is a necessity which inclusive urban design seeks to achieve.

Older people living in relatively compact, mixed use areas with a combin-ation of civic, commercial, leisure and residential properties should, in the-ory, find it easier to access facilities and services than those living in single use residential areas. As the Housing Corporation (2002) states: ‘If neighbour-hoods that include older people living in their own homes are to be sustain-able, access to shops and services is essential’. However, the proximity of services and facilities is only one feature of accessibility. The quality and type of local services and facilities, the street layout and the quality of the design of the streets are also essential factors in Streets for Life.

Walking along Unimpeded

We have already established that older people generally cannot walk as fast or as far as younger adults. A street layout with a number of dead-ends, such as culs-de-sac, is not only confusing in terms of legibility (see Chapter 5) but it also limits everyone’s ability to move around on foot. Walking to local facilities in such neighbourhoods often means following a convoluted route that takes much longer than a direct connection would and pedestrian

footpaths linking dead-ends typically run beyond back garden fences or rear access garage areas which are not overlooked and consequently feel isolated and unsafe.

For older people to be able to cope with crowded places they need enough space on the footway to walk along unimpeded without being jostled.

However, as we outlined in Chapter 6, people with dementia tend to find it difficult to predict how other people will behave. This can be especially problematic in crowded places or on narrow footways where they are in dan-ger of being jostled or knocked over because they are unable to anticipate which way an oncoming pedestrian may go.

Any level change can create barriers for people who are frail, have an unsteady gait or a visual impairment. People who find it difficult to lift their feet, such as those with arthritis, and people with visual impairments who struggle to see steps, find ramps easier to use. Other people, such as those

Figure 7.2 Crowded streets can be difficult to negotiate.

with an unsteady balance, tend to find steps easier and safer than ramps, including a participant with dementia who said that ‘ramps, especially zigzags, are very difficult to come down. They are tiring and unbalancing. Going down is harder than going up’. However, both steps and ramps can be chal-lenging for people with mobility problems or low stamina; one participant with dementia explained that ‘it depends on how tired I am and I appreciate the choice’ while another told us that ‘I would worry about tripping and falling but it’s good to have a choice’. Steep changes are obviously particularly onerous but even slight level changes can be problematic as they are difficult to see and confusing to negotiate. All our participants without dementia and most of those with dementia complained that small steps can cause them

Figure 7.3 Below ground toilets are inaccessible to many people.

problems especially if they are not clearly marked, explaining that ‘they are difficult to see’ and ‘you could easily trip up’.

The existence and accessibility of public toilets play an important role in enabling older people to spend time out of doors. Participants tend to avoid public toilets that are difficult to access, especially those below ground. The weight of doors to toilets, shops and facilities can also pose accessibility lems; for example, a participant without dementia complained that ‘it’s a prob-lem to open the door and get in and then get out again before the door swings shut’. Consequently many participants plan their routes around department stores because, as a participant without dementia explained, ‘shop toilets are cleaner, safer and have lifts to them’ but these are less likely to be found in small local neighbourhoods than in town or city centres.