This is a webpage version of an annex to both the literature review on continuous footways, and on bus stops. In the pdf versions of the literature reviews this is included at the end of each separate document. To make the structure of the webpage versions of these documents simpler it is instead provided just once as a webpage version here.
Around 1 in 5 of the UK population (over 14 million people) report having a disability that limits their daily activities1. Disability is defined in the Equality Act 2010 as ‘a long-term limiting mental or physical health condition, that has a substantial negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities that has lasted, or is expected to last, more than 12 months’2. Impairments include chronic health conditions (e.g. diabetes and cancer), physical disability (e.g. mobility and dexterity), mental health (e.g. depression and anxiety) and sensory impairments (e.g. hearing and vision).
Disability becomes more prevalent with age: 8% of children are disabled, compared to 19% of working age adults and 44% of adults over State Pension age3. Mobility is the most common impairment affecting just over half of all disabled people4. Physical inactivity is more common for people with a disability or long-term health condition (41%) than those without (20%) and the more impairments an individual has, the less active they are: 49% of those with three or more impairments are inactive (physical activity includes sport, exercise, brisk walking and cycling)5. Not all impairments are visible or obvious to other people. Table A1 shows how people with learning difficulties or speech impairments are the most inactive group.
Focusing specifically on walking, disabled people are less likely to think of replacing short car journeys with walking6.
“People experiencing difficulties with personal care (e.g. getting dressed; taking a bath or shower) and those with physical coordination problems (e.g. balance) appear to be most likely never to use public transport or to walk or cycle for short journeys. They are followed by people with mobility issues, loss of manual dexterity and incontinence.”7
This underlines the importance of creating inclusive built environments, because incorporating physical activity into daily life through active travel is an effective way of helping to maintain good health.
Physical activity is particularly important for disabled people to “not only… promote health and prevent disease but also to reduce the number of secondary conditions that can result from an initial disability’8. Secondary conditions have been defined as preventable physical, mental, and social disorders resulting directly or indirectly from an initial disabling condition9. These could include chronic muscle pain or contractions, falls or other injuries, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, pressure ulcers, feeling isolated or depressed, obesity or sleeping poorly10.
| Impairment | % Inactive | |
|---|---|---|
| No disability or illness | 16.7% | |
| Limiting disability or illness (any) | 33.4% | |
| Speech | 47.1% | |
| Learning | 45.3% | |
| Memory | 41.7% | |
| Mobility | 41.2% | |
| Behavioural | 40.1% | |
| Vision | 39.4% | |
| Dexterity | 38.8% | |
| Hearing | 37.9% | |
| Chronic health condition | 37.9% | |
| Long term pain | 37.9% | |
| Mental health | 36.7% | |
| Breathing | 32.8% |
There is a lack of published peer reviewed evidence relating to the disabling impact of the built environment on people living with a broad spectrum of physical, sensory, intellectual or behavioural impairments12. Some studies have, for example, focused on the need for accurate data for transport modelling on walking speeds and minimum amount of space needed for people with different mobility impairments to reach their desired speeds13, and the crossing behaviour of people with impairments at unsignalised crossings14. However, there is ‘grey literature’15 exploring this topic – see box 1 – and campaign groups representing blind and partially sighted people (in particular) in the UK and elsewhere, have addressed a range of issues, such as the problems caused by advertising boards cluttering streets16, the removal of kerbs to create level ‘shared surfaces’17 and continuous footways18.
With an ageing population, a topic which has elicited attention in public health and transport/urban design spheres is the physical impact of the built environment on the functional mobility – and disability – of older people. For example, the Inclusive Design for Getting Outdoors (I’DGO) project involved over 4,350 participants in two key phases over a ten-year period (2003-2103), with a team drawn from research centres in the Universities of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt, Salford and Warwick. It has published over thirty papers covering issues, such as: dementia friendly outdoor environments19; the effects of tactile paving on older adults’ gait when crossing the street20; ‘outdoor environments, activity and wellbeing’21, and; the design of lifetime neighbourhoods22. Researchers found, for example, that cycling on pavements, obstructions from cars parked on pavements and the absence of street design elements, such as adequate seating and smooth pavements may influence an older person’s decision to go out23.
In this webpage version of this document, Box 1 is replaced with a short section here.
Focus groups conducted by Living Streets with disabled people with a range of learning, mobility and visual impairments found that the most common physical barrier to walking identified by the participants was crossing the road. Crossings connect pedestrian routes, they intersect with vehicular traffic and are the point at which pedestrians are most vulnerable walking. Having enough time to cross, not finding a safe place to cross the road, signalised crossings that do not work, the Puffin design with a low-level green man and the absence of dropped kerbs were all mentioned.
Participants preferred wide, level, smooth, uncluttered and well-maintained pavements. The condition of the pavement had a direct impact on individual’s confidence walking outdoors. Uneven surfaces were associated with the fear of falling; worry was expressed by the need to constantly look down and check footing, reducing the pleasure in walking. This was offset by the attraction of fully accessible environments, such as indoor shopping centres.
Obstructions, in particular advertising boards, wheelie bins and parked cars, were commonly encountered and made walking difficult. Like problems crossing the road, obstructions on the pavement could put pedestrians at risk (e.g. by having to step onto the carriageway to go past a parked car). The experience of wheelchair-using participants was that obstructions could prevent moving until an obstruction is moved. The expectation that there would be obstructions could be enough to prevent a disabled person going out.
Conflict between different road users emerged as both a physical and social barrier. Cyclists and the use of mobility scooters on the pavement were an annoyance because they can be hard to hear and move fast. This is a problem for many disabled (and older) people and deaf people in particular. Participants felt that safer roads (e.g. lower speed limits) could help to overcome this barrier by making cyclists more prepared to use them, as would raising awareness of disabled people’s extra need for more considerate behaviour (e.g. slowing down and stopping to let disabled pedestrians pass) particularly those with non-visible impairments such as dementia and hearing loss.
Adaptations to make the pedestrian environment more accessible can also be problematic. For example, tactile paving helps blind and partially sighted people to navigate, but can be a trip-hazard for others – for example affecting stroke survivors who have problems lifting their feet. Similarly, the lack of colour contrast in seemingly accessible places can create hazards only a partially sighted person can see. This demonstrates the need to consider the accessibility of pedestrian environment from a pan-impairment perspective.
Providing comfort facilities can improve walking conditions and enable people with limiting conditions to make every day walking journeys. Benches offer places to rest for people who tire easily and could encourage disabled people to walk more. Similarly, the availability of accessible public toilets can encourage or limit walking opportunities. Participants noted that even where toilet facilities are present and advertised as accessible, they may be locked or not large enough for their purpose.
Consideration needs to be given to the ‘door-to-door’ journey and the links between buildings, streets, and public transport services25. People with different mobility and accessibility needs are more at risk of ‘community severance’26, consequently, an inclusive, accessible outdoor environment is one that allows a disabled person to travel from their home to any chosen destination without risk or worry27.
The need to devise adaptive strategies (e.g. planning routes or going more slowly) to cope with both physical and organisational barriers (e.g. arranging for assistance on journeys involving public transport) costs more and takes more time and effort for disabled people28. Journey planning scenarios, ease-of-access to information about different transport modes and service facilities, as well as photos illustrating potential physical barriers are all useful29. On average, overall journey times by public transport can be 80% higher for disabled people compared to individuals without constraint30. Journey times may be reduced substantially through accessible design of public transport vehicles (e.g. low floor access buses), facilities (e.g. slip resistant platforms), terminals and interchanges31.
Disabled people are more likely to be on a low income, out of work or have low educational qualifications; they also face a disproportionate likelihood of living in a deprived area32. People from lower socio-economic groups are more likely to live in areas that do not support walking and cycling, but in turn are more likely to need to walk and cycle for transport and to access employment33. Boarded up windows, graffiti and rubbish, all hallmarks of deprived neighbourhoods, can act as daily reminders of social exclusion34. This not only acts as a deterrent to walking it can also impact people’s ability to participate fully within society – research based on data from the Chicago Community Adult Health Study (2001 to 2003) showed that people with underlying difficulties with mobility living in areas where the streets were in poor condition were 60% less likely to vote35.
People with impairments (including seeing, hearing, communication and walking impairments) who are living in deprived areas are just as likely to fear crime as to feel excluded. Recorded incidents of disability hate crimes have risen; data shows that in the three years ending March 2018 there were an estimated 52,000 incidents of disability-motivated hate crime against adults (16 and over) in England and Wales per year36. Fear and a lack of company may also be a significant influence on people’s motivation to exercise and walk outside37.
Studies looking at motivators and barriers to physical activity identify poor health, fear and negative experiences, lack of company, and an unsuitable environment as the issues mentioned more often by those with severely limited mobility than by those with less mobility limitation38 39. Similarly, in a German study the second most cited reason for not being active was lack of company – leading the authors to highlight that efforts to promote physical activity should emphasise its wider benefits for socialising, enjoyment, relaxation and physical and mental well-being40. In contrast, when comparing autistic and neurotypical children, living in a perceived ‘safe’ neighbourhood has a greater influence on participation in physical activity than access to play facilities and community support41.
Excluding the voices of disabled people (adults and children) from discussions about active travel is another form of social barrier. For example, children’s experiences of disability are largely missing from literature on children’s active school travel and independent mobility, as is the relationship between disability and other social factors (e.g. ethnicity and deprivation)42. Disability should be viewed alongside factors, such as age, gender or ethnicity43.
Sound and soundscapes have received little attention in the design of urban spaces, for which vision is the primary sense. However, there is a growing field of sound inclusive design and the idea of acoustic comfort for all44. Such an approach recognises the diversity of people’s hearing experiences and highlights, for instance, the need to provide visual and auditory information for people with hearing loss, auditory navigation cues for people with sight loss and support for neurodivergent people (e.g. mapping soundscapes and quiet spaces) for whom hypersensitivity to sound can cause distress and physical discomfort45.
There are more than 325,500 registered blind and partially sighted people in the UK, 29% use no mobility aid at all, 43% use a cane (equivalent to about 140,000 people) and 7.5% use a guide dog46 (there are currently 4800 working guide dog partnerships in the UK47). The UK Equality Act (2010) places a duty of care on public bodies to eliminate discrimination and advance equality of opportunity for all48. In the context of this discussion, that means enabling safe and independent access for blind and partially sighted people to familiar streets and street infrastructure, and just as importantly, to unfamiliar spaces49.
The introduction of ‘shared spaces’ in the late 2000s brought attention to the specific the needs of blind and partially sighted people. Broadly characterised by minimal use of traffic signs other traffic management related street furniture and the removal of kerbs to create level surfaces, this new infrastructure blurred the division between the carriageway and the footway:
“In the absence of rules, predictability and certainty, drivers have to rely on cultural signals and informal social protocols. Speeds reduce, eye contact becomes the norm, and the driver becomes a part of her or his social surroundings and context.”50
The intention of this design approach was to reduce the dominance of motorised vehicles and increase a sense of place. However, as noted in Government guidance, ‘for pedestrians to fully share the space, relatively low motor traffic flows and speeds are usually necessary’51. David Bates, an engineer who lost his sight aged 60, set out his strategy for crossing a shared space:
“As there is no [kerb] from which to establish a precise direction of travel, it is necessary to start with one’s back touching the wall of a building, and to then walk slowly forward, scanning one’s cane in the usual way while walking slowly into the path of approaching traffic. Some drivers can get very annoyed at pedestrians, who step out in front of them without looking, but it is important for a blind person not to look to the left or right, as an approaching driver may think he has been seen and that the pedestrian will then automatically stop for him. It is also essential to walk slowly to give drivers time to see the pedestrian and to stop or to swerve in order to avoid an accident.” 52
Of course, eye contact cannot become the norm for people who have little or no useful sight. In addition to missing cues from drivers (or people cycling), Bates observed that blind people could inadvertently give the wrong message to other road users. Reliance on visual communication may also prove challenging when children are present or for neurodivergent53 people54.
Blind and visually impaired pedestrians rely on their other senses – touch, smell and hearing – to navigate streets safely55. Tactile clues are felt through the cane and their feet; a long cane user will follow either the building line or the kerb line. Smells (e.g. a coffee shop or a florist) may help to identify premises. The sounds of traffic (e.g. listening to decide if it’s safe to cross the road), of controlled crossings, from building frontages (e.g. shop music) and from tapping the cane against different surfaces are perhaps most important of all for safe orientation. Without vision, electric vehicles (including e-scooters and e-bikes) and bicycles are frightening because they approach rapidly and relatively silently (although ‘Acoustic Vehicle Alerting Systems’ are now provided on cars, activated when these travel at under 12mph). Guide dogs are taught to stop at kerbs, find doors and frequently visited locations, but the responsibility for route finding rests with the person and this requires clues for navigation56. For people with some residual sight, colour contrasts (e.g. yellow and white lines against a darker surface) provide extra information and guidance.
Many blind and partially sighted people navigate routes they have been trained to use57; this may not be the most direct route, but the route where conflicts are minimised or avoided. Conflict may be interpreted as problematic interactions with other (non-pedestrian) road users. Pedestrian comfort, when viewed from the perspective of visually impaired people, prioritises security and safety – in particular, the presence of crossings with auditory signals58. Signalised crossings offer clear protection and safe passage between safe pedestrian spaces. Key design elements59 that blind and partially sighted people say they need include:
Segregated pedestrian only spaces (footways usually)
Safe crossings (signalised – not based on visual cues)
Routes free from obstacles
Route continuity and coherence (navigation and connection to public transport)
Like the ‘shared space’ design concept, bus stop bypasses (installed to benefit cyclists) and continuous footway (primarily installed to benefit pedestrians) introduce risk and uncertainty for blind and partially sighted people because they are forced to interact with (but cannot communicate with) people who are driving or cycling through the same space. Contrary to the spirit of the Public Sector Equality Duty, this creates an additional barrier to their participation in society. The challenge for designers is to move beyond the ambiguity of visual communication to create infrastructure which can communicate pedestrian priority and dictate the appropriate road user behaviour.
Research on behalf of the IConnect consortium demonstrated that improvement of walking and cycling environments – and improving safety from traffic – is a necessary condition for promoting more active travel6061. Residents in Southampton, Cardiff and Kenilworth living with 5 km of new walking and cycling infrastructure were sent questionnaires at the time of the intervention in 2010 and two years later in 2012. The questionnaire assessed residents’ perceptions of their walking and cycling environment, their use of the new infrastructure and their walking and cycling behaviours. The results showed that those who lived near and used the new infrastructure reported improvements in their perceptions of the walking and cycling environment and of safety.
Similarly, the magnitude of the effect of the ‘mini Holland’ (low traffic neighbourhood) interventions in three outer London boroughs on walking and cycling levels depended upon people’s proximity to new infrastructure62. A shift in travel behaviour could also take time to appear.
Street design mediates how people use the space to walk, wheel, cycle or drive and changes to street layouts can be used to enforce or influence a desired change in road user behaviour. For example, the installation of ‘raised crosswalks’ (informal courtesy crossings where drivers are not legally required to stop) with preceding speed humps on busy arterial roads in Israel slowed drivers down and increased the yielding behaviour of vehicles to pedestrians63. Evidence shows that slower vehicle speeds increase give-way behaviour64 – as does the introduction of familiar zebra stripes on courtesy crossings; before and after video survey counts showed that yielding behaviour at Kimbrose Triangle in Gloucester increased from 41.6% to 99.4% after the addition of stripes65. The latter study which examined design elements influencing driver behaviour at 20 courtesy crossings in England also found that yield rates were consistently higher where there were shops and services along the footway. The road humps enforced slower speeds and addition of the stripes influenced driver behaviour.
Pedestrian behaviour can be influenced too. In 2002, a new type of pedestrian waiting countdown timer was tested at signalised pedestrian crossings in Dublin66. The aim of the experiment was to reduce the number of people crossing the road before the green man phase. The countdown timers increased the accuracy of pedestrians’ expectation of how long they would have to wait and had a significant effect on reducing the number of pedestrians crossing during the red man phase. Before the timers were installed 65% of pedestrians started to cross during the green man and amber phases but this rose to 76% after the timers were installed. This study also showed greater willingness to comply with crossing during the green man phase among female pedestrians.
Designing roads for the primary purpose of accommodating vehicle journeys not only discourages walking and cycling because of the traffic – it also encourages driver behaviour contrary to the advice given in the Highway Code. For example, Rule 170 states that drivers should:
“take extra care at junctions… you should watch out for cyclists, motorcyclists, powered wheelchairs/mobility scooters and pedestrians as they are not always easy to see… [and] watch out for pedestrians crossing a road into which you are turning. If they have started to cross they have priority, so give way”
However, wide splays at side road junctions enable drivers to turn or exit without having to slow down significantly or stop. Participants in a study designed to understand attitudes to priorities at side road junctions overwhelmingly agreed that lack of consistency between design and regulations – and the lack of compliance with regulations was not acceptable67. Participants were representative across age, ability (including people with visual and mobility impairments) and gender.
Almost twenty years ago pedestrian behaviour was observed at two busy intersections in neighbouring Israeli cities of Bnei-Brak and Ramat-Gan68. Both cities were of a similar size – which is where the demographic similarity ended. The Ultra-orthodox population of Bnei-Brak lived according to rabbinical law. Of Bnei-Brak’s 140,000 residents only 23,000 were salaried employees and only 38% of households had a private vehicle (compared to 88% in the general population) – and its pedestrians were notorious for their ‘unsafe behaviour’. The authors’ observations focused on five pedestrian behaviours or perceived ‘violations’: running a red-light, crossing where there is no crosswalk, walking along the road, failing to check for traffic prior to crossing, and (not) taking a child’s hand when crossing. The findings showed that males committed significantly more violations than females, and the younger the individual, the more frequently s/he committed a violation. However, irrespective of their age, pedestrians in the orthodox environment committed violations about three times more frequently than those in the secular environment.
The authors attributed a strong connection between the belief in the supremacy of other laws (i.e. religious laws) over state laws, and a readiness to violate the law. The most interesting feature of this case is that although Bnei-Brak residents committed three times as many on-road violations as residents in other cities, it was not reflected in their road injury statistics. Drivers in the city had adjusted their behaviour in response to the risk-taking road habits of Bnei-Brak pedestrians. This demonstrates that the relationship between road users is not fixed. Instead, it is negotiable and influenced by social context.
Negotiation between road users is primarily achieved through visual communication. This includes, but is not limited, to the exchange of eye contact. Several organisations have focused research on the interactions between pedestrians and drivers. Researchers in San Diego filmed a variety of roadways and intersections (junctions), each with a different road configuration, geometry and traffic control type, ranging from highly controlled four-way signalised controls to completely uncontrolled middle of the street locations69. Stationary recordings and mounted ‘dash cams’ or wearable cameras offered multiple perspectives on the street scene. Three vehicle patterns were observed repeatedly during the video analysis: advancing, slowing early and stopping short. Here too, there is a link to the social context. They observed that:
“When drivers did not stop significantly short of a crosswalk, pedestrians often demonstrated discomfort, showing [that] stopping short is a social norm within the road user community… Our observations of real-world human road user behavior in urban intersections indicate that movement in context is a central method of communication for coordination among drivers and pedestrians. The observed movement patterns gain meaning when seen within the context of road geometry, current road activity, and culture.”
These examples from Israel and the United States show that road user behaviour is contingent both on the road layout and on social expectations. Social expectations are not fixed and, therefore, could be influenced alongside the design and introduction of new infrastructure, such as continuous footway and bus stop bypasses.
Unfortunately, there is limited research available on pedestrian interactions with other road users at either type of location. A rare study from New Zealand has used video footage to categorise ‘interactional adaptation’ between people cycling and pedestrians at bus stop bypasses70. Interactions were based on looks and ‘non-looks’, the latter was divided into two categories of ‘doing oblivious’ (the ‘non-glance’ whereby the pedestrian purposefully avoids looking and by inference ceding priority to the cyclist) and ‘being oblivious’ (the pedestrian was focused entirely on something else e.g. talking to someone or unloading a vehicle). In both these situations the onus was on the cyclist to pay more attention to act reasonably and responsibly.
The act of ‘being oblivious’ is not limited to pedestrians. Road safety literature71 highlights distraction as a major risk factor for traffic collisions, cyclists can ‘glaze’ when cycling in urban areas72 and pedestrians may also elicit ‘inattentional blindness’73 arising from a variety of stimuli such as a busy street, crowds, roadside signage, or emergency vehicles. People’s very familiarity with the streets they are driving, wheeling or walking on ‘can lead to an inwardly focused reverie, a kind of detached experience where we may look into the distance, or at nothing in particular’74. Being lost in thought or daydreaming can be part of the pleasure of walking, so that a pedestrian may hardly notice their surroundings at all. In contrast, having to pay attention (e.g. when interacting with people cycling or driving) can threaten and interrupt the inner life of the pedestrian, reducing some of the quality of the walking experience75.
So, improving the quality of the walking experience is just as important as improving the quality of the walking environment to encourage people to walk/wheel more. The same logic applies equally to cycling (or driving). Unfortunately, limited road space and the priority given to motor vehicles mean that increasingly people who travel actively are expected to share the same spaces. Japan was an early adopter of shared use paths for walking and cycling following a change in traffic regulations in 197876. In the late 1990s an observational study of a shared use pavement carried out in the city of Fukuoka in Kyusyu province noted that:
“If densities of pedestrians and bicycles are low, pedestrian cyclist conflicts are infrequent. As these densities increase, potential conflicts among road space users become more frequent. As a result, cyclists are forced to travel on shared road space at low speeds. Pedestrians are also required to be vigilant to take evasive action to avoid collision by passing bicycles.”
The aim of this study was to evaluate the optimal spacing ‘between users in passing’ to reduce pedestrian perceptions of risk’. The authors showed that while bicycle speeds declined as pedestrian densities increased, the perceived risk did not decline as bicycle speeds reduced. Pedestrian’s perceptions of collision risk were dependent on their physical abilities. Older people and primary school children were more apprehensive of bicycles on the shared footpath compared to young fit adults. A much more recent study has shown that even if there are no observable conflicts occurring, pedestrians and cyclists may still experience unwanted frustrations resulting from sharing a path with one another77.
As shared use paths and spaces have proliferated across the globe, so too has the literature examining the challenging relationship between people walking and cycling78 79. While there is scope to influence people’s behaviour and expectations, the fundamental differences in characteristics of people walking and cycling (e.g. mass and speed of people cycling or unpredictable change of direction of pedestrians) give rise to conflict and reduce the quality of the walking or cycling experience. Visual communication through movement and looking (or not looking) is the primary means of negotiating priority when pedestrians, cyclists and drivers are brought into contact with one another. This brings a unique set of challenges for blind and partially sighted people.
In 2015, the Government’s Sports Strategy ‘A Sporting Future: a New Strategy for an Inactive Nation’ set out ‘a particular focus on getting disabled people active’80. This reflected the position taken by Government that physical activity guidelines can and should apply equally to disabled children, young people, adults and older adults once adjustments are made for individual physical and mental capabilities81. The Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, which established the preparation of Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans makes a commitment to create ‘better integrated routes for those with disabilities or health conditions’82. This is supported by evidence based public health guidance, for example, NICE guidelines on walking and cycling (PH41) note that promotional programmes should ‘…include information that people with impairments will require, such as where dropped kerbs are located, the location and design of barriers at access points to cycle paths, and where public transport links and disabled toilets can be found’83.
In 2018, the Government published ‘The Inclusive Transport Strategy’ which effectively ‘paused’ any new ‘shared space’ schemes – where features such as kerbs, road surface markings, designated crossing places and traffic signs are removed – because this excludes blind and partially sighted people84. Creating active environments, including the wider built environment is one of the key objectives of Sport England’s 10-year strategy ‘Uniting the Movement’85
Evidence based guidance is supported by statutory obligations. For example, the National Planning Policy Framework (2019) promotes healthy communities (section 8)86 and planning practice guidance on Healthy Safe Communities states that “Local planning authorities should ensure that health and wellbeing… are considered in local and neighbourhood plans and in planning decision making”87. Under the Equality Act (EqA 2010) local authorities have a Public Sector Equality Duty which requires them to ‘advance equality of opportunity’ and ‘remove or minimise disadvantages suffered’, for example, through poor quality public realm by people who share protected characteristics, such as ageing and disability.
The Scottish Government’s ‘A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People’ in (2016) promised to ‘remove barriers and improve access to housing and transport’88. With its focus on helping disabled people to influence transport decisions, improving access to public transport and disabled parking, the strategy misses the opportunity to address active travel. Nevertheless, the Active Scotland Delivery Plan (2018) commits to improving ‘active infrastructure’ (outcome 4) by putting walking and cycling at the heart of transport planning89. Scotland’s National Transport Strategy (2019) notes the link between physical inactivity and health (physical inactivity contributes to over 2,500 premature deaths in Scotland each year) and aims to ‘make sure that public transport and active travel options are the preferred choice for people making short journeys’90.
Wales is the only country in the UK to have a duty on local authorities and the Welsh Government to improve infrastructure and significantly increase levels of walking and cycling. The Active Travel (Wales) Act came into effect in 201391. Its associated Design Guidance is comprehensive in its approach to disabled people and other protected characteristics under the EqA (2010). It notes the importance of actively involving disabled people in the design and delivery of transport services such as the provision or improvement of pedestrian routes and cycle routes92. The revised guidance (consulted on in 2020) notes that ‘it makes strategic sense to ensure our environments are accessible to all people. A route that is accessible for disabled people is usually more comfortable and convenient for all, such as older people and those accompanied by young children’93.
Northern Ireland’s Department for Infrastructure is responsible for active travel. The Department is in the process of preparing guidance on the design of walking infrastructure which will be based on existing UK guidance including the Welsh Active Travel Act Design Guidance and the Manual for Streets94.