Highway design engineers should be encouraged to push someone around in a wheelchair or imagine themselves with a visual impairment before finalising plans for enhancing footway environments, a leading road safety specialist has said.

CIHT Road Safety Board chairman Kate Carpenter told an audience of the Institution’s Greater London Branch last Wednesday that the needs of the less able must be considered more fully to make walking along footways and the crossing of roads both easier and safer for everyone.

She added that all too often there are well intentioned but inappropriate examples of footway design that can make access more difficult for those with a special need. And paving used to mark out where a footway crosses a carriageway must always display sufficient tonal contrast, she added.

Kate Carpenter also said that corduroy ribbed paving should only be used on footways very sparingly. “I would like to see its use for segregating pedestrian and cycle routes pretty much abandoned completely. I understand the theory of providing it to encourage people into their right areas, but it just doesn’t work in practice.

“Pedestrians roam onto cycleways, cyclists go on the footway and there is lots of paving for people on foot to trip over or cyclists to skid on. It doesn’t seem to serve any purpose. I would rather ribbed paving was used for guidance across big complicated areas to help people (with visual impairment) find where they are going.”

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