Sustrans, Living Streets and ARUP team up for guide on making walking and wheeling inclusive
Sustrans has teamed up with Living Streets and ARUP to develop a guide to help local governments, the transport sector, and spatial planners make walking and wheeling a more inclusive activity!
"Walking for everyone: A guide to making walking and wheeling accessible, inclusive, and desirable" is the name of the new report elaborated by Sustrans (the UK charity working to facilitate walking and cycling for all), along with Living Streets and Arup.
It should not come off as a surprise for anyone to hear that transport policy typically attends to the needs of specific groups of individuals, generally ignoring the needs of the less privileged ones, such as people with movement challenges or disabilities.
Indeed, the current walking and wheeling urban environments do not always work for everyone, everywhere. For instance, the guide highlighted that 72% of disabled people would find fewer cars parked on the pavement helpful in walking or wheeling more.
However, fixing these issues is also a matter of will:
"With the proper political will, investment and knowledge, walking and wheeling can give people from all backgrounds, ethnicities, ages, abilities, genders independence, and freedom."
3 themes for inclusivity
This new guide comes in to push this will forward. To ease the challenge, it outlines a series of recommendations for local and national governments under three key themes:
1. Improving governance, planning, and decision making, by (for example):
- Creating inclusive walking and wheeling plans and long-term funding.
- Ensuring people live within walking distance of the services and amenities
2. Creating better places for everyone to walk and wheel in, by (for example):
- Developing national design guidance for walking and wheeling.
- Improving road safety and air quality.
3. Supporting everyone to walk and wheel, by (for example):
- Invest in walking and wheeling programmes, including social prescribing
- Reversing the decline in independent childhood mobility
For more information on the guide, check the official statement by Sustrans on its website here.
