cityscape
Public Works: Tailoring the City For Pedestrians’ Special Needs
A pair of British companies have created "Responsive Street Furniture" that digitally adapts crosswalks and streetlights to accommodate people with disabilities.
Public Works looks at public space, urban design, and city-building innovations from around the world, and considers what Toronto might learn from them.
Image courtesy of Ross Atkin Associates.
A pair of British companies have partnered to create Responsive Street Furniture, a digital system that helps guide pedestrians with special needs through urban streets.
Ross Atkin Associates, a design and engineering shop that specializes in the needs of the disabled, and Marshalls, a landscaping materials manufacturer, have built a prototype for a “bespoke digital aid,” which adapts objects such as lampposts and crosswalks to the benefit citizens with disabilities, depending on who’s in the area.
Users log on to the service’s website and fill in information about their particular needs. The system can create audio signals for the visually impaired, increase lighting for people with some vision loss, or prolong pedestrian crossing periods for those with mobility issues.
The user can either register their smartphone to the system or get a special electronic key fob, similar to those remote controls for cars. When the user walks past a Street Furniture station at a street corner, say, the system detects their phone or fob, and kicks in by providing the services that person needs.
The team has also created electronic roadside maps that can be activated by a user’s presence. Depending on the needs of a passerby, the electronic map can adjust the image brightness or contrast, or issue audio instructions for navigating the surrounding environment. If they need a place to sit down, the system can show them where one is.
Helping people with disabilities or special needs get around safely is not a controversial issue (at least, not to most people), and there are measures in place here in Toronto to make pedestrianism easier for all people.
Ontario has mandated a “minimum walking time” of 1.2 metres per second for pedestrian crossing signals and, according to the City, most Toronto crosswalks provide even more time. Still, it’s not uncommon to see an elderly person stuck on a traffic island halfway in the middle of the street, or going just a bit too slow to make it to an opposite street corner before time runs out. It’s a problem that’s been observed, and rallied against, across Canada.
For the visually impaired, Toronto’s crosswalks have audio signals—sounds that, for most of us, likely mix in with the swell of the city’s white noise. The City’s web materials explain that a “cuckoo” sound indicates it’s time to cross north or south, and a “chirp” sound is for crossing east and west.
But compared to the tailored Responsive Street Furniture, the accommodations we have in place look a little lacking.
As Ross Atkin explains in the online promotional materials for Responsive Street Furniture, the notion of accessibility in the modern digital world is all about adaptability.