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Wednesday, 3 April 2013

How Do You Make Shared Space Blind Person Friendly?



I think it's a great shame that Shared Space was put in, in Court Drive, as the need for it was never clear. It didn't seem to be broken, so why fix it? I have noticed that for some lucky people living in Dunstable, the bus services can scoot through and undertake the traffic queue. But many other motorists cut across the hatched area into the bus lane to turn into Asda.



The scheme is installed, however, so what steps can we think of to improve it at minimal cost? Dogs for the blind can't distinguish tactile foot surfaces, so what about improving the surface for blind people's feet so they can recognise a safer place to cross? And what about having a pole, with a tactile surface on it, at hand height to reassure a blind person that it's safer here? And what about painting those poles black and white or even illuminated, so that motorists are made more aware that pedestrians might try to cross here? And what about strong white whites painted where the kerb should be so that a partially sighted person can steer themselves back onto the pedestrian area?