Accesibilidaden el espacio público para personas con movilidad reducida. Cuenca como caso de estudio

Abstract

Accessibility and mobility in urban public space is a key component to cities sustainability. However, mobility’s planning has strongly privileged motorized vehicles, leaving pedestrians and people with reduced mobility behind as last term. This investigation presents a study that generates an accessibility index in 214 sections choose around the city using stratified random. On the basis of two variables, the first one was verifying the extent of compliance of the regulation for accessibility in public space for people with reduced mobility “Ordenanza Municipal sobre Discapacidad de Cuenca” valid since 2010. Seventeen parameters were analyzed in each section, that were grouped in 67 routes. The second variable was the identified obstacles that impede an appropriate mobility and the difficulty of overcoming them. For the obstacles mapping there were carried our three different journeys: without simulation, with simulation of reduced mobility using a baby stroller or a wheel chair and with wheelchair users, that helped validate the data obtained with simulation. The results indicate a critical condition of accessibility in Cuenca and a significant difference between journeys made with simulation and wheelchair users; therefore, a series of intervention models are proposed based on the most representative obstacles and the experience of wheelchair users, aiming to improve accessibility in the built environment.