Name: Amy Rodda Student Number: 102520063 Due Date: 5th October 2020 Lecturer: Dr Stephen Glackin Convenor: Dr Iris Levin
Accessibility and the lack of urban infrastructure for vulnerable Australians – how to create a more accessibly inclusive city?
Word Count: 2749
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“The physical and spatial configuration of the built environment suggests that urban design theories and practices are inattentive to the needs of disabled people.” Rob Imrie, 2000 People with Disability (PWD) are a key indicator of the broader complexities of a city, and future cities need to ensure that they are more environmentally-friendly, user-responsive and inclusive of all people’s needs, including those who are vulnerable and disabled [United Nations, 2016]. There are some governments and urban planners who have attempted to promote inclusive living; however, it is considered an anomaly rather than the norm [ibid]. And most of these attempts at providing accessibility only address physical impairment. Accessibility describes interactive between a person’s capacities and their context’s environmental demand [Lid, I. M., 2016]. Therefore, accessibility can be achieved by improving people’s individual abilities and/or changing the environment in order to accommodate all citizens [ibid]. Thus, the aim for creating inclusive cities is to ensure that PWD have the same opportunities as others to participate and interact with the built environment: access to services, facilities, information and quality-of-service through providing infrastructure such as suitable paths, signage and training staff [Rebecca, 2015]. Disability is an umbrella term that includes many people within its scope, including those with invisible disabilities [Rains, M., Butland, R., 2013]. Disability is a term that can be linked to anyone who is deemed vulnerable or who does not have the same abilities as the majority of the population when it comes to participating and interacting in society. There are four types of disabilities according to the Discrimination Act
1992 : physical, sensory, psychological, and intellectual [Australian Human Rights Commission, 2015]. Disabilities can also be temporary, progressive, interstitial, or terminal. According to the World Health Organisation and the World Bank, around 15% of the world’s population are living with some kind of disability yet globally many places lack accessiblyinclusive built environments [United Nations, 2016a]. In Australia, around 20% of the population or 4 million people in 2016 had some kind of disability [See Figure 1; Ramage, C., 2020].
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The population is also ageing. Currently, one in six Australians is 65 years or older, with 65.9% of these needing some assistance, and the expected ratio of people of working age to people 65 years or over decreasing from 5:1 to 2.7:1 by 2050 [Gauntlett, B., 2020; Council of Australian Governments, 2011]. It is also expected that the growth rate in people with severe or profound disability will outstrip the general population growth rate by two to three times over the next 70 years, whilst the ratio of informal carers for PWD will decrease by more than 50% over the next 50 years [Council of Australian Governments, 2011].
Figure 1: Population of People with Disabilities in Australia, Europe, New Zealand, and USA [Ramage, C. for AWCC, 2020] There is also a lack of empathy from people in the community and people not being able to consider others’ perspective, due to underlying ignorance and unfamiliarity [Miller, S. R., 2013]. Accessibility includes being able to access places conveniently and independently. PWD face all sorts of stigmas, negative stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination within society due to attitudinal barriers. These can contribute to the exclusion and marginalisation of these vulnerable people [NCBDDD, 2020; United Nations, 2016a]. The underlying reason is that people tend to be sympathetic towards people with a disability rather than empathetic [Khanna, J., 2019].
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These problems have led to several negative community and systemic outcomes including a lack of awareness of the difficulties PWD have in feeling welcome and comfortable to move around the urban realm, lack of urban infrastructure that allows for participation in everyday life and activities, stereotyping when someone is disabled, and prejudice that comes with the quality of life of PWD – i.e. they are poor or unhealthy due to their impairment [NCBDDD, 2020]. As well as a lack of empathy and consideration of others’ perspectives at an individual level, there is also a lack at a systemic level due to not considering the diversity of PWD’s needs in urban design and infrastructure [Imrie, R., 2000]. For instance, although there may be urban infrastructure put in place to comply with standards and regulations, this is done as an afterthought or a side thought: people in wheelchairs may have to use the back door and ask for a ramp, or not be able to use paths due to their gradient or slope [Moss, K., 2020; Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs, 2017]. By not enforcing that all buildings predating the Australian Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) comply with the current standard of building design inclusions, governments are enacting a form of discrimination [2020, Anthes, E.]. There is a lack of urban infrastructure for those who have vision and/or audio. For example, visual public notices exclude those who are blind or have vision impairments, and public transport movements that are audible exclude those who have severe hearing impairments [2019., Interchange]. Some people have audio requirements at the other end of the spectrum: those who have sensory issues often need to live in places where loud noises (such as those of everyday city life) are concealed [2020, Anthes, E.] yet, proximity to amenities is also necessary. Currently, amenities are most prevalent within noisy environments [ibid]. Contrasting colours of flooring can make it harder to tell variations in pitch of the floor can be dangerous for those who have prosthetics or have walking- or vision-based impairments [Imrie, 2000]. Elemental conglomerations, such as a mix of reflective flooring with light inlets,
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can lead to negative impacts on light sensitivities and people with mobility issues [Imrie, R., 2000; Moss, K., 2020] According to the United Nations, a city’s accessibility tends to be ”a product of regulation, administrative guidance, or judicial actions” [United Nations, 2016b]. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) put in place the National Disability Strategy 2010-2020 in 2011 in order to ensure that all aspects of PWD’s life are taken into consideration in Commonwealth, State and Territory government policy, with their human rights acknowledged and respected as equal citizens [Gauntlett, B., 2020]. The DDA states that it is against the law to discriminate against any person in many areas of public life, including transportation, education, accessing public places, and getting or using services (such as sanitation) because of their disability [Interchange, 2019]. The
Commonwealth State Territory Disability Agreement (CSTDA) also states that both the Australian Government, and all the State and Territory Governments “strive to enhance the quality of life experienced by people with disabilities through assisting them to live as valued and participating members of the community” [Department of Social Services, 2016]. The Age
Discrimination Act 2004 adds to this by stating that it is illegal for public places, services, and facilities to be inaccessible to people based of age [Australian Human Rights Commission, 2020]. These public spaces include footpaths, walkways and public transportation. Although there are regulations and governing standards that need to be met in order for the built realm to allow for vulnerable people, whether local and state governments and urban planners actually address the complex needs of the vulnerable inhabitants of cities is a different thing [Rebecca, 2015]. For example, much of Canberra’s walking network is inaccessible or unsuitable for many people [Living Streets Canberra, 2019]. And current government legislations rely on individual complaints which can be tedious, expensive and can only be enforced in a superior court [Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs, 2017]. Lower levels of access to information and communications, and cultural attitudes towards PWD, can also be problematic. One of the main issues with the urban realm and accessibility
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is the ignorance as to the degree to which a large proportion of people who have disabilities feel welcome and are able to get around autonomously, independently, safely, and comfortably. How people view accessibility can be subjective and thus something that can differ depending on the person; something that seems accessible to one person may seem entirely inaccessible and alienating to another due to differentiating circumstances [Edwards, C., 2020; Lid, I. M., 2016]. For instance, a physically-abled male with no underlying ability issues who regularly visits a place during the day may feel completely comfortable, whereas a physically-impaired female who is going to the same place for the first time at night may feel very uncomfortable and vulnerable [Edwards, C., 2020]. The complexities between how the social world interacts with the built environment determines what all members of society can and cannot do [United Nations, 2016a]. These can be barriers for PWD as they can prohibit PWD from participating and interacting with their urban realm, which leads to inaccessible cities and alienation. This inability to participate and interact with the urban realm also contributes to PWD being greatly disadvantaged and put in vulnerable situations, which in turn leads to disproportionate rates of poverty, deprivation, and exclusion [United Nations, 2016a]. As well as being against the DDA, at a global level it also complicates the realisation of international goals such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) [See Figure 2]. For instance, if vulnerable people are unable to access an educational facility due to a lack of accessible transport options, they are excluded from universal education. Moreover, all internationally-agreed development goals cannot be truly met until all perspectives and concerns of the one billion people living with disabilities across the world are taken into account [ibid].
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Figure 2: Millennium Development Goals [Max, 2015]. Australia has a poor reputation for making accessibly-inclusive spaces comparison with other countries [Interchange, 2019]. This has led to PWD in Australia having significantly worse life outcomes than PWD living in comparable countries [Council of Australian Governments, 2011]. According to the Disability (Access to Premises - Buildings) Standards 2010, for a building to pass certification, the level of compliance for elements such as accessways, passing areas, ramps, doorways and tactile ground floor surface indicators only needs to be 25% in 2011, 55% in 2012, 90% in 2017 and 100% by 2022 [McClelland, R., 2010]. Further, according to the 2017 Senate Inquiry into the National Disability Strategy, some groups believe that “these standards are not high enough to provide true accessibility and raised concerns that there is no coordinated mechanism for monitoring the implementation of these standards” [Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs, 2017]. To add to this, if by 2022 all buildings need to have a 100% level of compliance, how accessibly-inclusive is the design really? Are mobilityimpaired people going to still have to go the long way around or go in a separate entrance? And do these standards only include buildings constructed after this date, or will existing buildings also need to be brought up to this standard so that Australian cities’ built environments can be considered accessibly-inclusive? [McClelland, R., 2010; Imrie, R., 2000]. The 2017 Senate Inquiry found that a large amount of evidence suggests that mandatory
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minimum accessibility standards should also be enacted into the Building Code of Australia [Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs, 2017]. As well, accessible gradient and slope standards in the Building Code of Australia are based on studies using disabled men as the test subjects [Berger, R. J., Lorenz, L. S., 2015; Shorten, W. R., 2012]. Other vulnerable people such women, children, and the frail aged may not feel that this is the best standard for them [Berger, R. J., Lorenz, L. S., 2015; Imrie, R., 2000]. Good disability policy benefits everyone, not just PWD [Gauntlett, B., 2020]. Yet, consideration of all users has not always been a valued aspect of design thinking [Berger, R. J., Lorenz, L. S., 2015]. People have also cognitive biases to existing circumstances. Although there may be a lot of information presented, people inherently stick to what they know rather than taking all aspects into consideration [Iglesias, J. L C., 2014]. Thus, although advocacy for PWD has led to governmental standards, people’s acceptance about disabled people’s urban design needs appears to be an insignificant issue to those involved in the construction of the built environment [Imrie, R., 2000]. The Senate Inquiry in 2017 into the current progress of the National Disability Strategy (in place since 2011) found that even though it was implemented there was a lack of commitment to the strategy [Senate on Standing Committees on Community Affairs, 2017]. In addition to this, the Inquiry found that there had been a lack of community consultation with PWD and this resulted in outcomes that were insufficient in resolving barriers of accessibility for PWD. To add to this, people have identified specific examples of a lack of accessibility in the built environment, housing, transport, and communication, leading to concerns for PWDs [ibid]. Even when the standards are used, architects tend to not go beyond what the minimum code requires of them and if they do it tends to be towards the end of the design rather than being considered from the beginning [Berger, R. J., Lorenz, L. S., 2015]. The 2011 Productivity Commission Inquiry Report Disability Care and Support identified that the current disability support system is “underfunded, unfair, fragmented and inefficient” [People with Disability Australia, 2018]. For example, according to People with Disability
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Australia, the 2022-2023 Financial year will see a 2.3% decrease in spending on the Disability Support Plan (DSP) [ibid]. In terms of economics, there is around a 7 percent loss of national GDP due to the systemic exclusion of PWDs, according to the International Labour Organisation [United Nations, 2016a]. To add to this, by not adapting existing inaccessible infrastructures, it is estimated that the tourism industry would fair to attain approximately 15-20% of the global markets shares [United Nations, 2016b]. Thus, from an economic standpoint it would be smart for Australian cities to invest in improving the built environment to be more accessible to all people [ibid]. In addition, according to evidence given to the United Nations, urban infrastructure, designed and built in accordance with accessibly-inclusive “universal design” principles [see Appendix 1] at every stage of the process, bears almost no or only 1 per cent additional cost [ibid]. In saying this is it important to note that there is a large additional expense when it comes to rebuilding, renovating, or redesigning existing inaccessible urban infrastructure in order to make them more accessibly-inclusive [United Nations, 2016a]. Nevertheless, according to the United Nations, taking into consideration the loss of human capital and opportunity cost caused by inaccessibility, the Australian economy still stands to lose a great deal more when significant groups like PWD are excluded from participation because of a lack of inclusive urban infrastructure [ibid]. In order for the built environment to be more inclusive of PWD, people need to be more inclusive of PWD [Council of Australian Governments, 2011]. The best way to do that is to build personal relationships with PWD in the community. By doing this, cities will be able to build up their social capital and empathy, and eliminate attitudinal barriers for PWD, which in turn should evoke change for more accessibly-inclusive built environments [ibid]. Also, disability advocacy is essential in order to ensure that PWD are being included within society and are reaching their full potential and that the design of the built environment allows for PWD to participate in all aspects of Australian life [Disability Advocacy Resource Unit, 2016]. Disability advocacy promotes things such as disability awareness, human rights of PWD, writing submissions for government lobbying, campaigning for social change to be more
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inclusive of PWD, and identifying discrimination within the built environment due to things like inaccessibility [ibid]. The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is an insurance support scheme implemented by the Australian Government in order to help fund costs related to disability for PWD [National Disability Insurance Agency, 2018]. However, the NDIS does not cover systemic advocacy as this is deemed the responsibility of another community service [Sirr, R., 2019]. And the NDIS doesn’t cover all PWD in all aspects of their lives. For instance, the NDIS only covers 6% of PWD with highly specialised housing needs under its Specialised Disability Accommodation program. This means that unless the other 94 per cent are looked after, PWD will continue to be stuck in hospital beds or entering aged care at a young age [Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs]. Community service organisations such as People with Disabilities ACT (PWDACT) in Canberra were established so that PWD could be represented. These organisations cannot rely on Federal funding as this cannot be used for staffing, advocacy, or core office sustainment [ibid]. Therefore, these programs rely on State and Territory funding, for which the organisations have to advocate. These organisations also tend to run on minimal funding [ibid]. The best way to improve the built environment in order to allow for accessibly-inclusive cities is by ensuring that a universal design strategy is implemented across all Australian cities [Council of Australian Governments Australia, 2011]. However, for example, currently there is a lack of preliminary financial incentives for building accessibly-inclusive housing. This means that the cost of accommodating accessibility changes to the building sector becomes too expensive (due to it being introduced as a challenge at a later stage), and there is the added perception that PWD should live within disability-centric communities rather than within the broader community [Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs, 2017]. The Liveable Housing Initiative has voluntarily created Universal Access design standards [Liveable Housing Australia, 2012]. Even so, it is estimated that only five per cent of Australian houses will meet a standard by 2020 [Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs,
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2017]. This is in contrast to the aspirational target for all homes to meet universally accessible design specifications by 2020, which is unlikely due to the standards being voluntary [ibid]. Also, in order to create more accessible environments, studies state that it is important to provide post-occupancy surveys to ensure that standards used actually respond to the endusers needs, and period monitoring is implemented so as to keep up with changing technologies, end-user characteristics or service expansion [United Nations, 2016b] In order to create accessibly-inclusive cities, local councils also need to be shown how to create accessible infrastructure for PWD beyond buildings. This includes urban infrastructure like footpaths, playgrounds, and road crossings [Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs, 2017]. For a good disability policy to be effective, it needs to stimulate long-term inclusion of PWD in society. In order to this, Australian policies and laws need to be constantly reviewed and assessed by not only the government and government agencies, but by PWD to ensure that these policies are working well or not for the people it effects, and that cities are accessiblyinclusive for all Australians [Gauntlett, B., 2020]. Grassroots ventures such as accessibility awareness-based phone applications that help people choose routes or destinations that are more accessible shows that PWD feel that current regulations are insufficient and they need other avenues to make getting around easier [2019., Interchange]. Accessibility in cities is a big issue for PWD. Lack of accessibility consumes time and effort. Despite legislated remedies, there remain diverse and systemic accessibility problems that make life difficult for PWD and this affects their life outcomes. Substantial improvements in the design, construction and maintenance of Australian cities for PWD can be made through things such as mandatory implementation of Universal Design Principles, building relationships with diverse PWD, and including PWD in advisory, design, and other related roles. PWD and the wider Australian society will benefit from accessibly-inclusive policies - if we make the effort.
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Appendices Appendix 1 United Nations Universal Design Principles [Source: United Nations, 2016b, Good Practices of
Accessible Urban Development, Department of Economics and Social Affairs: Social Inclusion, [online], Available: https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/2016/10/good-practices-ofaccessible-urban-development/] a) Equitable use: the design is useful and relevant to a wide group of end-users b) Flexibility in use: the design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities c) Simple and intuitive use: the design is easy to understand regardless of the knowledge, experience, language skills or concentration level of the end-user d) Perceptive information: the design communicates information effectively to the user regardless of the ambient condition or the sensory abilities of the end-user e) Tolerance for error: the design minimizes the hazards and adverse consequences of unintended actions by the end-user f) Low physical effort: the design can be used easily, efficiently, and comfortably with a minimum of fatigue g) Size and space: the size and space for approach, reach, manipulation, and use should be appropriate regardless of the body size, posture, or mobility of the end-user
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