TY - JOUR PY - 2009// TI - Access, aging, and impairments part b: accessibility planning JO - Journal of transport and land use A1 - Schmocker, Jan-Dirk SP - 1 EP - 2 VL - 2 IS - 2 N2 - This article serves as the introduction to the second part in a special series on access to transportation options. This section focuses on the planning implications and reviews how far accessibility planning has been employed in practice. The first entry is a letter that describes experiences with accessibility planning in French towns, illustrating experiences and problems associated with a recent law that requires municipalities to improve accessibility. The remaining articles in this issue cover topics including the findings of a survey of Swedish municipalities on the perception of the importance of accessibility issues as well as whether policies and guidelines are actually being implemented; how existing guidelines often fail to address the real needs of those with impairments; an alternative approach tested in the United Kingdom to measure the extent of social exclusion experienced by people with mobility impairments, particularly older people; the problem of project evaluation, as transport planners and advocates must justify investments; the mobility effects of improvements to the public transport system in Sweden; and the measurable benefits of more accessible transport, including the idea that better access to transport facilities is appreciated by a wider community than generally considered and often leads to positive net present values for infrastructure improvements. The author stresses that the access to a destination is only as good as the lowest level of access to any infrastructure on any path to this destination - one broken link may prevent the entire journey from being undertaken.

LA - SN - 1938-7849 UR - http://dx.doi.org/ ID - ref1 ER -