DESIGN GUIDELINES for a Lifespan Community
This booklet includes design principles to achieve the goal of designing for an “elder-friendly community.”
From DESIGN GUIDELINES for a Lifespan Community:
“The environment should be totally accessible while still being challenging:
Sidewalks to critical destinations especially should be smooth and barrier-free. Lighting should be keyed to critical corners and low to the sidewalk. Stores should be small and friendly. Entryways should be barrier-free with doors which are not too heavy. Traffic must be calmed on critical pedestrian pathways (to grocery, church, library, retail). There must be well-planned perches to rest; ideally every block should have an elder-friendly/toddler-friendly bench (with back and side-support). Pedestrians must dominate over cars and bicycles along critical pathways used by older adults and young children.”
(pg. 3, DESIGN GUIDELINES for a Lifespan Community)
“Facilitate way-finding in the interior and exterior environment:
Provide sensory cues leading to significant destinations – sound patterns, pennants, visual access to steeples, public symbols, kiosks, signage, linear parks, green walkways, corner features such as sculpture and benches."
(pg. 4, DESIGN GUIDELINES for a Lifespan Community)
The AdvantAge Initiative
“a community-building effort focused on creating vibrant and elder-friendly, or ‘AdvantAged,’ communities that are prepared to meet the needs and nurture the aspirations of older adults.”
Aging in Place
An initiative of Partners for Livable Communities to “help America’s communities prepare for the aging of their population and to become places that are good to grow up, live in and grow old.”
AARP commissioned a survey “to examine the transportation needs and preferences of mid-life and older adults.” Click the link to read a summary of the key findings of Understanding Senior Transportation Survey.
The survey said “that age alone is not the best indicator of transportation mode use, transportation problems, or personal mobility. Health and disability status (HDS) has its own unique impact on mobility…”
Tags: children | elder-friendly | older adults | pedestrians | Sidewalks |
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