In the realm of public safety, every detail matters. From bustling city sidewalks to expansive transportation hubs, ensuring the safety and accessibility of public spaces is incredibly important. 

Most suburban areas in the United States are created for the able-bodied individuals who own a car. Neighborhoods rarely have sidewalks, and many roads are long connecting points between neighborhoods and shopping centers. While suburbia may be a great area for a casual stroll, it’s not exactly great for those trying to get from home to work.

Individuals with disabilities must navigate a world designed for people with vision and mobility, and one tool that helps to make the world more accessible is navigational bar tiles. These directional tile surfaces consist of raised bars that align with the direction of pedestrian travel. These navigational directional bar tiles help people to locate the entrance to light rails, trains, and bus stops.

A companion to detectable warning tiles, navigational and directional bar tiles serve an essential purpose of guiding individuals with disabilities in the flow of traffic.

The Arizona State Transportation Board finalized and approved the 2022-2026 Five-Year Transportation Facilities Construction Program with plans for major corridor improvements, pavement upgrades, and more for highways. The next five years will include highway improvements from widening highways to improving safety that will cost $1 billion annually.

An accessible world is crucial for people of all abilities to work, live, and play. However, even in the most progressive cities, people with disabilities struggle to live their lives, which only gets worse in the suburbs and rural areas.

With an estimated one billion people to become urban-dwellers by 2050, many cities recognize the need to shift to more accessibility. Beyond the physical difficulty of navigating city and suburban obstacles, many individuals with disabilities must deal with a level of fear as they try to move through a world that is more or less inaccessible.

Pedestrians with disabilities are particularly at risk when it comes to street safety. As the largest minority group in the United States at 20 percent of the population, people with disabilities are still under-served—especially when it comes to pedestrian safety.

Believe it or not, practicing good bicycle etiquette is not only polite, but it can keep you safe as well. Road rules provide important standards that, when practiced by everyone, offer a default expectation for how other vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles will respond in specific situations. If everyone follows these common guidelines, all commuters have a higher chance of safety.

Curb ramps are the solid ramp that joins the top of a sidewalk to the adjoining street level. Also known as a curb cut or dropped curb, curb ramps are primarily used by pedestrians throughout urban areas where the main mode of transportation is walking. Curb ramps facilitate easy movement from the sidewalk to the road for individuals who use mobility aids.

Pedestrian fatalities have been on the rise since 2008, in fact, between 2007 and 2017, pedestrian fatalities increased by 35%, and more than a third of those fatalities occurred on local streets—not highways or state roads. And 2018 was projected to have the most deaths since 1990.

This fact is sobering, and it doesn’t have to be that way.