Bridget Burdett and Roger Loveless counting pedestrians at Waikato HospitalThese days, buildings and public facilities are designed so that people living with a disability are able to access them. Carol Stiles hears how the best measure of accessibility is not that they comply with the recommended guidelines, but whether people with a disability actually use them.

Bridge Burdett is a traffic engineer and researcher, and Gerri Pomeroy works for CCS Disability Action. They’ve been out and about in Hamilton counting pedestrians and mobility aid users for a project funded by the Ministry for Social Development. The project aims to provide city councils, engineers and transport and infrastructure planners hard data on the numbers of people with mobility aids who are using particular facilities and services and to compare those figures to the numbers who, statistically, could be using them. The goal is to improve best practice so that people living with a disability can access their communities with the same ease as people without impairments.

Pictured: Bridget Burdett and Roger Loveless counting pedestrians at Waikato Hospital.