Research On Urban Streets Design Suitable For Elderly

In contemporary city, the overall walking environment is worsening under the development of motorization. The urban streets are seriously lack of concern and consideration about pedestrian especially vulnerable groups. In order to meet the needs of urban construction and development under the background of aging society, this research focuses on the features of urban streets which are suitable for elderly, in view of the travel difficulties for elderly. Suggestions of design and implementation strategies aimed at improving the environment of walking spaces are given in this paper in order to encourage elderly to go outdoor and enjoy public life which could help improve the quality of life. Therefore, it's the inevitable trend of humanizing and sustainable development under the aging society to build streets which are suitable for elderly.In western countries, the researches on urban built environment have paid much attention about old people's outdoor life so far. However, the design researches about old people in China have mainly focused on architecture environment, residential environment and green spaces. For street environment, the research is mainly about barrier-free design and lack of systematic research, which could not meet the needs of old people's activities in urban streets comprehensively, and this research is expected to fill the blank.First of all, five features of walking space suitable for the elderly was concluded in this paper, including safety, accessibility, comfortability, readability and participation, based on the psychological characteristics and travel status of elderly according to the literature study and questionnaire survey.Then, six streets in Daping area of Chongqing were chosen as research samples in order to understand the status of the streets' suitability for elderly, as well as the relationship between the suitability and objective form of the streets. Semantic Differential was used as specific method to make quantifying analysis of the suitability for elderly of the sample streets through asking the elderly respondents to evaluate the street images described as 20 pairs of adjectives related with suitable features. Whereafter, statistical analysis was performed with the image rating data and index of the streets' objective forms in order to find the exact relevance between them.Then, design considerations of the urban streets suitable for elderly were systematically concluded according to the street form, street elevation, functional facilities, and environmental facilities, which could provide suggestions for planning and construction practice.In the end, the implementation strategies were discussed which were divided into new project and renovation project. Also, this paper emphasized the importance of establishing appropriate participation mechanism and guarantee mechanism because the implementation of streets suitable for elderly should be a continuous process of construction and management.