Benidorm begins accessibility improvements on Avd. Alfonso Puchades

The Benidorm City Council’s Department of Public Space has started work to make Avenida Alfonso Puchades, one of the city’s principal roads, easier to get to. Councillor Francis Muñoz, who went to see the construction that started this week, said that the project will touch six pedestrian crossings and crossroads in all.

The main goal of the project is to make things easier for everyone to get to; however, it is mostly focused on persons with visual impairments. To help these people, tactile pavement will be put in some parts of the route to help them find their way or get their attention. This kind of surface has a certain roughness that helps them find their way.

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In addition to having different colours on the rest of the floor for individuals with limited vision, it also has additional relief patterns, like dots or lines, that can be felt when walking on it without needing to see. Blind people can also feel it with their canes while walking on it.

The raised circles on the tactile paving help people who can’t see to find hazards, changes in direction, or stop signs. The elevated, parallel straight lines that make up the directional paving help people find their way along the walkway by making trails.

The repair will also include adding kerb extensions to pedestrian crossings to make them easier to see and ease the flow of traffic. Muñoz said that the work will take about a month and that ONCE (the Spanish National Organisation of the Blind) had consented to the changes.

Muñoz also said that the new pavement will follow the rules for accessibility that are in place now, “as we have been doing in Benidorm for the past ten years.” The councillor said again that the local government is “firmly committed” to making the whole city accessible to everyone. “This is shown by the many projects we have done in this area in recent years across the whole municipality.”

Author: Derek Appleton