Planning for Persons with Disabilities

Context

Accessibility is written into standards and almost never into streets. The thesis took Delhi as its ground; these are the figures it was argued from. They run at four scales, and the point of the sequence is the narrowing: what the Census can tell you about a country, what it can tell you about a city, what only asking 117 people will tell you, and what is left that you can only find by walking a footpath with a measuring tape.

Role

Research, survey design, analysis and visualisation

Bachelor of Planning thesis at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, completed with First Class. The Census tabulations were re-cut by type, age, sex, district and residence; the primary survey of 117 respondents was designed, run and coded; the pathway audit scored stretches in Sub-zone F1 against a fixed set of factors.

Process

Census 2011 is the only source that covers everyone, and it is also the bluntest — it counts disability by type and leaves the street out entirely. So each scale is there to catch what the one above it misses. The survey asks about travel, work and schooling, which no tabulation records. The audit scores kerbs, widths and crossings, which no respondent should have to describe from memory.