What the "DESIGN FOR ALL" week taught us about accessible trails

Designing Trails "For All"

The Region, through the Forestas agency, is committed to bridging the "gap" in trails "for all" – those accessible also to hikers with disabilities, whether they are physical-motor, sensory, or of the psychic-cognitive-relational sphere (such as autism spectrum disorders: conditions in which hikers have difficulty establishing normal social relationships, use language abnormally or do not speak at all, and exhibit limited and repetitive behaviors, hypersensitive to external agents, noise, spaces, and unforeseen situations).

Regional Law has long provided – since its extension in 2017 (Consolidated Tourism Act) – that the hiking network offers an adequate degree of autonomous or assisted accessibility for physical and sensory disabilities.

More recently, with Regional Council Resolution of August 24, 2023, No. 28/1, the criteria and technical standards were approved: to include and classify in the RES cadastre – and for informational signage on the level and degree of accessibility (autonomous or assisted) – trails accessible for motor, sensory, intellectual, and psychic disabilities. The approved Annex H integrates the pre-existing regional technical regulation from 2018.

Designing trails "for all" means emphasizing that hiking cannot involve trails "reserved for..." but must be conceived as an open, documented, and designed accessibility system to allow – where possible – the sharing of outdoor experiences and activities. Especially in the system of regional parks and state-owned forests, and in urban parks. The activity of Forestas and the Sardinian Region will also focus on these areas.

Designing with Inclusion

The first thing to do is to "empathize" to understand the "special needs." Study the use cases. Understand the needs. Involve stakeholders, who, in fact, in the new regional regulation, will be entitled to express a binding opinion in the verification of the registrability of "accessible" routes.

In the current context, the path to equip Sardinia with accessible trails will follow two differentiated strategies:

1. on the one hand, act on the existing hiking network (now almost 2000 km) and identify some trails (or sections thereof, compatible with the minimum necessary characteristics) to "elevate them to the rank of accessible trail" according to one or more categories (accessibility for physical, sensory, cognitive disabilities) and identifying a specific degree of difficulty (tourist, hiking, hiking for "experts"). The table of technical requirements established by Annex H in this regard is quite detailed: for example, it sets precise requirements for slope, type and work on the bottom (walking surface) and width, the presence of accessible parking and bathrooms in the vicinity, etc... This obviously limits and greatly restricts the type and quantity of kilometers "certifiable."
2. on the other hand, in the meantime, we will try to incorporate, for newly built trails, for new projects, the techniques of "Design For All" or "Universal Design" precisely because it is at the birth of a project that its level of "inclusion" is played. It will not be easy, nor will it always be possible, but the approach will have to change.

Higher Costs, Demanding Maintenance

The cost system, the calculation, the "toolbox" of trail designers: these aspects also change. We have seen, during the technical sessions of the co-design of this important "accessible design" week – that an accessible trail project introduces a series of costs otherwise not present in normal trails: the cost can "fly" going from €1500/km to reach, all included, €7000/km. These are technical estimates resulting from the first preliminary projects and the first feasibility studies, however, they are significant: an accessible trail for blind or visually impaired people, for example, requires a pole line with rope guide or stick-beating poles (for example) that longitudinally affects the entire development of the route introducing €4000-5000 per kilometer of minimum additional costs.

Enhancing the information system requires investments in materials and content available on the web and on-site, to facilitate the preparation of the excursion with detailed, accessible information, and accompanied by a language inspired by CAA techniques (Augmentative Alternative Communication - an approach with various specialized aspects, but oriented solely to offer people with complex communication needs the possibility of interacting through channels that accompany the oral one; CAA offers numerous potentials, but is still little widespread in our country...).

Maintenance along accessible trails must have a higher frequency than usual (three years): the accessible trail must always be passable maintaining constant technical characteristics (including the bottom, which in nature can instead vary significantly following rains – becoming muddy to the point of hindering the wheels of wheelchairs or causing a blind person to stumble – as well as following dry periods – becoming too stony and dusty)... in summary, the accessibility of a trail is a promise, a guarantee of structural characteristics, which must be maintained as constant as possible over time. The frequency of maintenance, and the system of custody/surveillance/restoration, must be strengthened.

All this has costs: but the healing and beneficial power of a natural environment, as we have learned from an in-depth study of forest therapy, is priceless for everyone. For everyone: it is therefore worth investing significant resources in accessible trails, given that the European Union also supports and encourages inclusion with significant funding.

A Complex System of Needs: A Resource also for the Economy

There is an enormous demand, in Sardinia, in Italy and in Europe: millions of potential hikers, stuck for the "barriers" and for the absence of "trails for all." And the first thing, the most important pre-condition – as was pointed out by all the representatives of disabilities who participated in the "design week on trails" – is the presence of a qualified offer of hiking guide services (GAE). Along the trails, there is a very strong (and so far unsatisfied) demand for guides prepared and experienced in the system of special needs of a disabled hiker and their family or their companions. So not only classified and verified trails in the level of accessibility, not only information and detailed and accessible sheets at a distance, not only equipment (parking, bathrooms, charging points for electrified wheelchairs or joelettes or etc.) but also services, prepared guides and equipped with the necessary training.

Next Steps

Encourage and support the territories, the municipalities and unions, the mountain communities, the LAGs and the park authorities that intend to invest resources to aim for inclusion and welcoming. Incorporate skills and human resources capable of thinking about projects "for all" according to the canons of "design for all." Enhance the existing accessibility system, choosing and reviewing and infrastructuring "accessible" trails or sections of trails among the existing ones.

In short, there is much to do to recover the gap accumulated by Sardinia, to provide answers and accessible tourist offers in the face of the great demand and special needs.