Sidewalk Materials - Recommendations for Lexington Center, 2006

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altered space requirements to accommodate special assistive devices, difficulty negotiating soft surfaces, and difficulty negotiating surfaces that are not level. The biggest problems sited by the United States Department of Transportation for the disabled population are buckled bricks and cracks in the sidewalk and pathway surfaces. Further, when a pedestrian or wheelchair user crosses a surface that is not firm or stable, energy that would otherwise be used to move forward deforms or displaces the surface instead. Bricks increase the amount of work needed for mobility and bricks have inherent changes in level, which can create tripping hazards. One eighth of an inch is enough to cause a fall. Conventional brick sidewalks are very unfriendly for mobility challenged, wheelchair users, and also elderly citizens and those pushing strollers. In well- documented studies, too much vibration over the uneven bricks causes increased pain, spasticity, incontinence, and headaches in some wheelchair users. One wheelchair user described to Boston Center for Independent Living that the vibration from the bricks shakes his hand off the electric control for his wheelchair and he then must wait for a passerby to assist him and is motionless without help. The visually impaired have great difficulty navigating brick sidewalks. According to the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, the inherent uneven quality of the bricks means that the cane tapping does not always pick up all the irregularities. There is also more wear and tear on the canes. The safety of individuals with special visual needs is enhanced when adjacent surfacing materials that make different sounds when tapped by a cane are present to be used as navigation cues (U.S. Access Board, 1985). Examples of materials with contrasting sound properties include concrete sidewalks with bricks along the sides or paving tiles next to rubberized raised tactile surfaces. The Town of Lexington Commission on Disability concludes that construction materials other than bricks must be considered. City hall pavers are the conventional type of brick used in historic towns and this type of brick is completely non-viable vis-à-vis individuals with movement and mobility impairments. Fortunately, there are other well-documented choices for sidewalk systems and materials for the disabled. One such system is concrete in the middle with bricks along the sides, in what is called the utility or finishing strips. Other town committees have rejected this, saying it was not good for the visually impaired, yet, as stated above, our research has showed us that the color contrast and the different noises that adjacent surfaces make when tapped with a cane are useful way-finding cues for the visually impaired. We also learned from that Perkins School is quite satisfied with yet a different approach, using colored concrete and that that is their first choice. The US Access Board has stated that: "individual paving units, bricks, and other textured materials are examples of surfaces that are undesirable in the pedestrian access route because of the vibration that they cause...they may, however, be used in the portions of the public sidewalk that do not contain the