The project will affect six pedestrian crossings and will focus on facilitating the movement of people with visual disabilities
Benidorm begins accessibility improvement project on Alfonso Puchades Avenue
Benidorm City Council, through its Department of Urban Scene, has begun an accessibility improvement project on Alfonso Puchades Avenue, one of the city's main thoroughfares. The project will affect a total of six pedestrian crossings and intersections, as explained by Councilor Francis Muñoz, who visited the works that began this week.
The project aims to improve universal accessibility, although it is primarily focused on people with visual impairments. To this end, tactile paving will be installed in some sections of the avenue to guide these individuals using directional or alert paving. This type of paving has a specific texture to help them orient themselves.
In addition to contrasting colours against the rest of the pavement for people with low vision, it features other raised patterns, such as dots or lines, that can be perceived while walking on it without needing to see, and can also be felt with the cane of blind people as they navigate on foot.
The tactile paving features raised circles so that visually impaired people can easily identify hazards, changes in direction, or stop signs. Directional markings are created with raised parallel straight lines that guide pedestrians along the path, forming helpful pathways.
In addition to installing this paving, the work will also focus on pedestrian crossings, where curb extensions will be added to improve visibility and vehicle traffic flow. The work will last approximately one month, according to Muñoz, who added that the interventions have been agreed upon with ONCE (the Spanish National Organisation of the Blind).
Muñoz also stated that the new paving will comply with current accessibility regulations, "as we have been doing in Benidorm for the past ten years." The councillor reiterated the local government's "firm commitment" to achieving universal accessibility throughout the city, "as demonstrated by the large number of projects we have carried out in this regard in recent years across the municipality."
