Why should planners care about accessibility?

In numerous realms of planning – urban, transport, recreation, open space and others – accessibility is always a relevant consideration. Its utility and purpose extends beyond convenience, though, because accessibility has a far-reaching impact on how cities and towns function.

Equity and inclusivity

At its core, accessibility is about ensuring that everyone – regardless of their physical abilities – can access employment, education, essential services and amenities. This includes people with disabilities, the elderly, people with temporary impairments and more.  

By designing cities that are accessible for everyone, planners can promote social equity and inclusion; this means creating places where everyone can participate in social, economic, and cultural activities. Accessible public transportation systems (including on-demand services) enable people with disabilities to commute to work, attend school and engage in community life, which helps foster a more inclusive society.

Enhanced health and wellbeing

Accessibility also includes active modes of transport, which means that accessible cities encourage walking and cycling by making it efficient and easy to do so. These activities are linked to various physical and mental health benefits and can help reduce the prevalence of acute and chronic illnesses related to sedentary lifestyles – a benefit for individuals that has a collectively positive effect on a city’s overall health and productivity.

In addition to the health benefits that regular walk and cycle trips induce, public transport systems that are easy to use can also reduce the reliance on private vehicles, leading to lower air pollution levels (in both the short and long term) and a healthier environment.

Efficiency and sustainability

Efficient transport systems are a cornerstone of accessible cities. When public transport is reliable, affordable, and easy to use, it reduces traffic congestion and travel times. Plus, well-planned PT networks offer a mode of transport for those without their own cars. This has the knock-on effect of making cities more liveable and enhancing productivity, because people can spend less time commuting and more time on productive activities (whether that be professionally or personally).

In addition to this, accessible cities are often more sustainable. A key reason for this is that, put simply, the challenge of encouraging mode shift from private vehicles to public and active transport is much easier to negotiate when those networks are highly accessible and efficient. With that in mind, it’s unsurprising that some of the most sustainable cities in the world are also some of the most accessible to residents and visitors alike.

Broad economic benefits

Accessibility also has significant economic implications, meaning that highly accessible areas can enhance an area’s economic potential. Cities that are easy to navigate attract more visitors and businesses, which can play a key role in boosting local economies.  

When people can move around efficiently, they are more likely to shop, dine out, and engage in recreational and leisure activities. Plus, accessible workplaces ensure that businesses can tap into a broader talent pool, including individuals with disabilities, which can be a boon for productivity and innovation.

Measuring accessibility

Accurately measuring how accessible a location is can unlock insights for the future that serve a range of planning outcomes. The paths planners can take to measure accessibility are also wide-ranging. Among other things, these include analysing travel times, land use, distance to key services and public transport availability.

Attaining these insights can be a challenge, but there are effective means of doing so. One of them is catchment analysis, which is a useful tool for analysing accessibility to specific locations based on a travel time or a simple radius. Self-service urban analytics platforms like Planwisely allow users to perform catchment analysis and gap analysis on a map-based interface.

This kind of analysis makes it easy to visualise how accessible a location is or analyse accessibility to multiple locations at once. Using tools like catchment analysis, planners can get a deep, evidence-based understanding of one of the most important considerations in planning better places, towns and cities.