Beijing has the longest tactile paving for the vision impaired among all the cities in the world. In theory, they are a great idea to facilitate mobility for the vision impaired, but in reality few use it because as one vision impaired person in Beijing said, "It is practically suicide to use them."

Tactile paving is made of colorful raised tiles, usually yellow, that allow vision impaired people to navigate their way.

Recently, an official from Beijing Disabled Persons Federation Li Caimao said: "May be we build too many blind lanes in the city." It has caused wide social concern.

Media investigations have found that most of the tactile paving in Beijing leads to awkward angles, abundant navigational challenges and are sometimes blocked altogether. The design and enforcement shortfalls have made them of little to no value.

"Blind people don't use them," said one blind massage therapist surnamed Zhao. He works at a massage center that employs vision impaired people.

Zhao and his three colleagues live in a rented house together and usually go to and come home from work together.

As they have worked at the center for three years, they are used to navigating the pathway there and back, but if they have to go to banks, hospitals and post offices, the three of them have to depend on their visually impaired roommate Li, who has only a visual acuity of 0.08, to lead the way.

To test the city's tactile paving, Li and another journalist conducted an experiment. They attempted to follow the tactile paving but soon found their path blocked by food stands and bus stops. Moreover, the tactile paving only led down the sidewalk and did not offer guidance to buildings such as banks, hospitals and pharmacies.

In 2011, Yu Jianrong, a famous human rights activist and sociologist, appealed to Chinese micro-blog users to upload pictures of faulty tactile paving to raise awareness of the difficulties facing vision impaired people. Hundreds of photos were submitted.

Kong Fanwei, a physically challenged man in Hangzhou, capital city of east China's Zhejiang Province, said, "The blind lane you design may only have one more turn than it should have, but this may turn it into a labyrinth for the blind. So please design with your heart, not simply your brain."

He Zuyong, a teacher at a school for the vision impaired, wrote in a letter to the editor of a newspaper, "My students always say that they trust their own cane and not the blind lane because they think the lanes are just for show. People don't realize how important it is for vision impaired people, so they thoughtlessly damage or obstruct it."

The Chinese government has identified the need for further barrier-free improvements to be made in most cities. Throughout China huge strides are being made to develop more accessible places and transportation systems, especially for the old, young, and those with mobility limitations.

Already, thousands of kilometers of tactile pathways have been laid, ramps (of varying quality and steepness) have been made, hand rails installed, and public transportation made more accessible. However, these efforts are going to waste without reasonable designs and powerful regulations.

(Source: society.dbw.cn/Translated and edited by womenofchina.cn)

SOURCE: http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/155874-1.htm