SGGW Students work on improving the accessibility of hiking trails for people with disabilities

Our fifth-year students examined the accessibility of hiking trails in the Karkonosze National Park (KPN) as part of “Designing tourist and recreational infrastructure” study program at the Master’s Landscape Architecture 

Students are going to develop a road map for KPN with the most important tasks to improve the accessibility of trails.

For three days, two teams of students analyzed the scope of necessary activities to improve the accessibility of the KPN hiking trails, assessed their technical condition and the usefulness of the infrastructure to improve access for people with disabilities.

The students faced the challenges experienced by people with disabilities on their own during the walk along the educational path around the Karkonosze National Park Education Center in Szklarska Poręba, using a wheelchair; together with Leszek Skrętkowicz, Chief Education Specialist at KPN, they discovered the practical aspects of accessibility planning.

Visiting KPN ended with a meeting with dr inż. Andrzej Raj, Head of KPN, who answered told about activities for people with disabilities undertaken by park employees. The last task that is still carried out by the participants is to prepare a road map for the Karkonosze National Park, which will include the most important activities to improve the accessibility of the park for people with disabilities. Field classes were carried out under the direction of Monika Rusztecka-Rodziewicz, the Ph.D. student at the Department of Landscape Architecture, Head of the KPN Department of Accessibility Services, and dr hab. Agata Cieszewska,  Department of Landscape Architecture, Warsaw University of Life Sciences.

The audit of trails was carried out in accordance with the matrix of accessibility of natural parks developed by PFRON under the Obszar chroniony, obszar dostępny project.