Beijing’s blind blast poorly planned pathways as death traps

Due to lax government regulations and crudely-designed Braille tiles, Beijing’s lengthy dimpled passages on pavements for the blind have become merely displays, blind people say.

Beijing has more Braille pavement tiles than any other city in the world, with its tactile paving totalling 1600 kilometres in length. However, blind people told the Beijing Morning Post that the paving is of little benefit to their everyday life, and that walking on the tiles is “cruising for a bruising”.

“Almost no blind person really uses Braille tiles,” said a blind person surnamed Zhao who works in a massage shop staffed by blind people. He told the newspaper that passages for the blind are likely to be blocked by street restaurants and market stalls illegally occupying large chunks of pavement, often without intervention from the authorities. Other segments of pavements can become temporary parking spots where vehicles park illegally across the dimpled tiles.

The report cited an incident where a blind person was violently assaulted by the owner of a luxury car illegally parked on one of these pathways after he accidentally knocked the car with his walking cane.

Zhao added the pavements were sometimes so badly designed that they were almost impossible to walk on.

Last year it was discovered that a 100-metre-long section of a Braille pavement in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, had 56 corners in it, provoking some to brand it “most bizarre Braille tiling”. The local authorities had to quickly retrofit the segment after public pressure urged officials to be more considerate towards blind people.