Article: More buses and street seats to aid seniors

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More buses and street seats to aid seniors

More buses and street seats to aid seniors

   Katrina Stokes
   From: The Advertiser
   June 09, 2011 12:30AM

MORE community buses and seating on suburban streets are among innovations Adelaide's new Thinker in Residence says councils should introduce to help our ageing population.

Dr Alexandre Kalache, an authority on ageing, successfully has introduced age-friendly changes in New York, Mexico City, London and Moscow.

"The emphasis is age-friendly. It's not only to make it senior friendly, but it also is to improve Adelaide's quality of life for all citizens," he said.

Dr Kalache is working with the State Government and councils, with a focus on eight areas including transport, housing and education.

He only has been in Adelaide for three weeks, but Dr Kalache already has noticed some simple, age-friendly changes councils could make.

While he says Adelaide's public transport is relatively good, Dr Kalache believes accessibility to and from places in the suburbs could be better.

"It could be organised to have transportation to make it easier to access different points within your neighbourhood," he said.

He said the addition of more council community buses would be an easy but effective way to do this.

Dr Kalache also said councils could make some other simple, cost-effective changes.

"The elderly enjoy walking, but they can't go long distances," he said.

"You have benches in the city, but I have not seen them in the neighbourhoods as much."

In his time working with the World Health Organisation in New York, Dr Kalache's team made simple changes to the synchronisation of traffic lights which made the whole city safer.

He suggested making similar changes in Adelaide.

"The timing of traffic lights, especially in the broad avenues is not sufficient for someone who walks slowly to reach the other side safely," he said.

"It is so easy. It is just a question of programming the computer correctly."

On the issue of ageing, Local Government Association chief executive Wendy Campana said: "The LGA is not seeking to plan for our ageing population, rather we are seeking to support councils into the future as they face challenges arising from the ageing of the population."

The association does not have strategies for every area of council.

Ms Campana, however, said it had been decided one was needed for the future "given the increase in the ageing population as baby boomers reach retirement".

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