One of the first things that the architect we worked with told us is that for a city to be "sustainable", it must be inclusive, which means that the needs of everybody must be taken into account.

When it comes to mobility, this means that people with mobility issues should also be taken into account in the design of transport facilities. Also, when moving around the town, people on wheelchairs or people with mobility issues should be able to move as smoothly as possible.

However, we experienced that moving through Milan for people with disabilities is all but smooth!!!

Actually, two of our classmates are on a wheelchair and for them moving through Milan was quite difficult.

Moving through the town

The second day we visited Leonardo's vineyard and we encountered various problems for the mobility of the disabled.

The entrance to the vineyard was characterizated by a flight of stairs without the possibility of access for the disabled as there was no stairlift or ramps. Thanks to the help of professors, we were able to go upstairs.

However, we were not able to enter the garden because there was another descent with a flight of stairs without access for the disabled.

In the metro we found easy access through lifts, reserved for the people with mobility issues.

To get on the metro we found some employees who organized flights of stairs but encountered a difficulty in being able to get two wheelchairs up at the same time, as there was not the necessary space for two of them.

An important problem was that in one of the metros the lift that was supposed to carry the wheelchairs up the stairs was broken and we had to wait for about two hours for the staff to ensure that our classmates could go up.

It was difficult for the people with mobility issues to move around the city due to many road works and also due to the absence of ramps.

For this, the help of one or more people was needed most of the time.

A shuttle has been organized from the hotel for the people with mobility issues to return to the room in order to facilitate the return journey by eliminating transport public buses which were less organized than the metro and central station.