Pražská organizace vozíčkářů (POV, Prague Wheelchair Organization) in cooperation with the City Hall prepared an atlas of Prague monuments and sights. It includes information not only about accessible places, but also the conditions of accessibility and lastly also the inaccessible places too.
The book, at the moment has a print run of only two thousand copies; it also provides information about parking places and an internet link to low-floor connections of the Prague public transport system.
It‘ s important to note that the map’s creation was based on the work of people from the POV (Prague Wheelchair Organization), because only wheelchair disabled people know how hard it is to make one’s way through the city. “This means for example knowing where there are cobble stones, because they are more difficult to ride on, where there is too steep an incline, a healthy person might not even notice, the width of doors as the wheelchairs don‘t fit everywhere and also the existence of barrier-free toilets,“ said Milada Burčíková of POV.
The map is printed in Czech-English version, but the key is also provided in six other languages. “It’s a unique type of map, no other city in Czech republic has one, “stated councilman Milan Richter. He also said, that the city has subsidized the map’s creation with 260 thousand Crowns.
A 1:4000 scale was used, so that the map is extremely easy to orientate with and also allows people to write in their own signs informing about the accessibility of relevant monuments and the path best used to get to them as well. It is solely devoted to city areas defined by the Prague Castle, Josefov, riverbanks at Smíchov and Vyšehrad. Aside from this map the POV also prepared four recommended paths, two in the Old Town, one in Hradčany and one in Malá Strana.
It’s not just the book
POV offers a similar application on its web pages. It’s the project called Bezbariérová Praha (Barrier-free Prague) where one can find the four routes with a commentary on a video. This application can be found at http://www.pov.cz/cd-rom/default.htm. It should be noted, however, that unlike the current map this application might not be always up to date as it was created in the year 2001.
The new map can be acquired in: the Pražská informační služba (Prague Information Service) infocentre in Staroměstská radnice (Old Town City Hall), also just next to this place in the Czech Tourism Infocentre on the Old Town Square, in Prague City Hall infocentres on Mariánské náměstí square and in Škodův palác in Jungmannova street and also in the office of POV in Benediktská street nr. 6.
Last year the city subsidized a similar plastic map project that was to help blind people. This is not the last thing Prague intends to do.We are thinking of creating relief models of some key spots in the historical centre,stated Milan Richter.