Walking outdoors is often difficult or impossible for many seniors and people with disabilities during winter. We present a novel approach for conducting winter accessibility evaluations of commonly used pedestrian facilities, including sidewalks, street crossings, curb ramps (curb cuts and dropped curbs), outdoor stairs and ramps, building and transit entrances, bus stops, and driveways. A total of 183 individuals, aged 18-85 completed our survey. The results show that cold weather itself had little impact on the frequency of outdoor excursions among middle-aged and older adults while the presence of snow and/or ice on the ground noticeably kept people, especially older adults at home. The survey found that the key elements decreasing winter accessibility were icy sidewalks and puddles at street crossings and curb ramps. While communities have recognized the need to improve snow and ice removal, little attention has been paid to curb ramp design which is especially ineffective in winter when the bottom of the ramps pool with rain, snow, and ice, making it hazardous and inaccessible to nearly all users. We conclude that investigations of alternative designs of curb ramp are needed.

Protective footwear is necessary for preventing injurious slips and falls in winter conditions. Valid methods for assessing footwear slip resistance on winter surfaces are needed in order to evaluate footwear and outsole designs. The purpose of this study was to utilise a method of testing winter footwear that was ecologically valid in terms of involving actual human testers walking on realistic winter surfaces to produce objective measures of slip resistance. During the experiment, eight participants tested six styles of footwear on wet ice, on dry ice, and on dry ice after walking over soft snow. Slip resistance was measured by determining the maximum incline angles participants were able to walk up and down in each footwear–surface combination. The results indicated that testing on a variety of surfaces is necessary for establishing winter footwear performance and that standard mechanical bench tests for footwear slip resistance do not adequately reflect actual performance. Practitioner Summary: Existing standardised methods for measuring footwear slip resistance lack validation on winter surfaces. By determining the maximum inclines participants could walk up and down slopes of wet ice, dry ice, and ice with snow, in a range of footwear, an ecologically valid test for measuring winter footwear performance was established.

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