Barrier-free at Lake Traunsee

For the four tourist resorts around Lake Traunsee, the topic of accessibility is an important issue. Therefore, a group of people from different groups of interest was created. Now various projects have already been realised.

Within the “Agenda 21” project, the four towns by Lake Traunsee which are Altmünster, Traunkirchen, Ebensee and Gmunden, deal with the issue of accessibility. First of all, a group for supervision was created. This group includes

• representatives of all four municipalities (politicians and staff of the municipal administration)
• stakeholders (counselling, civil invalid association, sport union, tourism association, regional management) as well as
• interested and physically challenged citizens.

Various inspections have already taken place in the four regions at public places to show barriers and collect first ideas for solutions. This could be parking spaces for disabled persons, barrier-free entrances at the community centre, clearance of swells or a barrier-free access to the lake. Another aspect was the barrier-free design of the town centre in Traunkirchen. This project was realized by the HTL Hallstatt as their project for their A-levels.

An essential partner was the Traunsee-Almtal tourism association. Lake Traunsee is a very important region for tourism and therefore accessibility is a fundamental topic. A precondition for success is to know the local conditions. Moreover, a survey at the concerned companies was conducted and also a “Landingpage” with barrier-free offers was established.
In the future, there will be more focus on this topic. Even a training course with the matter on “barrier-free planning and building” will be established, especially for tourism associations and municipal administration staff.