If I’m pushing a fair cart, if you are of crutches or if someone is following an elderly man with reduced mobility, simply… We don’t cross
Is there anything more democratic than a well done? The answer should be “no”. But just try to walk through any Brazilian city to realize that, in practice, they are far from ensuring equal access. When existing, the sidewalks look more like obstacle trails, sometimes narrow, sometimes poorly maintained, commonly taken by holes, posts, makeshift degraus and placed anywhere. For some, it causes discomfort. For others, it is simply the end of the way.
The 2022 data leave no doubt: 174.2 million people living in urban areas in Brazil, almost 70% – or 119.9 million – live on ramps at the points where they should cross safely. If I’m pushing a fair cart, if you are of crutches after an accident, or if someone is following an elderly man with reduced mobility, simply… We don’t cross. It is true that there has been improvement since 2010, when 95% of people lived in this condition. But we are still talking about seven out of ten urban Brazilians without the basics to get around with autonomy.
Even more worrying is to find that only 32.8 million people (18.8%) live on roads with obstacle -free sidewalks. This means that for more than 80% of Brazilians in urban areas, the simple act of walking around the city is an experience full of barriers. When it comes to accessibility, it is possible to say that urban exclusion begins on the city floor. It is by sidewalks that the city separates those who can not circulate. And it’s not just people with disabilities who suffer from it: we are all of us or even children, the elderly, pregnant women, who wears cane, baby cart, walks with bags or simply has an operated knee or a torsion in the foot. The city, thus, is no longer a place of coexistence and becomes a balance test.
What few people realize is that the sidewalk is essentially mobility infrastructure. Like any urban infrastructure, it should be planned, executed and maintained by the municipal government. To the resident, the merchant, the citizen, it is only necessary to use and keep it-never build it. When we transfer the construction responsibility to the owners of real estate, we inevitably create a fragmented standard: irregular floors, makeshift strokes, roots that break the floor, bins obstructing the passage and posts installed precisely where they hinder the flow of pedestrians. That department, secretary or municipal agency would be able to effectively oversee this patchwork disconnect of floors, levels and conditions In cities like São Paulo with 12 million inhabitants? Personally, I consider it unfeasible.
The lack of accessibility impacts people’s lives. Having a sidewalk with obstacles can prevent someone from leaving home and may be the limit between being able to go to work or not. Between studying or staying at home. Between living the city or being locked by it. The city and its sidewalks have seen obstacles in the citizen’s life. It is curious how we created a city where the simple act of walking, the most basic and democratic way of locomotion, has become a privilege for the few. This is not just comfort, but a fundamental right: the right to come and go, to access services, to participate in urban life.
The big misconception is how we face the sidewalks. In Brazil, they are treated as the appendages of the buildings, under the responsibility of each owner. It’s as if we built a highway where each adjacent land owner defined the characteristics of the asphalt in front of his, unthinkable property, isn’t it? But it is necessary to change the logic: sidewalk is not urban appendix. It’s way, it’s access, it’s public policy.
Sidewalks are vital arteries of urban mobility, as essential as avenues, bridges or viaducts. When the municipal government assumes its true responsibility, that to plan, build and maintain these spaces with continuous standards and universal design, the city transforms and improves people’s lives. In several metropolises and cities around the world where the public power is responsible for the sidewalk project in its entirety, actually incorporating them into mobility plans and not just standards and regulations, the result is visible: the pedestrian is no longer supporting to become the protagonist of urban planning.
For citizens, it is up to the sidewalks with civility and empathy for the other: not park vehicles on them, not install dumpsters or fixed objects that obstruct the passage, nor turn them into the extension of private properties. And, more than that, it is everyone’s duty to charge the authorities who assume their responsibility for supervision about this public space.
Social exclusion manifests itself in many ways, but few are as concrete as the impossibility of wearing sidewalks. It is a literal exclusion, as it defines who can and cannot circulate around the city. When 80% of the urban population lives with clogged sidewalks, we are normalizing the exclusion of the majority. A city that does not guarantee the basic right to walk safely and autonomy is failing in its more elementary mission. It is as if exclusion begins on the floor. And the floor, it’s public. As long as our sidewalks remain hostile to so many citizens, our city project will remain incomplete and unequal.
*This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the young Pan.
