ABSTRACT: The concentration of the urban population and the dynamics of cities present challenges to the municipal governments in their task to extend and conserve paved paths for pedestrians, especially in metropolises such as Rio de Janeiro where the integration between two or more modes of public transport is performed almost entirely on the surface and through bus lines, requiring the use of sidewalks more often. Although the Federal Constitution addresses the themes regarding accessibility in buildings and urban mobility, public actions for traffic solutions still favor motorized modes. Without proper conservation, sidewalks with holes and bumps are all over the city. Lack of access ramps for people with reduced mobility and misplaced newsagents reduce the pedestrians’ flow capacity. It is undeniable that for the management of urban sidewalks, planning and related administrative actions need techniques that take into account the dynamics in place of empirical solutions. This research proposes a sustainable pavement model that prioritizes the social and institutional dimensions of the complex represented urban reality. A social index for sidewalk quality could help citizens and the public authorities to monitor and diagnose the conservation of sidewalks in order to take in due time the required actions to guarantee good conditions of urban mobility for pedestrians in large cities.
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