Equity issues associated with transport barriers in a Brazilian medium-sized city

Abstract

IntroductionTransport infrastructures and motorized vehicle traffic in urban areas often act as barriers to walking and cycling. The present study introduces the characterization of this process, also known as “community severance”, caused by a railway in a Brazilian medium-sized city. Moreover, it also investigates the equity in the distribution of residents, regarding demographic characteristics, along the railway and around the different types of railroad crossings and segments without railroad crossings. Materials and methodsBased on census data related to permanent mobility constraints, income level, gender and age, we georeferenced the data and estimated the number of residents living around the railway. In addition, the types of railroad crossings and segments without railroad crossings were classified by means of a qualitative assessment, according to an ordinal scale of relevance. Furthermore, we used the chi-square (χ2) test of independence and standardized Pearson residual to verify evidence of associations between the variables and to understand the nature and strength of dependence between each category of the variables. ResultsThe results provide evidence of associations between the variables and indicate deficits and excesses of residents with certain demographic characteristics in the railway surroundings. They also show that residents with some difficulty in walking or climbing stairs or aged over 60 tend to live nearby the best railway crossings, while residents aged up to 19 tend not to live nearby the best railway crossings. On the other hand, low-income residents (less than R$ 1200.00) tend to live nearby the worst railroad crossings. ConclusionsThe research indicates that the distribution of the number of residents along the types of railroad crossings and segments without railroad crossings is equitable for residents with permanent mobility constraints, by gender and for the elderly, whereas it is not equitable for low-income residents and aged up to 19 years old.