Assessment of the aspects of urban configuration that facilitate mobility in the land use and transportation plans of the Brazilian Federal District

Abstract

Mobility is a relatively recent topic in the discussions on the quality of urban space in Brazil. However, it’s still treated as a matter only related to public transportation and its management. However, the guiding approach of this paper is the relationship between urban form and the efficiency of public policies to achieve a more sustainable urban mobility. Using as a study case the Brazilian Federal District, it was analyzed how urban form relates to sustainable mobility and how this relation occurs within the guidelines presented in the Federal District’s land use and the transportation plans. As a result, this paper presents a synthetic framework of the configurational elements that facilitate mobility and how these elements appear in those plans. Both documents present important concepts for the achievement of sustainable mobility: multimodality, universal accessibility, multicentrality, occupation of urban voids, preference for non-motorized and collective motorized transportation, integration of transport system, among others. However, it was verified the absence of instruments that make possible to materialize the principles, objectives and guidelines listed in those documents, maintaining the traditional separation between urban planning and the concrete production of Brazilian urban spaces.