Street as a space of cooperative coexistence

As part of its commitment in discussing more human and inclusive cities, Sobratema—in partnership with Sinaenco (Union of Architecture and Engineering) and WRI Brasil—took to the Week of Integrated Technologies for Construction, Environment and Equipment an enlarged and more comprehensive version of the project “Complete Street - National Network for Low-Carbon Mobility”. The initiative—that was successfully presented in the Meeting of Cities with Sustainable Development, promoted last April in Brasilia by the National Front of Mayors (FNP)—gathers in a single space the ideal conditions designed to ensure safe access to all users—pedestrians, bicycle riders, users of public transport and drivers—starting from elements of urban design, street furniture and infrastructures that improve their conditions of safety and accessibility

The “pilot street” had a design area of 400 sq.mt., where the state-of-the-art in street paving, public lighting, vertical and horizontal signaling, rainwater draining systems, wider sidewalks, bicycle lanes, exclusive lanes for public transport and for pedestrians, tactile floors for visually impaired people, etc. were presented.

Everything was thought to stimulate the non-motorized motion and the occupation of urban space by the citizens. At the end of the street, a “square” was built for interaction, provided with urban equipment that allowed its complete use for handicapped people. “The purpose of the Complete Street is to show in full scale—to mayors and components of city administration, as well as to the visitors of this important event—the possibility of safe and harmonic coexistence that comes from well-planned urban routes located in places with commerce and high flow of persons”, said Bernasconi.

Making streets more human

According to Afonso Mamede, this urban cut-off is a sample of the excellence of what is offered to the market by contractors and solution suppliers in terms of paving, accessibility, mobility and sidewalks, public lighting, etc. The ideal route has several types of paving, depending on factors such as function, type of traffic, flow of vehicles and pedestrians, local topography, underground, frequency of maintenance, use and occupation of the land.

In the presented prototype two types of paving were used: paver (interlocked concrete blocks) and cast-in-situ concrete. Both floors are slip-resistant, what ensures safety to pedestrians even in rainy days. A tactile floor was installed in the whole path to direct visually impaired people.

Another feature of the Complete Street is the intelligent semaphore system manufactured by Cobrasim. The equipment has a set of sensors that allow it to take decisions such as evaluating the vehicle flow to select the best time for semaphore opening. Or changing the time of semaphores to allow the crossing of old, handicapped or visually impaired pedestrians, who have priority in the streets controlled by the system. For example, the last ones may use a sound signal that alerts when the crossing time counting is started and alerts with a beep when this time is near the end.