The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how public authorities have been acting to cope with the social phenomena we know as urban car traffic. To do so, it begins with a peculiar event that was widely covered by Brazil´s media: protests on behalf of Ipanema residents, a posh neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. The protestors refused to have a subway station installed in their neighborhood. The article begins by identifying if urban planning can be used as an effective strategy to tackle traffic, identifying the effective results of traffic and the possible application of an urban planning solution for the case of Ipanema. Following, the work studies whether the distance between subway stations is a relevant individual factor for the choice of transport, since behind public investment in transportation is the idea that people will shift from private vehicles to public transportation given the chance. Subsequently, the article shows how urbanism theories greatly impacted traffic today. That being said, the article moves on to investigate the distances that must be observed between the stations located in prioritized regions in order to determine the interval between stations. With this in mind, it will be possible to conclude if the installation of the Praça Nossa Senhora da Paz station, or any near alternative, is justified from a public interest standpoint.
Urban planning; Traffic; Subway; Ped-Shed; Ipanema