Road traffic crashes are among the leading causes of preventable death, and much of what makes a street safe or dangerous is decided at the municipal level.
Between 2021 and 2025, the Rede Ruas Completas SP connected 20 municipalities in the state of São Paulo through technical training, exchange of experiences and support for road safety plans, programmes and street design projects. The network was part of the third cycle of the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety and brought together WRI Brasil, Vital Strategies, the Frente Nacional de Prefeitas e Prefeitos and Instituto Cordial. The new practice note presents its results, along with six independent case studies written by professionals who worked on each plan or intervention.
One of them is the Plan for Safe and Inclusive Mobility of Santo André, which approaches the mobility system from the perspective of its most vulnerable users. The plan aims to halve traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2030 and to make all sidewalks accessible by 2045. It was developed with an intersecretarial working group and public hearings, and led to the creation of an Urban Mobility Observatory, which integrates crash data from the moment of occurrence to analysis, and of a Mobility Planning Department. Nine tactical urbanism safety projects were implemented between 2023 and 2024, and the severity index on Rua Juquiá fell by 50% after its redesign.
The case shows that the effectiveness of a road safety plan, and its potential to be replicated, depends on reliable data, a permanent technical team, coordination across departments and agencies, accessible participation, dedicated budget and continuous monitoring.
Authorship
The Santo André case study was written by Barbara Sula, Heloisa Loureiro Escudeiro, Ivana Karin Jollembeck Jenny Di Girolamo and Thiago Canhos Montmorency Silva.
The practice note is authored by Reynaldo Mello Neto, Bruno Batista, Laura Rössler, Karolina Jesus, Helena Ew, Paula Tavares, Ariadne Samios, Paula Manoela dos Santos, Rafaella Basile, Beatriz Gonçalves Francisco and Tainá Bittencourt.
Mello Neto, R.; Batista, B.; Rössler, L.; Jesus, K.; Ew, H.; Tavares, P.; Samios, A.; Santos, P. M. dos; Basile, R.; Francisco, B. G.; Bittencourt, T. 2026. Ruas Completas no estado de São Paulo: Estratégias em rede para estimular ações de segurança viária no contexto urbano. Nota prática. São Paulo: WRI Brasil. doi.org/10.46830/wripn.24.00065
Read the full practice note at WRI Brasil ↗