Accessibility from a women's perspective: Assessing equitable walkable access across socioeconomic divides

This study evaluates female walkability as a means of accessing critical urban services in two contrasting neighborhoods in Uberlândia, Brazil: the peripheral and socioeconomically vulnerable settlement of Glória and the more central and affluent area of Santa Mônica/Segismundo Pereira. To conduct this analysis, the User-Centric Walk-to-Essentials Index (UC-WEI) was applied. The index integrates four key accessibility dimensions: proximity to services, availability and volume of services, suitability of the pedestrian environment, and user perception. The perception dimension captures how residents prioritize and weight these dimensions, while also linking infrastructural conditions to suitability, acceptable travel times to proximity, and service-use frequency and perceived importance to availability. The UC-WEI application was preceded by a survey targeting local women to identify their travel patterns, mobility needs, and perceived barriers to access essential services. Results show that both neighborhoods appear to perform acceptably when accessibility is evaluated solely through proximity measures. Considering the locally defined tolerable travel time threshold of 10 m, 97.8% of clusters in Santa Mônica/Segismundo Pereira fall within this limit, while only 64.6% do so in Glória. However, when accessibility is assessed through the UC-WEI composite index, a more different pattern emerges. In Glória, 100% of hexagons remain below the accessibility threshold, indicating structurally unfavorable conditions. In Santa Mônica/Segismundo Pereira, accessibility outcomes are more heterogeneous: 78% require improvement., 16% of hexagons show moderate accessibility and 6% face inadequate conditions These results demonstrate how proximity-based metrics alone can obscure deeper accessibility inequalities, highlighting the value of UC-WEI for supporting equity-oriented urban planning.