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Addressing the need for curbing private motorization and car dependency while reducing inequalities associated with transport requires an in-depth understanding of the individual and collective practices, attitudes, and experiences of urban accessibility and mobility of populations across diverse socio-economic backgrounds. This paper builds on qualitative research methods and a framework of transitions to sustainable mobility to examine the links between travel needs, preferences, attitudes, and structural factors such as urban form, poverty, and informality at different scales. It proposes qualitative methods and evidence for accessibility-centred analysis to enrich policy and practice in cities across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), using Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, as a case study. While the volume of literature on urban mobility, accessibility, and land-use in SSA is increasing, scholarship on cities in Western Africa remains limited. The study examines four neighborhoods with different levels of access and motorization. It interrogates participants' perceived accessibility, how they shape differentiated everyday mobility and land-use practices at the individual and collective level, and its implications for urban accessibility and sustainable mobility in the medium to long-term future. We found that perceived accessibility influences everyday mobility and land-use practices and the attitudes of individuals in diverse communities toward sustainable mobility by driving them to trade off immediate needs with long-term risks and exposures, imaginaries of motorized futures, as well as collectively transform the functional and physical configurations of the built environment to address their most critical needs in the absence of suitable top-down transport and land-use interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of still-low-but-rising levels of motorization and economic growth, increasing social and spatial inequalities, and growing concerns about air pollution and climate change, the formulation and implementation of policies, practices and partnerships that can support an accelerated implementation of sustainable mobility policies is an urgent concern for rapidly developing cities. This paper seeks to contribute to reframing some of the knowledge and methodologies produced in and about cities of Sub-Saharan Africa, through a comprehensive assessment of mobility patterns and accessibility needs within a larger debate about mobility transitions and sustainable development. By deploying a mixed-methods approach that builds upon case-study focus groups and city-wide accessibility and mobility analysis in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, the paper maps travel patterns and their links with structural factors such as urban form, poverty, informality and social identities at the macro, meso and micro levels. The paper also presents evidence from a variety of methods that illustrate the significance of accessibility-centred information and analysis for establishing policy priorities for improving urban mobility and accessibility in the local, African and global contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]