Cycling Equity

(including new analysis of data from the Active

People Survey with Anna Goodman)

Rachel Aldred

Reader in Transport

University of Westminster

rachelaldred.org @RachelAldred

What is cycling equity? And why does it matter?

Source: Angus Maguire and the Center for Story-based Strategy,

http://interactioninstitute.org/using-the4thbox-play-and-political-imagination/

Even when we do try

and plan for cycling,

are the tools we’re

using exclusionary?

Does it make sense to

talk about ‘choosing’

to cycle in a hostile

environment?

I will argue we should

be talking about

removing barriers and

redressing exclusion

so that people of all

backgrounds, ages,

abilities etc. can

benefit from cycling

The inclusive cycling approach

– Cycling as a system or a

service

– What barriers have we

created (physical, social,

financial, etc.) that stop

people participating in

cycling?

– Barriers may be general

(affect some groups more

than others) or specific

– Need also to recognise not

all cycling ‘counts’ Second pic: Cycling UK,

https://www.cyclinguk.org/sites/default/file

s/document/migrated/article/barrier4.jpg

Inequalities in cycling participation in England

Data used

– Active People Survey (APS), a rolling national survey

examining participation in sport and activity among

adults in England.

– Data on c. 500 people/year per local authority.

– Anna Goodman and I carried out new analysis using

four years of APS data from October 2011 to

September 2015.

– After excluding 4% of participants with missing data,

this gave a total sample of 632,222 adults aged 16-99.

– APS covers all cycling, and we can look at utility and

recreational cycling separately.

Unadjusted results, all cycling in past 4 weeks

– NB this 1st set of graphs refers to all cycling (utility

and recreational – and there may be differences)

– Unadjusted = not controlling for other factors – so

differences between groups may be due to other

underlying factors (e.g. lower participation at older

ages may be connected to disability)

– These inequalities are all culturally specific – for all

of them, there are places where they don’t apply

or the gaps shown are reversed

Gender

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

Male Female

Any cycling in last month

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

Age

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

16-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+

Any cycling in last month

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

Ethnicity

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

White Non-white

Any cycling in last month

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

Disability

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

18%

Non-disabled Disabled

Any cycling in last month

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

Educational level

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

18%

20%

High Medium Low

Educational level

Any cycling in last month

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

Car ownership

0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18%

No car in household

Car(s) in household

Any cycling in last month

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

Adjusted analysis, utility and leisure cycling

Gender

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Recreational cycling Utility cycling

Rate ratios, adjusted for other characteristics

  Male   Female

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

Age

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Recreational cycling Utility cycling

Rate ratios, adjusted for other characteristics

16-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

Ethnicity

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Recreational cycling Utility cycling

Rate ratios, adjusted for other characteristics

White Non-white

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

Educational level

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Recreational cycling Utility cycling

Educational level

Rate ratios, adjusted for other characteristics

High Medium Low

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

But for educational level, it’s not quite what it seems…

– At national level, both recreational and utility cycling seems to

decline with lower educational levels.

– When looking within local authorities, this relationship remains for

recreational cycling.

– However, for utility cycling, this national result turned out to be

driven by an ecological association, i.e. higher-cycling local

authorities tended also to have more educated populations.

– Within local authorities, there was no evidence that more educated

people were more likely to cycle than less educated people.

– Across 317 local authorities, average rate ratio for those with

low/medium vs. high education was 1.06 (95%CI 0.99 - 1.13).

Car ownership

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6

Recreational cycling

Utility cycling

Rate ratio, adjusted for other characteristics

Car(s) in household No car in household

Active People Survey data, analysis: Anna Goodman

Are higher-cycling authorities more equal than lower-cycling authorities?

– Yes for gender and age, for both leisure and utility

cycling

– Yes for disabled people’s participation in leisure

cycling

– E.g. where participation of everyone in cycling is twice as

high, gap between group X and Y is smaller

• NB this is cross-sectional not longitudinal…

Are higher-cycling authorities more equal than lower-cycling authorities?

– Yes for gender and age, for both leisure and utility

cycling

– Yes for disabled people’s participation in leisure

cycling

– E.g. where participation of everyone in cycling is twice as

high, gap between group X and Y is smaller

• NB this is cross-sectional not longitudinal…

– Otherwise no (participation of the group is higher

where cycling is higher, but equality of

representation isn’t higher)

– E.g. where participation of everyone in cycling is twice as

high, gap between group X and group Y is maintained

Why?

– For all under-represented groups, likely to be a

combination of general and specific barriers

– E.g. disability: obstacles and cost

Price £4525.00

Source:

http://www.ashfieldspecialneeds.co.uk/s

ide-by-side-tandem-fun2go.html

Newcastle & Gateshead

– 13.9% and 9.2% respectively did any cycling in the

past month

– But how equally is this distributed?

Newcastle & Gateshead #1

0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0.80

0.90

1.00

Older people Women Non-white Disabled Lower educationallevel

Relative risk, any past-month cycling (utility or recreational)

Gateshead Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle & Gateshead #2

0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0.80

0.90

1.00

Older people Women Non-white Disabled Lower educationallevel

Relative risk, any past-month utility cycling

Gateshead Newcastle upon Tyne

Making cycling equal

Explaining inequalities

– Important not to assume these are fixed/natural –

even where they also exist in higher-cycling

English local authorities

– Generally other examples where inequalities do

not exist, or relationships are reversed

(and assumptions can change dramatically – I found papers

from 80s and 90s assuming non-white and lower income

Britons naturally cycled more)

E.g. gender and age in the Netherlands

Source: DfT (2016) National Propensity to Cycle Tool Stage 1 Report, Appendix 8

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-propensity-to-cycle-first-phase-development-

study . NTS (England) analysis by Anna Goodman.

Ethnicity and cycling

– In USA: non-white people and immigrants more

likely to cycle to work (and cycling increasing

faster among those groups)

– In Netherlands, some disparities but much less

than in England

• BME people in the Netherlands make 22.8%

of their trips by cycle, compared to 27.9% for

white Dutch people.

– May be more cycling to PT among non-white

Dutch people (Fishman 2015) – raises issue of

‘invisible cyclists’

Explaining inequalities – general & specific issues

– Even higher-cycling English local authorities are

far from perfect – problems found elsewhere may

exist there too, excluding some groups

disproportionately from cycling

– E.g. infrastructure is rarely good enough

anywhere in England for young children to

cycle alone, as in the Netherlands

– But also we’ve barely started identifying and

addressing specific barriers – some created by

policy e.g. building only for commuter trips does

little for retired people

Paradigm Shift

– Individualisation of cycling – traditionally seen as a

personal choice ‘some people’ weren’t making

– Led to a lack of attention to how people from

different groups are excluded from cycling

– Instead need to focus on how different

communities and groups are structurally excluded,

both directly and indirectly, by planning,

enforcement, infrastructure, attitudes, etc.

– Parallels with direct, indirect discrimination

Direct & indirect discrimination: gender and risk

– Traffic safety is a major barrier for men and (even more so) women

– But safety from sexual harassment is under-researched

Here are just a few of the women's

stories, because there are many, many

more.

"It happens a lot, but this one particular time

I was waiting at a traffic light and a group of

men in a van were once all yelling at me as it

was summer and I was wearing a short

dress - that was one of the classic 'I wish my

face was your saddle' times... It makes me

feel so uncomfortable and is also really

embarrassing in front of all of the other

drivers." – JoannaSource:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/female-

cyclists-sexism_uk_573eeabfe4b00006e9ae8248

Language, imagery - and policy! - matters

‘It remains relatively unusual for disabled people’s cycling to be

considered within broader [London] transport strategy documents’

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Cycle Taxis Car Demandresponsivetransport

Pedestrians Unspecified Publictransport

London Borough Transport Strategies mentioning disabled people as users of different modes

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140517301615

Language, imagery - and policy! - matters

– ‘It remains relatively unusual for disabled people’s

cycling to be considered within broader [London]

transport strategy documents […]

– By contrast it was more usual for cycling strategies

to at least mention disabled people as cyclists or

potential cyclists. However, discussion of policies

that might increase disabled people’s participation

in cycling was often limited to general aspirations

or references to leisure cycling clubs and training.

Few images showed non-standard cycles of the

kind that might be used by some disabled cyclists.’

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140517301615

The first step is getting

beyond imagining the ‘cyclist’

is this guy… but there’s still a

lot to do even then.

Bike routes

are

obstructed

Not enough

protection from

motor traffic

Design and

imagery is

not inclusive

Unsuitable

(or no) bike

parking

Inequitable

distribution of

bike routes

and services

Discrimination

and

harassment

Some people

can’t afford

the bikes

they need

Bike routes

slow and

indirect

Interconnected barriers that keep cycling low and/or exclude specific groups

Don’t expect overnight changes… but inclusive planning will make a difference.

No one likes hostile traffic environments, but women even less so than men

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

Women'spreferencesare stronger

Nodifferencesfound

Source: systematic review by Aldred et al 2017, Transport Reviews,

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01441647.2016.1200156

Protected lane study showed higher female

participation (not equal, but positive change).

Source: Aldred, R. and Dales, J. Journal of Transport and Health,

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140516303978

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Female 60+ Non-sporty clothing No specialist clothing

Royal College Street observational study

Control Protected

Cycling Equity

(including new analysis of data from the Active

People Survey with Anna Goodman)

Rachel Aldred

Reader in Transport

University of Westminster

rachelaldred.org @RachelAldred