Factors associated with proportions and miles of bicycling for transportation and recreation in six small US cities

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Abstract

The majority of bicycling in the US is for recreation rather than transportation purposes but few studies have examined the question of bicycling purpose. We use data from an online survey conducted in 2006 in six small cities in the western US to examine factors affecting bicycling for transportation compared to bicycling for recreation. The results indicate that individual, social-environment, and physical-environment factors have important influences on the balance between transportation and recreational bicycling and on miles of bicycling for each purpose. Bicycling comfort and an aversion to driving are associated with more transportation bicycling. A culture of utilitarian bicycling and short distances to destinations are also key factors for transportation bicycling. Bicycle infrastructure appears to play an indirect role through its effect on perceived bicycling safety and through the self-selection effect, by attracting bicycling-inclined people to bicycling-supportive communities.

Introduction

Facing volatile gas prices, potential mandates for greenhouse gas reductions, rising obesity levels, and strained capital budgets, communities throughout the US are giving increased priority to bicycling as a mode of transportation. For inspiration, they often look to other countries with similar economies, where bicycling is far more prevalent. The share of urban trips by bicycle in Canada, for example, is twice that of the US and the share in European countries is anywhere from four times (in the UK, France, Italy) to 28 times (in the Netherlands) higher than in the US (Pucher and Dijkstra, 2003). From one perspective, these numbers suggest significant potential for increasing bicycling in the US. On the other hand, they may reflect important differences between the US and these other countries that could limit the potential of bicycling in the US.

By nearly all measures, bicycling conditions are better in Europe than the US (Pucher and Buehler, 2008). European countries have more compact land-use patterns with higher average urban densities and consequently shorter average trip lengths than those of the US. Many cities in the US lack appropriate facilities for cycling compared with those in European countries. The extent of the car-dependent culture and lifestyle also make the US different from other countries. More pro-bicycling policies and programs as well as restrictions on driving in European countries have reinforced wider social support for bicycling. These factors help to explain much higher levels of bicycling for transportation in Europe than in the US. Most are not easily replicated in the US and only over considerable time.

In the short term, however, communities in the US might look more closely at the bicycling they currently have. There is a significant amount of bicycling in at least some parts of the US, but the vast majority of this bicycling is for recreation rather than transportation. Pucher and Dijkstra (2000) report that more than two-thirds of bike trips are for recreation in the US, and that the percentages of bicycling trips for work, school, and shopping in the Netherlands (60.0%) and in Germany (60.1%) are twice that in the US. Unfortunately, few studies have examined the question of bicycling purpose; existing research provides little evidence on factors that differentiate transportation bicyclists from recreation bicyclists and on differences in the factors that influence how much they bicycle for each purpose.

Section snippets

Some background

Our conceptual model borrows from the ecological models widely used in physical activity research within the field of public health (Sallis and Owen, 2002) and incorporates findings from previous studies. Ecological models focus on the links between people’s environments and their behaviors and suggest that behaviors are affected by multiple levels of factors that begin at the level of the individual and expand outward to encompass the social and physical environments. Using this conceptual

Methodology

The study employs a cross-sectional research design to determine the relative influence of individual factors, physical-environment factors, and social-environment factors on bicycling purpose. The unit of analysis for the study is the individual, and the sample is drawn from six small cities in the western US that differ with respect to physical and social environments. This approach enables an assessment of the relationships between variables representing both environments and bicycling

Binary logit proportions model for bicycling purpose

The summary of the proportions model estimation is shown in Table 3. The McFadden ρ2 (Ben-Akiva and Lerman, 1985) measures based on the equally-likely model, containing no explanatory variables, and the market share model, containing constant terms only, are 0.341 and 0.334. Analogous to the adjusted R-squares of linear regression models, the adjusted ρ2 (ρ¯2) corrects for the number of estimated parameters. In the case of proportions data based on a single measurement per person (as opposed to

Conclusions

The results provide new insights into factors that US communities must consider if they want to build on current levels of recreational bicycling to increase transportation bicycling. Common to bicycling for both purposes are a general liking of bicycling, and perceptions of safe bicycling routes. Communities with these characteristics are likely to have higher levels of recreational bicycling and have the potential for higher levels of transportation bicycling. Higher levels of transportation

Acknowledgements

The research was supported by a grant from the Sustainable Transportation Center at the University of California Davis, which receives funding from the US Department of Transportation and Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, through the University Transportation Centers program. Ted Buehler and Jamie Volker contributed to the development and implementation of the survey.

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