According to the National Household Travel Survey released in 2009, men travel by bicycle almost three times more often than women. What can we do to address this gender gap?
The fact that men who bicycle outnumber women who bicycle in North America is well documented (Pucher et al. 2011). How to move beyond this discrepancy, however, is not well understood. Numerous studies have looked at travel behavior in an effort to identify policies which will advance bicycling among women. One common point of agreement is that in order to reduce the gender gap in bicycling, we must first understand what drives women’s bicycling behavior, and then address certain audiences in a targeted fashion, not as a uniform whole.
In 2016, the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals launched the Women Cycling Survey. The survey was an effort to capture ‘a snapshot in time’ in terms of women and bicycling, with the goal of informing those in the practice of planning as they work to encourage more people to cycle.
SAFETY is a consistent concern of all groups of respondents to the survey. CONNECTIVITY is also ranked as highly important to the respondents.
We know from research that women’s travel patterns are likely to be more complex than men’s (Bonham and Wilson 2012), and these survey responses further confirm that women have a multilayered perspective when faced with bicycling environments which are likely to be unsafe or incomplete networks. Moreover, factors which influence the decision to travel by bicycle evolves as women’s COMFORT LEVEL changes.
Addressing both safety and connectivity, with varying needs in mind, may increase the number of women who choose to bicycle in North America.
The results of this survey are shared here via Tableau for all to explore.
See who took the survey on the DEMOGRAPHICS page.