Cycling infrastructure and gender

A few days ago, I share a paper by Roger Beecham (Twitter) exploring gendered cycling behaviors in London. The paper brings a very interesting descriptive analysis of over 10 million journeys made by members of London's Cycle Hire Scheme.

A recent study by Rachel Aldred (Twitter) and colleagues sheds some more light on this debate with a review paper on how infrastructure preferences vary by gender and by age.

Aldred, R., Elliott, B., Woodcock, J., & Goodman, A. (2016). Cycling provision separated from motor traffic: a systematic review exploring whether stated preferences vary by gender and age. Transport Reviews, 1-27.

Abstract

In this paper, we represent a systematic review of stated preference studies examining the extent to which cycle infrastructure preferences vary by gender and by age. A search of online, English-language academic and policy literature was followed by a three-stage screening process to identify relevant studies. We found 54 studies that investigated whether preferences for cycle infrastructure varied by gender and/or by age. Forty-four of these studies considered the extent of separation from motor traffic. The remainder of the studies covered diverse topics, including preferred winter maintenance methods and attitudes to cycle track lighting. We found that women reported stronger preferences than men for greater separation from motor traffic. There was weaker evidence of stronger preferences among older people. Differences in preferences were quantitative rather than qualitative; that is, preferences for separated infrastructure were stronger in some groups than in others, but no group preferred integration with motor traffic. Thus, in low-cycling countries seeking to increase cycling, this evidence suggests focusing on the stronger preferences of under-represented groups as a necessary element of universal design for cycling.