We use the amazing @UKDSCensus microdata:
💥a 5% population-representative sample of person-level #UKCensus records

🚴‍♀️We include 11199 commuters where cycle is
the main mode & 305918 other commuters

& link them to geographic data
e.g.
⛰️hills
💷cycle infrastructure spend

/2
Part of the answer lies in variation in population characteristics between boroughs

Commuter cycling was:

🚴‍♀️less common among women vs men
🚴‍♀️much less common among most ethnic minority groups

😮Even after controlling other area & person-level characteristics

/3
Another explanation was variation in cycling infrastructure:

💷Borough-level cycling infrastructure spending ('01 to '11) was +ve associated with changes in cycling ('01 to '11) after controlling for population changes

🧐This relationship may vary by gender, ethnicity & SES

/4
But here's a thing: we can't really judge if this spend was 'value for money' without a comparison with:

👉economic evaluations of other cycling projects (we couldn't find any)

👉other health or transport projects (we couldn't reliably calculate health benefits or QALYs)

/5
And there are many other potential benefits of cycle infrastructure that we couldn't measure:

e.g.
🚸children cycling to school
🚴‍♀️commuters cycling to the station
🏃‍♀️lots of us doing more walking & running
🌇nicer places to live & work

Are there other limitations?

Yes👇

/6
P.S. We also drew concentration curves

🚴‍In London, cycle commuting was concentrated among higher socioeconomic groups & become more concentrated over time

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Elsewhere in England it stayed concentrated among lower SES groups

(45° line if cycling were evenly distributed)👇
(5)

🚴‍♀️The Propensity to Cycle tool estimates how much commuter cycling would be required in specific towns and cities to meet specified national targets, after accounting for local factors

@robinlovelace @ITSLeeds @CedarUK

https://doi.org/10.5198/jtlu.2016.862
(6)

Also using #UKCensus data, @RachelAldred finds that increasing cycling mode share is insufficient to create an inclusive cycling culture

👉It may be necessary to deliberately target cycling infrastructure towards currently under-represented groups https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2015.1014451
You can follow @Adam_Mart1n.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: