Why fewer women than men cycle in the US

[PamNY]

According to the UK Guardian, anyway. I don't have children, and I don't have knowledge of what life is like in the Netherlands, so I don't have much to say on the topic. However, I do see this is an interesting perspective on the matter.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2014/oct/03/the-reason-fewer-us-women-cycle-than-the-dutch-is-not-what-you-think-it-is

[rebeccaC]

The Dutch have been bicycle oriented since the turn of the last century. Bicycling was just an everyday natural thing for me to do growing up in France. I think Davis Ca. started it’s infrastructure in the 60’s and Portland in the 70’s. I find it a little disingenuous to try and make a comparison between the Dutch and the U.S.

Paid family paternity leave, flex hours and higher wages, including the minimum wage, are something a lot of people have in this state. Currently my state puts more of a value on a progressive approach to families than a lot of the states though, probably most states. In my mind well thought out urban design and its funding are probably the most important elements missing in the U.S. to get both more women and men seeing the benefits of more physical activity and the environmental and monetary benefits. Until we get more politicians spending that urban design with bicycle infrastructure money little will change, especially for most cities in conservative states.

eta "Even when women earn more, are better educated, and work more hours than their male partners, they still make 1.5 times as many child-serving trips and 1.4 times as many grocery trips. These findings reflect the fact that in most US families women still shoulder the responsibility for caring for the household".....so more women should be gay for bicycling reasons!!!!! :)

[OakLeaf]

Nothing in that article that hasn't been discussed here before, and while I don't have children either, I do find it compelling. The talk about the Netherlands is extraneous to the central point, I think.

All I have to do is think about how often, even with motorized transport, I wind up taking the car just because I have too much stuff to haul from town, or not enough time to put on all my moto gear and then take it off again at my destination. And that's all by myself, on a vehicle that travels as fast as a car.

Now, I could manage my time better to deal with the latter point, but for someone with primary responsibility for child care plus one, two or three jobs, those fifteen minutes count. And I'm sure someone will chime in about cargo bikes as they have when this has come up here before, and three cheers for the dedicated TWO people who ride them, but when you're dealing with, say, a two year old and a five year old, four bags of groceries including leafy greens that can't get battered and meat that has to stay frozen, and stops at three different stores (which, excluding the children, is pretty typical of one of my runs into town) - and of course the weather isn't always perfect, which means bundling the kids up way more than you'd have to for a car trip, plus making sure all your stuff is watertight ... that takes a WHOLE lot more dedication than him hollering "Honey, I'm off to work" and hopping on his bike. And maybe it's even tougher when the kids get older, because a nine year old is too big to ride in a trailer but too young to have the traffic skills to ride along to most destinations, and if it's two kids on their own bikes trying to follow you in rush hour traffic ... I don't think so.

The inequality in child care and household responsibilities in the USA is well documented, the Guardian didn't just come up with that. Actually the last figures I saw were even more skewed, so maybe there's a sign of improvement and maybe they just weren't looking at all the same measures. So yeah, I agree.

[lph]

To me it seems that a bikeable lifestyle boils down to two things: 1. communities and towns built to be bike-friendly, with short distances and good infrastructure, and 2. people being willing to make bikeability a priority when choosing jobs and where to live. And where to shop. Because it does (or can) have a cost. I can buy run-of-the-mill grocery items close to home, using a bike trailer, or I can buy harder to get stuff in town, using a backpack or taking public transport. But I then have a 15 minute walk home. So heavy or bulky hard-to-get items are only bought when we're already out with the car for some reason, maybe once a month. Luckily I whole-heartedly loathe taking the car into town, so going without these items for a while doesn't feel like much of a hardship ;-)

[Veronica]

Maybe the Dutch aren't as fanatical about "protecting" their children. I teach at a suburban school and most of the students live within a mile of the school in a neighborhood with sidewalks and bike lanes. Still many parents insist on driving their kids because "it's not safe for them to walk to school."

Veronica

[Eden]

Maybe the Dutch aren't as fanatical about "protecting" their children. I teach at a suburban school and most of the students live within a mile of the school in a neighborhood with sidewalks and bike lanes. Still many parents insist on driving their kids because "it's not safe for them to walk to school."

Veronica

That's a laugh… my husband's bike commute goes by a school. He says the kids are most in danger from harried parents driving like nuts to drop their kids off at school - He even hard to shout at a woman to stop one morning because she nearly ran over two kiddos crossing the street. She whined that she didn't see them. Ummm kids in front of a school.. just after you've let your own out of the car - you didn't expect this?! He says it's the worst part of his commute.

[Veronica]

We had a kid get hit last year by his own driver. He went to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder. The parking lot is always crazy and yeah, a lot of the parents speed through the area.


And frankly, I just think parents are crazy now. They seem to give their kids zero responsibility, constantly enable them and are overprotective. My mom was a single mom with four of her seven kids to raise when my dad took off. We all had chores. I had chickens, rabbits and dogs to feed and water before I went to school every day. We lived in the middle of nowhere in Maine and I had an hour bus ride to go to school. There was no question what would happen if I missed the bus. She was NOT going to drive me to school and I would be in major trouble. I got up to my own alarm starting in third grade. My mom did make sure I had breakfast and that I had brushed my teeth. But that was about it. Making sure I had what I needed for school and was ready for the bus was my responsibility, not hers.

Veronica

[rebeccaC]

I can buy run-of-the-mill grocery items close to home, using a bike trailer, or I can buy harder to get stuff in town, using a backpack or taking public transport. But I then have a 15 minute walk home. So heavy or bulky hard-to-get items are only bought when we're already out with the car for some reason, maybe once a month. Luckily I whole-heartedly loathe taking the car into town, so going without these items for a while doesn't feel like much of a hardship ;-)

i see more cargo bikes being used here all the time and I've always seen trailers for children/shopping etc. When I was in Europe a little while ago i saw that the French Intermarché supermarkets were delivering groceries by cargo bikes now, DHL and Fedex using them in city cores and a lot of the cities were experimenting with moving city freight with cargo bikes. We have a Whole Foods here that delivers with cargo bikes. I talked to a woman working for a cargo bike delivery company in Seattle the last time I was in the PNW. She said Portland, Chicago, NYC and Toronto are just a few of the places using cargo bike deliveries in city cores.


Unfortunately most of the U.S. has a different attitude about it and seems to be stuck with the status quo. With better bike infrastructure across the country, though, we could start making it easier for more and more businesses, and individuals, to opt for a cargo bike for transporting things, and people. At least we have some cities working on the urban design and infrastructure to make it easier…..so we’ll have models for others to use.

[OakLeaf]

I didn't mean to suggest that infrastructure isn't part of the problem. But there's infrastructure and there's infrastructure. In the town nearest me, there are very few destinations that I'd be willing to access by bike, and I'm an able-bodied, experienced and committed vehicular cyclist, adult. Lanes are just too narrow and busy and high-speed, and there are no alternate routes to most places. Even getting to town, before I even think about what specific store or office I might be going to, adds 400 feet elevation gain and a couple of hills that are nasty when it's just me on the bike, over the route I'd take in a car, because there's two miles of the usual route I just won't ride on. Narrow, no shoulder (not even a grass or gravel shoulder for most of it), heavily trafficked, 45-mph limit meaning people are often going 55, two lanes further narrowed by potholes in certain places, and sightlines of less than 1/4 mile. I just disagree with some about the nature of the infrastructure that would help. Did I mention I'm a committed vehicular cyclist? ;)

As far as "overprotected" children ... I think it's more a matter of how we prioritize risk, and that's going to be different in every culture, and not necessarily rational-seeming to those who don't share that upbringing. Just like the conversation we were having about germs a while back. Americans freak out about reusable grocery bags, but don't care that they're eating the meat that got the conveyor belts so disgusting to begin with. I've seen an Italian woman pick her baby's pacifier up off the ground, rinse it in the same public fountain where construction workers were filling their pails, and pop it back into the infant's mouth; and yet in Italy, it's considered gross to touch fruits or vegetables on display in a market. Different cultures, different habits.

And we also have to remember that there isn't "one United States" as far as transportation infrastructure is concerned. Yep, I've seen parents stacked up outside their kids' schools in a walkable neighborhood, engines running. I know that there are cities that have public transport and sidewalks and bike lanes. But I also know that when we had dogs, we agreed that it wasn't safe to walk our dogs on a short leash on our road. I run it, and I feel fine running it, but I know how to be hyper-alert for the sound of an approaching vehicle, when to switch to the "wrong" side of the road so I won't be directly in the path of a vehicle on the other side of a blind hill or corner, when to look for an emergency escape, and when to just dive for the ditch and risk the sprained ankle and poison ivy. And I'm willing to take the risk for myself that one day all those measures won't be enough. But a child too young to drive a car is also too young to have the situational awareness needed to walk or bike on that road, or most of the roads in my area, AFAIC, and while I'm disgusted with parents who won't put their kids on the bus - or who sit in their cars at the end of their lanes, engines running, so their kids won't have to walk the 1/4 to 1/2 mile back to their houses after the bus drops them off - I don't think it would be appropriate to let them walk or bike to school here, either.

[PamNY]

i see more cargo bikes being used here all the time and I've always seen trailers for children/shopping etc. When I was in Europe a little while ago i saw that the French Intermarché supermarkets were delivering groceries by cargo bikes now, DHL and Fedex using them in city cores and a lot of the cities were experimenting with moving city freight with cargo bikes. We have a Whole Foods here that delivers with cargo bikes. I talked to a woman working for a cargo bike delivery company in Seattle the last time I was in the PNW. She said Portland, Chicago, NYC and Toronto are just a few of the places using cargo bike deliveries in city cores.

I see cargo bikes used for delivery in Manhattan. I also see parents transporting children in Bakfiets (not sure if that's a generic term). They are usually on a MUP -- I don't know how much they travel in road traffic (I wouldn't).

[rebeccaC]

I see cargo bikes used for delivery in Manhattan. I also see parents transporting children in Bakfiets (not sure if that's a generic term). They are usually on a MUP -- I don't know how much they travel in road traffic (I wouldn't).
There is a Whole Foods in Brooklyn that I think was the first Whole Foods to start using cargo bikes!!

In the E.U. and even some cities in the U.S. it's the infrastructure that makes it safer and easier for people to get around on bikes. We have some great seperate bike paths here and good wide bike lanes so that helps with getting more people and families on bikes here. Plus year round good weather. Knowing there will be lots of life changes when i have a child, I'm still going to find ways to work that into my sense of a responsible lifestyle, including cycling. I rode some busy city streets this weekend for a few hours and I'm just use to it so it doesn't bother me. On my rides into the Santa Monica mountains I have 10+ miles of 60+mph traffic on Pacific Coast Highway with little shoulder at a few places to deal with......certainly not bakfiets (it's just the dutch for cargo bike) riding though. I get through that just thinking about the great routes I have once in the SMM's. :)

[Donna1960]

..so more women should be gay for bicycling reasons!!!!!

So if you are gay and have kids you're really screwed?

[nuliajuk]

It's not just roads. One thing that is in short supply where I live - good bike racks outside of businesses. Where I get my hair cut, there are several shops that I wouldn't mind going into. Since this strip mall is just a few kilometers from home, it would be easy to ride to. But there is nothing, not even street signs, to lock a bike to when you get there. I mentioned this several times at the hair salon and once at a deli in that complex. I pointed out that many people rid past on their way home from work or school as they come off a major pathway. Nothing ever gets put in. I wonder how much money these shops are losing out on because they haven't got the most basic facilities to safely lock up a bike.

[Susan Otcenas]

A couple random thoughts, in no particular order... :-)

My office/warehouse is 1/3 mile from my house. I bought the house after we built the warehouse because I specifically wanted to be live someplace close enough to the office that NOT using the car would be a no-brainer. To travel that 1/3 mile, I have to either a) access a left turn lane across two high speed lanes of through traffic, something many cyclists won't attempt, or b) cross the high speed road completely and use the opposite side side walk instead, something I do when on my Dutch bike which I can't pedal fast enough to safely "merge" across the high speed lanes or c) cut through a business park and across a grassy field lifting my bike up and over the parking lot curbs twice and pushing through the field. NONE of these options feels "safe" or "convenient" or easily "accessible". Each one feels like a compromise. And this is just 1/3rd of a mile.

To get to the nearest grocery store, which is 1 mile away, I have to cross no fewer than THREE unsignalized freeway on or off ramps. In each direction. One of those crossings requires me to merge and cross over a lane of traffic that is exiting the freeway at 45 miles an hour or so. It's dangerous enough that a camera crew from a local news station came out and filmed me doing it for the evening news. Skip ahead to minute 4 of the video at this link to see me on the news talking about this crossing. https://btaoregon.org/2013/09/brookwood-helvetia-for-45m-odot-should-fix-it/ Riding a bike one flat mile to the grocery store should be a piece of cake. But with "facilities" like these, it's no wonder that the use of bicycles for transportation or daily utility trips is a vanishingly small percentage of trips. Hell, even *I* nearly always take the car.

Mind you, I live in a suburb of Portland, OR, the much acclaimed bicycling mecca of the US. Sure, downtown and close in neighborhoods have lots of bike commuters and car free residents, but a mere 13 miles from downtown, I might as well be living in Outer Mongolia.

[shootingstar]

To me it seems that a bikeable lifestyle boils down to two things: 1. communities and towns built to be bike-friendly, with short distances and good infrastructure, and 2. people being willing to make bikeability a priority when choosing jobs and where to live. And where to shop. Because it does (or can) have a cost. I can buy run-of-the-mill grocery items close to home, using a bike trailer, or I can buy harder to get stuff in town, using a backpack or taking public transport. But I then have a 15 minute walk home. So heavy or bulky hard-to-get items are only bought when we're already out with the car for some reason, maybe once a month. Luckily I whole-heartedly loathe taking the car into town, so going without these items for a while doesn't feel like much of a hardship ;-)

+1 lph.

A cycling-oriented lifestyle that uses the bike as main personal transportation does require some conscious, long term decisions of where one chooses to live. It can't just "happen" at the snap of fingers. I don't have children. I haven't suggested to mothers that they should cycle for transportation. With my sisters who have children, just merely being a cycling sister, a cycling aunt that is supportive in family time when I am with them, eating, walking or ...yes, cycling short ways with them when I visit, is good enough.

What is helpful is have parents and grow up in a family that chose to live in walkable, cycleable communities...that has long-lasting influence on children when they grow up and choose their own homes. It has been true in my family since my parents chose to live in apartment (lst home), then their home later always making sure it was a 10-15 min. walk from public transit, same distance to a major store, some services. They never expected nor could drive their children around to school. My family didn't have a car until I was 14 yrs.old and already I had 5 younger siblings. So I have clear memory what it means to shop-walk with mother and groceries and sometimes take transit. However a car still didn't solve all problems, since father drove to work 50 km. away from late afternoon onward.

So not just myself, but all 5 siblings bought their own homes, always close to public transit, a school / some services: after all 2 siblings don't drive. Myself and another sister. I am certain that this pattern of home location is heavily influenced by remembering where we lived and grew up as children in terms of close to services and amenities.

wanting to cycle for transportation didn't enter into of our heads initially. Not mine. I just needed to be close to public transit..by default it also meant it was a neighbourhood close to some amenities, etc. including major bike-ped paths...which MUPs for me do work. They aren't always crowded all times, all days of the year in the major cities where I've lived.

That is the best that any mother could aim for ...living close to some key services. If it's cycleable, great. If not, then other priorities have superseded (ie lower cost of housing??).

I think the key thing here is: not necessarily using the bike lots with children, but living in a community that is within walkable, safe distance to key services, a park, amenities with children.

[PamNY]

A couple random thoughts, in no particular order... :-)
To get to the nearest grocery store, which is 1 mile away, I have to cross no fewer than THREE unsignalized freeway on or off ramps. In each direction. One of those crossings requires me to merge and cross over a lane of traffic that is exiting the freeway at 45 miles an hour or so. It's dangerous enough that a camera crew from a local news station came out and filmed me doing it for the evening news. Skip ahead to minute 4 of the video at this link to see me on the news talking about this crossing. https://btaoregon.org/2013/09/brookwood-helvetia-for-45m-odot-should-fix-it/ Riding a bike one flat mile to the grocery store should be a piece of cake. But with "facilities" like these, it's no wonder that the use of bicycles for transportation or daily utility trips is a vanishingly small percentage of trips. Hell, even *I* nearly always take the car.



That video shows some scary cycling conditions. I hope you can get something done about it.

[OakLeaf]

It is pretty doggone scary, but a lot of what I meant about "not one United States" is that those kinds of crossings are completely normal in probably most towns that have limited access roads going through them - ALL of them that I'm aware of. And they're often the only way to get from point A to point B, even for those of us who have the time and energy to go two or five miles out of the way, doing that would just put us at another crossing just like it.