Why fewer women than men cycle in the US

[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.

[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.