“You want protected bike lanes, I want protected Black children. Let’s link”: equity, justice, and the barriers to active transportation in North America

ABSTRACT

Since the early 2000s, academic research on equity and justice has become an increasingly integral component of transportation planning and policy-making. Less research, however, has focused specifically on the intersection of equity, justice, and active transportation (i.e. cycling and walking). This Viewpoint builds on some of the key concerns and barriers associated with active transportation for disadvantaged groups, especially but not exclusively in relation to planning culture and processes, policing, harassment and racism, and gentrification and displacement. We investigate how issues of equity and justice can worsen the conditions that often prevent or diminish one’s capability or desire to engage in active transportation. By providing a better understanding of the deep intersectionalities of equity, justice, and the physical and social barriers to active transportation, our hope is that this Viewpoint helps to improve how such barriers can be recognised and overcome, and the opportunities for change can be understood, centred, and implemented at the policy and planning level.

KEYWORDS:

• Equity
• justice
• active transportation
• planning processes
• recognition
• racism
• policing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 While the term Active Transportation can include transit, in this Viewpoint, it refers only to walking and cycling.

2 In this Viewpoint, “barriers” should be understood as an all-encompassing term that denotes a circumstance or obstacle that prevents people from doing what they wish to do. Barriers may be, for example, economic, social, cultural, political, or physical in nature.

3 Dockless bikeshare systems are those which have no docking stations, and instead have an electronically designated boundary – viewable by App – that bikes are supposed to stay within. Hybrid systems are those which offer both traditional docking infrastructure, as well as the ability to lock bikes onto any publicly accessible rack within a certain designated boundary. Much like dockless bikeshare systems, such a boundary is viewable on bike share cell phone applications.

4 Better Bike Share Partnership is a collaboration focused on building equitable and replicable bike share systems. Partners include the City of Philadelphia, Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), and PeopleForBikes Foundation.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.