Recreational bicycling as a “gateway” to utility bicycling: The case of Charlotte, NC

ABSTRACT

Riding a bicycle for utility purposes in US cities is rare, especially in historically automobile-dominated cities. Using data from a transportation survey administered to 406 residents of Charlotte, NC, this paper reports on the results of a logistic regression model that predicts the influence of an individual's recreational cycling frequency on the odds of that individual riding a bicycle for utility purposes on a weekly basis. The odds of an individual riding for utility purposes at least once a week increases dramatically as an individual rides more for recreation. Recreational cycling appears to offer a space in which individuals can acquire a threshold level of skills and materials necessary to ride their bike for utility purposes. Results suggest that plans to increase utility cycling in an automobile-dominated city like Charlotte ought to emphasize and fund opportunities for residents to ride recreationally, and consider how experience riding a bike in the temporally- and spatially- flexible context of recreation can encourage more individuals to ride to and from errands, school, or their place of work.

KEYWORDS:

• Bicycle planning
• logistic regression
• recreational cycling
• social practice theory
• United States
• urban transport policy
• utility cycling

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Dr. Kailas Venkitasubramanian of UNC Charlotte's Project Mosaic for his guidance on data management and methodology. Thanks also to Billy Riggs for his comments on an earlier draft, and to Benjamin Miller and Scott Correll at the Charlotte Department of Transportation for help accessing survey data.