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Abstract
This paper discusses how dominant policy paradigms promote a ‘utility’ model of transport, prioritising the destruction of distance and the minimisation of time spent travelling. It suggests that within low-cycling countries, this framing has reinforced the policy marginalisation of cycling, which is cast as having problematic associations with leisure and pleasure. Hence, while the multiple benefits of cycling might seem to mandate policy support, these benefits (including health and equity impacts) seem tainted by association with cycling’s non-transport connotations. The paper analyses interview data from the ESRC Cycling Cultures project to explore how cyclists and cycling stakeholders negotiate the landscape of ‘utility cycling’. It examines how people appeal to a ‘utility narrative’, while often simultaneously appealing to considerations that apparently contradict it. Conclusions for cycling and broader transport policy are drawn.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Katrina Jungnickel who worked with me on the Cycling Cultures project, the ESRC for funding the project, and all the participants. Additional thanks to the editors, peer reviewers and journal manager for their contribution.
Notes
1. For example, in-car technologies to limit speeds to legal levels are in practical terms unproblematic, but politically far more difficult to implement.
2. There is also guidance as to how to calculate the proportion of time savings that are likely to involve a reduction in working time ‘lost’.
3. This was around half the distance then travelled by rail, and a quarter of that travelled by bus or coach, despite the latter two modes being used for long distance as well as shorter trips.
4. ‘The Reshaping of British Railways’, published 1963, recommending the closure of many branch lines and services.
5. This leaves aside sports cycling, which like leisure cycling is seen as non-utility.
6. However, there is no reasonable alternative in this case.
7. See for example http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/a-modern-amsterdam-roundabout/#comment-6142.
8. More information can be found in other papers and in our project report.
9. Crosstabulations from the 2011 Census are unavailable to confirm or deny this at the time of writing.
10. It is interesting to reflect on whether drivers would feel such ambivalence.
11. Its associated stereotypes lie elsewhere.
12. From personal communication with practitioners, the large benefits are seen as implausible. On one hand, the linear relationships in HEAT may indeed overstate benefits; on the other hand, there may also be a failure to acknowledge that in principle health might trump time savings.