Treadly and Me

'Sexism' and cycling policy

Treadly and Me — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +1100

The article comes complete with link-bait headline and cherry-picked quotes to misrepresent and exaggerate what's in the report.

The (very media-friendly) report in question is Transport Policy at the Crossroads: Travel to work in Australian capital cities 1976-2011 [PDF] by Dr Paul Mees and Dr Lucy Groenhart.

As far as I can tell, it makes no specific comment about expenditure or investment in cycling infrastructure. In fact, the overwhelming emphasis of the report is on infrastructure policies that favour roads over public transport:

These findings show that the time has come for a radical reorientation of transport policy in Australian cities. In the past, policy makers who favoured roads could claim to be following public preferences, expressed in mode share trends, but now that public transport is gaining ground at the expense of the car, policy makers are still stubbornly clinging to road-based solutions. The recent revival of public transport has, except in Perth, been achieved with relatively little policy support, suggesting that serious pro-transit policies could create significant change. These policies are much more likely to address problems like congestion, greenhouse gases and oil security than continued road-building, which will only add to the rising car volumes choking our cities.

For a half-competent writer, this report has a several headlines and story angles falling out of it (see Katherine Feeney's other article based on the report for an example), the very least significant being the sexism angle that was winkled out for the above article.

To do a little cherry-picking of my own, Mees and Groenhart's 'objections' to cycling are various:

The minor role of cycling in transport

"Cycling is of negligible importance as a travel mode for work trips" compared to walking, which accounts for "three times as many work trips as cycling". And, "Cycling currently plays only a minor role in reducing car use in Australian cities."

Although I wouldn't have worded it quite so bluntly, I don't think that it's a news flash that cycling is still a minor transport mode in Australia.

On a related point, Mees and Groenhart say that, "Although it is important to provide safe, convenient facilities for cyclists, some of the extravagant rhetoric currently circulating about cycling needs to be given a rest." I'm not exactly sure what they're on about there, but I suppose avoidance of 'extravagant rhetoric' on any topic is best avoided (I also guess that if you're looking for it, 'extravagant rhetoric' on just about any topic can be found in your nearest search engine).

Mees and Groenhart seem to suggest that cycling is somehow letting the active transport team down, "One question that also needs to be asked is whether recent increases in cycling may be coming at the expense of walking." And, "It is not clear that increases in cycling have come at the expense of the car, since higher cycling rates are usually accompanied by lower walking rates."

This strikes me as setting up some kind of artificial dichotomy between walking and cycling, when in fact it's not at all surprising: there must be an almost complete overlap between people for whom walking to work is a realistic option and those who are able to ride (more specifically, actual and potential walkers are a sub-set of actual and potential riders). Walkers taking up cycling are a low-hanging fruit conversion: already in tune to active transport, who can blame a pedestrian for choosing the faster option if it becomes more convenient, enjoyable, and/or safe?

I'm not sure that Mees and Groenhart's question is actually very interesting or important (although I take their point that policy-makers and planners may tend to equate active transport with cycling only). A better question is how best to make an overall increase in active transport.

Policy attention

Speaking of policy, that's a word that gets much use in the Mees and Groenhart report, including: "Cycling receives much more attention from policy makers than walking, even though it plays a much smaller role in the journey to work." Therefore, "Transport planning and policy needs to give walking a much higher priority than at present."

That may well be true, but one of the reasons why cycling gets more attention could be found in Mees and Groenhart's own observation that "Compared to cycling, walking requires less in the way of infrastructure and no parking facilities." In other words, cycling naturally gets more attention because it has more of the interesting and/or intractable policy issues than walking.

Sexism?

It's in attributing a cause to this perceived policy imbalance that things go a bit wacky: "One possible reason for the attention paid to cycling is that cycling is by far the most male-dominated transport mode", presumably "reflecting the gender composition of the transport planning profession". The only data supporting this assertion are extracted from the report here:

2011	Male	Female
Travelled to work	55%	45%
Public transport	49%	51%
Car (driver)	57%	43%
Car (passenger)	37%	63%
Bicycle	77%	23%
Walked	50%	50%

That is, cycling to work is much more gender skewed than any other mode (except perhaps being a car passenger, which is skewed the other way). Frankly it's laughable to suggest that there's some kind of blokey favouritism for cycling going on, when (recent improvements notwithstanding) by any measure cycling facilities in Australian cities are at best wildly variable and at worst woeful. In fact quite the reverse argument could be made: the very lack of adequate attention to cycling has much to do with its low mode share of transport, and the gender difference can be accounted for by a blokey disregard by planners and policy-makers, that cyclists should just HTFU if they want to ride on the road.

On the other hand, Mees and Groenhart are possibly confusing cause and effect. Is it possible that extra policy attention needs to be given to cycling in order to address and redress this quite starting gender imbalance? Let's pause for a moment to consider the findings of another study by Jan Garrard, Geoffrey Rose, and Sing Kai Lo, Promoting transportation cycling for women: the role of bicycle infrastructure:

Consistent with gender differences in risk aversion, female commuter cyclists preferred to use routes with maximum separation from motorized traffic. Improved cycling infrastructure in the form of bicycle paths and lanes that provide a high degree of separation from motor traffic is likely to be important for increasing transportation cycling amongst under-represented population groups such as women.

The fact that Mees and Groenhart ignored other such easily identified explanations for the gender imbalance in cycling suggests that they were relying on the Australian media's current preoccupation with misogyny and sexism to get some inches for their report. If so, it worked.

Mees and Groenhart almost argue against themselves, saying:

Policy-makers need to pay attention to the extremely restricted constituency that currently dominates the cycling 'market' (mainly male, inner city professionals), and develop measures to make cycling a viable option for a wider section of the community, as is the case in the best European cities. This should mean an end to policies such as the recent trend to combine bike and bus lanes in such a way that buses must weave back and forth across cycle lanes to reach stops, which endangers cyclists, delays buses and adds to driver stress.

I'm not sure if they're aware, but this is in effect a call for increasing policy attention on cycling.

Over-investment?

To be fair, Mees and Groenhart claim only that there is an imbalance in policy priorities towards cycling, not that there is "over-investement" in cycling. This appears to be a connection drawn by the reporter (and/or the sub-editor), and it's a joke. No. When funding for bicycle-specific projects in Victoria has been cut to zero, suggesting that cycling gets "disproportionate government support" is an outright insult.

Comments

Dan 15 Jan 2013

Yes, like you said, link-bait.

As for the report itself, the conclusions in favour of public transport seem well reasoned, and if they were implemented then they would be good news for cyclists (and everyone else), despite the rather incoherent comments it has to make about cycling. Any small victory against the irrational dominance of motor vehicles should be taken as a win all round, I think.

Treadly and Me 15 Jan 2013

Indeed, there is actually plenty of good material in Mees and Groenhart's report, not least their observation that:

If the East-West freeway link does go ahead, it is likely to soak up all the funds available for investment in transport projects in Melbourne for a generation, and would probably halt or even reverse the recent revival in public transport.

And their noting that even where walking is not identified as a primary transport mode, walkable neighbourhoods are crucial to the usefulness of public transport.

As I mentioned in my rant, it's a very media-friendly report and I don't mean that in a perjorative way (at least, not entirely!) Headlines and an abundance of readable copy pretty much fall out of this report, ready for a busy journo to top-and-tail for their local use. So I'm puzzled (and yet, not surprised) that an obscure and really minor aside was judged newsworthy.

I don't know anything about Lucy Groenhart, but I have observed that Paul Mees is a savvy media operator, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if at least some of the text were pitched to provoke media and social media response (the 'extravagant rhetoric' remark and the tenuous correlation between the male-domination of cycling and the transport planning profession strike me as two such). If this is so, it worked…well done them!

Bike Shorts 29 December 2012

Treadly and Me — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:45:00 +1100

Monty Python-ize your bike…

It's called Trotify—and I won't be buying one any time soon…

Brain cycles

Scientists are confirming what most cyclists instinctively know – that riding a bike has extraordinary effects on our brain chemistry.

I don't know much about science, but I do know that I'm a grumpy bitch when I don't ride.

Er, what?

Police are warning parents to be careful when buying motorised bicycles in the lead-up to Christmas, which makes me wonder why parents are even considering buying their kids motorised bikes.

Meanwhile, in this study in PLOS ONE:

Our strong cross-sectional data supported by longitudinal effects in the same direction support the premise that reduced physical activity may have a greater impact than excessive dietary intake on the development of childhood adiposity in the general community. Strategies involving dietary intake and physical activity designed to target childhood obesity in similar communities might achieve best outcomes by ensuring that physical activity assumes the foremost focus of attention

NIMBY

The Age reports on how a bike track was considered bad for the environment:

The Darebin Creek bike track is at last to be linked to the main Yarra Bike Trail. It has taken 17 years for this 1.8-kilometre stretch of track to gain planning approval and the money to build it. Once it is complete the residents of the northern suburbs drained by the Darebin Creek will have access to the main Yarra bike track and hence to the whole bike network.

I don't know how the advocates of this plan have kept their patience while they jumped through all the planning hoops…I was ready to give up when I read that the scheme was a threat to the environment because three trees were to be cut down on the Yarra bank to make way for a bike bridge… The chief objectors to the bike track were the local residents who had a park at their front door, which few people knew of and they regarded as their own. They suffered a setback when a consultant's report found that their dogs were more threatening to the native wildlife in the billabong than bikes.

Commuting

More cyclists? That depends on where you live:

A new report released by the Prevention Research Collaboration of the University of Sydney examined journey to work data for Sydney from the 2001, 2006 and 2011 Census.

It shows that while the proportion of people cycling to work in inner Sydney has increased markedly since 2006, the proportion cycling to work in outer Greater Sydney has gone down consistently since 2001.

Overall, cycling to work has increased marginally but remains low at around 1% of all journeys to work.

Security Theatre

Carlton Reid observes: no doubt motorists who park in rail stations are asked to remove all boot space.

In Australia we call it the "road toll"…

Traffic deaths are down, but pedestrian and cyclist deaths are up

Fewer people are dying in car accidents in the U.S. (except in California, where it’s been raining lately and people have been very confused). Traffic deaths fell 1.9 percent in 2011, hitting their lowest level since 1949.

That’s great news for drivers, who haven’t been getting a lot of good news in their driver-lives lately. Here’s the bad news: Drivers are killing the rest of us.

Green bike lane

VicRoads considers bike lane trial:

A broad green stripe is being considered for a trial by VicRoads in a bid to stop the growing number of cyclists being injured or killed by car doors.

SMIDSY

SMIDSY would still happen, even if you rode like this…

Fat tyre

Why Sandman from Martín Campoy on Vimeo.

Limited places in the Real Bicyclists Club

I can't believe it's taken me so long to find these 5 reasons riding a bike is the most humiliating exercise:

Well, I started riding to get in shape recently and learned that there's a big difference between bike riding and serious bike riding. Doing all the things "right" according to the pros seems at times like a terrible initiation prank designed to kill or embarrass new riders. I can only conclude that there are a limited number of slots in the Real Bicyclists Club and they are dedicated to keeping applicants out by making them deal with things like this...

Vale Metcard

Let's take a moment to record the passing of the Melbourne Metcard, a reliable, efficient and easy-to-use ticket scheme that's been replaced by the dog's breakfast that is myki. Supposedly a smartcard system, myki has come to be a byword for supremely fucking up beyond belief.

Good luck, Melbourne public transport travellers. I'll be sticking with my bike.

Resolution

Something to think about when making your New Year's resolutions: let us be bicyclists.

Bike Shorts 28 November 2012

Treadly and Me — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 23:59:00 +1100

Sean's experience of Bristol Bike Project from The Bristol Bike Project on Vimeo.

A testimonial by Sean from Bristol Drugs Project, explaining how earning a bicycle through our Earn-a-Bike Scheme has made a difference to his everyday life.

"If it's not fun, I go home."

The Official Non-Training Guide

Structured workouts can take you far if you seek cycling glory. But if you just want to mix fitness and fun into a busy life, we can make it shockingly easy.

That said, following a non-training lifestyle may be why I climb the 1-in-20 in exactly the same way that this guy doesn't. I can barely make it down the 1-in-20 that fast.

Kent Peterson on shopping

So I Went Automobile Shopping...

So I went automobile shopping the other day... I know, I know, you're probably thinking "Why would you do such a silly thing as that, a man of your age.." but hear me out. Automobiles are becoming quite popular, I'm sure you've seen them around. I understand in places like Portland they're actually more popular than bicycles. There are all those public service advertisements about sharing the road and it got me to thinking that maybe I should get one of those automobile things that all the hipsters are "driving" these days.

Absolute gold: definitely my recommended read of the week.

Plan

City of Melbourne's Road Safety Plan

The City of Melbourne is developing its Road Safety Plan 2012-16 which aims to improve safety for all road users, particularly pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists… are seeking your views by Monday 3 December 2012.

Hey, asshole

Cyclists are annoying: Why you think they're a menace on two wheels

…your estimate of the number of asshole cyclists and the degree of their assholery is skewed by what behavioral economists like Daniel Kahneman call the affect heuristic, which is a fancy way of saying that people make judgments by consulting their emotions instead of logic.

[twitterer]

Roadside mediation

How to Resolve Cycling Disputes

My intervention consisted of having each participant listen to what the other had said and acknowledge the main point. The driver said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." The cyclist said, "You're a capable driver and you thought you had enough room." The tension virtually disappeared and they both spontaneously shook hands and turned to me and expressed their thanks for my assistance.

Well, it might not work every time but it's an option.

Utility cycling

Cycle and walking 'must be norm' for short journeys:

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said people should shun their cars if a trip could be done in 15 or 20 minutes on foot or bike.

So, in that vein, walking to school is its own education

Recent Monash University studies have shown that children's view of their trip to school is often of a car dashboard.

Hands up who else finds that really sad.

Apropos: Cycling and your health

Riding a bicycle is a fun way to get fit and spend time with family and friends. As it is a low-impact form of exercise, cycling can easily be enjoyed by people of all ages and fitness levels. Regular cycling will also improve your general health and assist in preventing disease.

And also, Bike-wise children 'make better drivers'

Teaching young children how to ride a bike safely and testing them on road rules can make them better drivers later in life, according to a visiting transport consultant.

Is anyone actually surprised by that?

Let's build us some motorways

Is Australia heading for a transport infrastructure bubble?

…building a new stretch of road brings more traffic on to the road system, so while some time may be saved in part of the road system in the short term no time at all will be saved in the longer run. Third the evidence both in Australia and internationally is that if people think they can travel a little faster, they convert that advantage into travelling further in the same time, negating time saving as a valid measure of benefit. Building roads has the effect of both sprawling the city and increasing congestion.

On the same theme, check out 10 monster traffic jams from around the world.

"We had no idea"

A little Clarke and Dawe magic:

Helmet

NYTimes.com: To Encourage Biking, Cities Forget About Helmets

Recent experience suggests that if a city wants bike-sharing to really take off, it may have to allow and accept helmet-free riding. A two-year-old bike-sharing program in Melbourne, Australia — where helmet use in mandatory — has only about 150 rides a day, despite the fact that Melbourne is flat, with broad roads and a temperate climate. On the other hand, helmet-lax Dublin — cold, cobbled and hilly — has more than 5,000 daily rides in its young bike-sharing scheme. Mexico City recently repealed a mandatory helmet law to get a bike-sharing scheme off the ground. But here in the United States, the politics are tricky.

[twitterer]

Bike ♥

20 reasons to love cycling.

Ya Donky!

Introducing the Donky cargo bike

A new utility bike has just been launched that goes by the name of Donky, and it's priced at just under £500.

Could perhaps have been called the "Dorky". And yet, I rather like it.

You little wonder

Can you ride a bike? Then you're a marvel

What most of us don't realise is just how complex the art of riding a bicycle actually is. So complex, in fact, that researchers are just beginning to investigate how on earth we manage to propel ourselves, constantly rocking back and forth with the movement of our legs, on two skinny wheels; simultaneously navigating movement in multiple planes while trying to avoid countless obstacles.

You have to wonder

Many motorists have crap eyesight…so insurance company gifts hi-vis belts to cyclists

No doubt insurance provider RSA wants to do the right thing but is equipping cyclists with free hi-vis kit the best thing to do, or should the company concentrate on lobbying for motorists to have compulsory eye tests every few years? Or, forget the belts, gift eye tests to motorists instead.

Seriously? What. The. Hell?

For that bike that's stuffed…

Bicycle Taxidermy

Boys figure more than girls in injury stats

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that nearly double the number of boys is hospitalised due to injury compared to girls:

Between 1999-00 and 2006-07 nearly twice the number of boys were hospitalised as a result of an injury than girls, according to a report released today by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).…Bicycles were the most common form of transport involved in a transport injury. In 5-9 year olds and 10-14 year olds, transport incidents accounted for 14% and 23% of all hospitalised injuries respectively.

That would be the learning-to-ride, and the learning-to-ride-down-at-the-skate-bowl age brackets.

Bike Shorts 5 November 2012

Treadly and Me — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 23:59:00 +1100

Izhar cardboard bike project from Giora Kariv on Vimeo.

I am so glad that there are people like Izhar Gafni in the world. Told it was impossible to make a bike out of cardboard, he went ahead and made it anyway. twitterer

Research published recently in the Journal of Sexual Medicine suggests that regular cycling can potentially affect the sexual health of women. While not a new idea, the latest work finds that what matters most is the configuration of the bicycle and its consequences for riding position.

However, it's worth noting that even racers spend relatively little time in the "characteristic streamlined, forward-leaning position".

Coverage

What if every Olympic sport was photographed like beach volleyball?

[twitterer]

Bikes, illustrated

Mission 20FIFTEEN

Every illustration was created using Adobe Illustrator and are 100% vector. Each bike is made up of hundreds of individual illustrations and assembled as a complete bike. The bikes are historically accurate and when possible the actual rider has been consulted to ensure the authenticity.

Bikes win

Cool things you can do by bike that you can't do by car, including:

Ride through work sites that are closed off to traffic, the workmen don't mind. (Of course this does not apply to work sites on bike paths.) You can also ride into permanently closed-off roads.

[twitterer]

Fix it

5 Things I Fix Every Day Of My Life

Yo, bro.

Brotherhood of the Fêlés of the Grand Colombier

The brotherhood of the "Fêlés du Grand Colombier" is open to everyone who is at least 18 years old, climbing, in the same day, two, three or four faces, there and back, of the Grand Colombier by different sides riding (or pushing!) a bicycle propelled by the one and only muscular force..

[twitterer]

Dancing on the pedals

I prefer not to exercise

What Happens To Our Brains During Exercise (And Why It Makes Us Happier)

Dog gadget

Fairdale Dograck (or Catrack)

There's always been a battle between man's two best friends… his bike and his dog. And until now there has been no perfect solution for attaching a dog to a bicycle.

We ♥ bikes

Emerging Trend: Bicycle-Friendly Business Districts

An intriguing new trend is emerging in some communities: bicycle-friendly business districts (BFBDs). A handful of cities have created or are exploring the creation of BFBDs.

Sexy, sexist

Is this thing sexist? Introducing the "Bike Test"

I saw the need for an analytical tool that could be used by both media creators and consumers to evaluate images of women in bicycling. So, inspired by the Bechdel Test for women in movies (still as relevant today as it was in 1985), I created… The Bike Test

"Oh, be-have!"

Why must cyclists behave before they get bike paths?

Cycling and psychology

Erik Sandblom: Cycling is easy, psychology is hard:

What is not mentioned is that it is as safe to ride as walking. The official statistics from both Denmark and Sweden show this. Why isn't the police nagging pedestrians about the right conditions and the right equipment? It's so dangerous and unprotected.

Forester

Hmm, as @bicycle_tim observes, "if he hadn't before, John Forrester has jumped the shark with this one": John Forester is an asshole.

And by way of background:

bike forums thread in which Forester makes his poor-taste remarks,
Cities fit for cycling in The Times, and
Kim Harding's alternative proposed eight point manifesto for safer cycling.

Choose

Let's Choose Possibility!

You're vulnerable, so look out!

Treadly and Me — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 08:40:00 +1000

Every now and then you hear about how cyclists are a bunch of elitist snobs, which I find laughable because I can't find it difficult to think of anything less likely to induce elitism or snobbery in me than riding a bike.

But then you hear garbage like this:

"The cyclists will tell you there's a difference between a cyclist and someone who's just riding a bike," says city spokeswoman Nannette Rodriguez. "They're responsible; they got their equipment; they know what they're doing. Then you got people who just get on a bike to go to the supermarket and just cross the street wherever."

Oh really? I'd have thought there's no difference whatsoever, as the definition of "cyclist" is "a person who rides or travels by bicycle, motorcycle, etc.". In other words a cyclist is "someone who's just riding a bike", and to try to have it any other way sounds a lot like snobbery to my ears.

But apart from the fact that it's pretty easy to find a counter-example (where a "real cyclist" who "got their equipment" clearly isn't responsible and/or doesn't know what they're doing), this is a very short step from victim-blaming. Lo and behold, the same article continues:

Many drivers feel that bicyclists don't follow the rules of the road predictably enough.

"In certain cities, where they're very bike-friendly, you often see bikers asserting themselves maybe more than they should," says John Bowman, a spokesman for the National Motorists Association, a drivers' rights advocacy group. " Bicyclists need to look out for cars because they're most vulnerable," Bowman says. "In any type of conflict between a car and a bike, the car always wins."
[emphasis added]

What. The. Hell?

Let me try that "because they're the most vulnerable" logic out in a few other contexts and see how acceptable it sounds:

"Kids in Indonesia need to look out for tobacco companies because they're the most vulnerable"
"Victims of workplace bullying need to look out for bullies because they're the most vulnerable"
"Altar boys need to look out for pedophile priests because they're the most vulnerable"

Maybe I'm going over the top a bit here, but you see my point: it's pure victim-blaming.

Of course cyclists should take care to keep themselves safe on the road, but there should be a larger onus on drivers to look after more vulnerable road users because drivers are the dominant threat.

Remember Ian Walker's research on overtaking, which showed in part that "there were 23% more vehicles coming within 1m of the bicycle when a helmet was being worn". As I recall, Dr Walker argued that this could be because in the UK drivers may tend to use the presence of a helmet as a rough proxy for the cyclist's competence, and there is an assumption that 'expert' riders are better able to look after themselves. I don't think this is a desirable situation, but allowing cyclists to be factionalised into "real cyclists" and "someone who's just riding a bike" (or any other pointless subdivisions) only helps to reinforce this.

Treadly and Me

'Sexism' and cycling policy

The minor role of cycling in transport

Active transport share

Policy attention

Sexism?

Over-investment?

Comments

Bike Shorts 29 December 2012

Monty Python-ize your bike…

Brain cycles

Er, what?

NIMBY

Commuting

Security Theatre

Recommended reading

In Australia we call it the "road toll"…

Green bike lane

SMIDSY

Fat tyre

Limited places in the Real Bicyclists Club

Vale Metcard

Resolution

Bike Shorts 28 November 2012

"If it's not fun, I go home."

Kent Peterson on shopping

More reading

Plan

Hey, asshole

Roadside mediation

Utility cycling

Let's build us some motorways

"We had no idea"

Helmet

Bike ♥

Ya Donky!

You little wonder

You have to wonder

For that bike that's stuffed…

Boys figure more than girls in injury stats

Bike Shorts 5 November 2012

Bloomberg says

Reading list

You gotta fight for the right

Sit!

Coverage

Bikes, illustrated

Bikes win

Fix it

Yo, bro.

Dancing on the pedals

I prefer not to exercise

Dog gadget

We ♥ bikes

Sexy, sexist

"Oh, be-have!"

Cycling and psychology

Forester

Choose

You're vulnerable, so look out!