What It's Like to Ride a Bike: Understanding Cyclist Experiences

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What It's Like to Ride a Bike: Understanding Cyclist Experiences Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute What It’s Like to Ride a Bike: Understanding Cyclist Experiences Georgia Clare Scott This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Curtin University April 2018 Declaration To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgment has been made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. Human Ethics The research presented and reported in this thesis was conducted in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007) – updated March 2014. The proposed research study received human research ethics approval from the Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee (EC00262), Approval Number # HURGS-14-14. Georgia Clare Scott 23 April 2018 iii Abstract Sustainability research recognises the role transport plays in shaping cities, and the destructive consequences of automobile dependency. As a low carbon, affordable, healthy and efficient transport mode, cycling necessarily contributes towards making cities more liveable and sustainable. Research thus far, however, has failed to fully engage with the experiential aspect of mobility, missing a window into both the liveability of cities and the success or failure of the transport systems within them. In response, this thesis explores how people’s experiences cycling in urban environments can be understood and used to inform transport policy. Its objectives are to contribute better understandings of urban cycling mobilities, and how such understandings can inform Australian sustainable transport policy, by comparing Western cities of high and low cycling amenity through using a combination of semi-structured and go-along interviews. A phenomenological, multi-case study framework is developed, using tools from mobilities studies to explore how people experience cycling in three case study cities, namely Perth and Melbourne in Australia which have low cycling amenity compared with that provided for the private car, and Utrecht in the Netherlands which is traversed by many established cycling routes and well serviced by public transport options. Volunteers were recruited in each city to participate in a novel combination of both semi-structured and go-along interviews. For the go-along interviews the participants simultaneously recorded a narration of their experience and GPS track of a cycling journey. The data from the go-along interviews are visualised as spatial transcripts, including snapshots of maps plotting participants’ comments on their ride. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis is applied to identify key themes in the interview data, providing an insightful comparison of cycling experiences between the three case study cities. The findings demonstrate that the experiences of cyclists in highly automobile dependent contexts are heavily influenced by preoccupation with cycling identities, which in turn compounds the stresses associated with negotiating urban environments and cultures that are unsupportive of cycling. How these stresses are ultimately perceived by cyclists depends on their personal capacity to overcome environmental and social barriers to cycling. In order to achieve a substantial shift in transport mode share away from car driving, and fully integrate cycling into a network of sustainable transport modes, policy in automobile v dominant contexts such as in Australia must incorporate cyclists’ views and experiences into the policymaking process. Deliberative democracy techniques combined with spatial transcripts can be used to negotiate urban space and transport planning. Understandings of cyclist experiences can illuminate the performance of transport policies, and offer the possibility of countering negative cultural attitudes toward cycling present in highly automobile dominated contexts. This thesis contributes to mobilities studies by demonstrating the efficacy of combining traditional and go-along interview methods for developing understandings of the embodied experience of cycling, particularly within the situational frame provided by the multi-case study. The production of the spatial transcripts through using open source tools to create a web application further extends previous qualitative research in cycling. The methodology used in this thesis has applications beyond cycling research to a variety of mobilities studies. In addition, the methods used are adaptable to a policy environment, particularly when combined with other innovative methods, such as deliberative techniques, as an aid for engaging with the community about cycling policy and infrastructure. This thesis concludes that developing understandings of how people experience riding bikes in cities is valuable for informing sustainable transport policy in Australia. vi Table of Contents Declaration ............................................................................................................................. iii Abstract.................................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ......................................................................................................................... xiii List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... xv List of Maps .......................................................................................................................... xvii List of Spatial Transcripts ...................................................................................................... xix List of Abbreviations and Acronyms ..................................................................................... xxi Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ xxiii Preface ................................................................................................................................. xxv Chapter 1 Background ............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................1 1.2 Transport and cities ..................................................................................................1 1.3 Cycling for sustainability ..........................................................................................4 1.4 Understanding cyclist experiences ...........................................................................5 1.5 Need for this research ..............................................................................................6 1.5.1 Research question and objectives ......................................................................6 1.5.2 Scope of the study ...............................................................................................7 1.6 Thesis structure ........................................................................................................7 Chapter 2 Literature Review .................................................................................... 9 2.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................9 2.2 Cycling and the city ..................................................................................................9 2.2.1 Infrastructure and policy .................................................................................. 10 2.3 Cycling mobilities .................................................................................................. 12 2.4 Perceptions of cycling ........................................................................................... 13 2.5 Cycling citizenship ................................................................................................. 14 2.6 Cycling cultures and identities .............................................................................. 15 2.7 Embodied experience ............................................................................................ 16 2.8 Mobile methods .................................................................................................... 17 2.9 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 18 vii Chapter 3 Research Design ..................................................................................... 19 3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 19 3.2 Methodology ......................................................................................................... 19 3.3 Methods ................................................................................................................ 21 3.3.1 Desktop analysis ............................................................................................... 22 3.3.2 Multi-case study ............................................................................................... 22 3.3.3 Recruitment
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