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Walking and Cycling in Western Europe and the United States Trends, Policies, and Lessons

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Walking and Cycling in Western Europe and the United States Trends, Policies, and Lessons W ING AY K F A O R M P On this road in Santa E S D E Barbara, California, motor E L vehicle lanes were replaced S C T Y by a bidirectional bike path, R C IA BI separated from car traffic. NS AND P H O T O : R A L P H F E R T I G Walking and Cycling in Western Europe and the United States Trends, Policies, and Lessons RALPH BUEHLER AND JOHN PUCHER alking and cycling are the most sustain - ments in public infrastructure. Walking and cycling Buehler is Assistant able means of daily travel. They cause vir - are affordable by virtually everyone and therefore are Professor, Urban Affairs W tually no noise or air pollution and the most equitable of all transport modes. and Planning, School of 2 consume far fewer nonrenewable resources than any Following is a brief overview of cycling and walk - 1 0 Public and International 2 motorized mode of transport. The energy that walk - ing trends and policies in the United States and West - E Affairs, Virginia Tech, N ing and cycling require is provided directly by the ern Europe, with a focus on the United Kingdom, U J Alexandria, Virginia. – traveler, and the use of that energy offers valuable Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, the coun - Y A Pucher is Professor, M cardiovascular exercise. tries for which the most comparable and detailed 0 Bloustein School of 8 Walking and cycling require only a fraction of data are available ( 1–9 ). 2 Planning and Public S the space needed for operating and parking cars. W E Policy, Rutgers N Moreover, walking and cycling are economical—they Variations and Trends R University, New T cost far less than the private car or public transport, The share of daily trips by walking and cycling Brunswick, New Jersey. 34 in terms of direct outlays by users and of invest - varies greatly from country to country (see Figure 1, right). At the low end, approximately one-tenth 26 50 of daily trips are by foot or bike in car-oriented g n i k Cycling Walking l countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United a w States. At the high end, more than half of all daily 40 d n a trips in the Netherlands are by walking or cycling. 10 18 g 9 n i 9 Most European countries have levels in between, l c 30 y c with active travel accounting for 25 percent to 35 4 y 3 2 8 4 b percent of daily trips. s p i r 20 Differences in national travel surveys limit the t f o comparability of walking and cycling statistics. t 1 2 n 1 25 Nevertheless, the European countries included in e 23 24 c 22 22 22 22 r 10 21 e 16 16 Figure 1 clearly have active transport rates at least P 1 twice as high as those of North America and Aus - 0.5 11 11 11 3 5 tralia. 0 ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) 8 6 9 6 6 8 9 8 5 9 5 6 9 8 8 Active travel generally has declined in the '0 '0 '0 '0 '0 '0 '9 '0 '0 '0 '0 '0 '0 '0 '0 ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( * * A * * K e a y d n y k s A a S a d m c ri a n e n r d United States and Western Europe in the past four S li d n U iu n t a d a a n a U a a s rw l a U r la lg r u n e m m rl t n e e F A o i w r n s a Ir B N F S e e e decades. The most dramatic change has been in u C G D th A e trips by walking. The modal share of walking fell by N roughly one-half in France and the United King - FIGURE 1 Cycling and walking share of daily trips in Europe, North America, dom, by one-third in Germany, and by one-fourth and Australia, 1999–2009. in Denmark (see Figure 2, below). Only in the Note: The latest available travel surveys were used for each country; the year of Netherlands did the share of walking trips remain the survey is noted in parentheses after each country’s name. The modal shares stable. The bike share of trips fell by one-half in the reflect travel for all trip purposes except for those countries marked with an asterisk, which only report journeys to work derived from their censuses. United Kingdom, by one-third in France, and by Dissimilarities in data collection methods, timing, and variable definitions limit one-tenth in the Netherlands but increased slightly the comparability of the modal shares shown. [Sources: Danish Ministry of in Germany and Denmark. Transport (MOT), British Department for Transport (DfT), German MOT, Statistics In the five European countries in Figure 2, the Netherlands, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and combined modal shares of walking and cycling in Norwegian Institute of Economic Research.] 60 Cycling Walking NL 4 50 g n i k l a 3 GER w FR UK DK d 2 n a 40 g 9 n i 2 l c y 12 28 4 c 11 25 y 28 24 b s 30 10 17 p i 2 20 r 9 t f 50 3 20 20 18 o t 3 2 n 44 e c 41 r 20 e 36 P USA 34 32 1.0 28 28 27 24 24 0.7 0.8 23 22 22 10 0.9 20 20 21 21 0.9 18 18 15 15 16 T 11 R 9 9 9 7 N E W 0 S 7 3 0 1 9 6 2 9 2 8 5 0 0 8 2 8 5 5 1 2 8 5 1 5 0 8 4 4 2 7 8 9 0 0 7 8 8 0 0 8 9 0 0 8 0 7 8 9 0 0 7 8 9 0 0 7 9 8 9 9 9 0 0 9 9 9 0 0 9 9 0 0 9 0 9 9 9 0 0 9 9 9 0 0 9 9 0 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 FIGURE 2 Trends in combined cycling and walking share of all daily trips in the United States, Germany (GER), M A Y the Netherlands (NL), France (FR), the United Kingdom (UK), and Denmark (DK), 1974–2009. – J U Note: Dissimilarities in data collection methods, timing, and variable definitions limit the comparability of the N E modal shares shown. The increase reported for the United States in the combined walk and bike share of trips 2 0 between 1990 and 2001 probably results from a change in methodology that captured previously 1 2 underreported walk trips. (Sources: Danish MOT, British DfT, French MOT, German MOT, Netherlands MOT, U.S. DOT, and Norwegian Institute of Economic Research.) 35 P H O T Walking and cycling trends in the United States O : R A are difficult to gauge, because the national travel L P H B survey methodology changed in 2001, increasing U E H L E R the walk mode share by capturing previously unre - ported walk trips. The survey results in Figure 2 suggest slight increases in walking and cycling lev - els in the United States in the past two decades, but in the long term, the walk mode share probably declined. The U.S. Census, which has applied a consistent methodology, reports a substantial decline in walking and cycling to work, from 7.9 percent of workers in 1970 to 3.5 percent in 2009 (10, 11 ). Gender and Age Groups Cyclists comprise virtually all segments of society in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. In the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, women account for approximately one-fourth of all Since the early 1970s, an the early 1970s were roughly comparable, at bike trips; women in Denmark, Germany, and the increasing number of approximately 40 to 50 percent, but the most recent Netherlands make approximately half of all bike German cities have surveys indicate that active travel in Denmark, Ger - trips. Cycling is gender-neutral in Denmark, Ger - banned automobiles many, and the Netherlands is at a level almost twice many, and the Netherlands but dominated by men in from the city center, as here in Freiburg, that of France and the United Kingdom. The much the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Germany. smaller declines in active transport in Denmark, In contrast, the share of walk trips made by women Germany, and the Netherlands are attributable to shows little variation among countries. more car-restrictive policies since the 1970s, com - Walking and cycling levels vary significantly by bined with a range of measures to encourage walk - age, but the variation is much less in some countries ing and cycling. than in others. The combined share of walking and 70 Cycling Walking 60 USA UK GER DK NL g n i 50 k l a w 40 d n 40 a 23 9 g n 14 25 i 32 l c 2 11 y 22 c 30 21 y 20 15 b s 2 1 9 9 15 p 9 i 1 r t 2 20 14 15 f 14 o 34 t 3 32 n 0.8 29 28 e 0.8 0.7 27 c 0.5 24 24 r 21 21 23 21 e 10 20 20 19 20 20 19 18 18 19 P 2 15 13 13 1 12 13 0 11 10 9 2 E 0 N 5 4 9 6 9 9 5 9 5 7 5 4 9 5 9 9 9 9 9 4 7 5 4 4 + + + + U 1 2 3 1 2 5 6 6 1 1 2 4 5 6 2 3 4 5 6 8 1 2 4 6 5 J 5 5 5 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6 – 6 6 6 5 6 5 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 8 6 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 6 5 Y 1 2 1 4 1 3 6 1 2 4 6 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 4 A M Age Group 0 8 2 FIGURE 3 Cycling and walking share of trips within each age group in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, S W the United Kingdom, and the United States, 2009, as percent of trips by all modes for all trip purposes.
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