Are Bristolian and British attitudes to cycling on different trajectories?

Dr Adrian Davis, Director of the Supporting Healthy Inclusive Neighbourhood Environments (SHINE) Health Integration Team, talks about the differences between Bristol and the rest of the country in terms of attitudes to cycling. This is part of a series of blogs, where key players in Bristol’s health sector write about a health related subject of their choice. If you want to contribute, email [email protected].

Bristol has long been a laboratory for change. A recent example is how city transport and spatial planning
have improved provision for people to cycle for routine journeys, a
direction reflected in the city’s wider reputation for environmental action.

Although cycling had been on the rise in the city from at least the start of this century, the ambition to do more was marked in 2008 when Bristol was designated as ‘Cycling City’ by the Government. This came with
just over £7 million for the city, to be match-funded.

By 2010, as Bristol
moved into its final year of Cycling City, it was clear to me that the
effectiveness of infrastructure and
behaviour change programmes would not be fully reflected in usage data for
some time to come. The antecedents of behaviour change, attitudes,
seemed important to capture over time, to understand
behaviour change at the individual level. With a bit of persuasion I managed to grab a little funding and,
with UWE Social Marketing colleagues, designed a
survey of British adult attitudes to cycling. We boosted the sample
for Bristol and South Gloucestershire (with whom we shared Cycling City) in
order to have greater statistical confidence in some of the analysis. We then
employed YouGov, an internationally respected polling agency, to poll a
representative sample of 4,022 from across the British adult population in May 2010.
Then we surveyed
again in May 2013 with 3,855 respondents.

We sought opinions on cycling in terms of:

• societal
  and personal commitments
• the
  degree to which it is viewed as ‘normal’
• influencers
  of cycling such as role models, media and opinion leaders
• attitudes
  to the possible future growth of cycling

What
did we find?

Here’s just a taster. Both
2010 and 2013 levels of regular and frequent cycling were found to be similar;
in turn, these levels corresponded reasonably well to other surveys using
different methods. Only 6 per cent of adults in Great Britain cycled once a week or more – although
12 per cent did in Bristol.

In policy terms the data is very
interesting. Focusing on the 2010 sample enabled us to examine the extent that claimed
plans to cycle in 2010 translated into behaviour in 2013. In 2010, 38 per cent of the
British sub-sample agreed they were contemplating cycling for short journeys, and
21 per cent agreed they’d actually made plans to take up cycling. However, 2013 cycling
behaviour remained at 2010 levels, suggesting these 2010 plans
did not in fact lead to any significant take up. It is assumed that the
barriers to cycling that exist in Britain prevent good intentions being translated
into action. Overall this data adds weight to the hypothesis that there may be
a large amount of suppressed demand for cycling that might be thwarted in
particular by the perceived lack of safe cycling opportunities.

Cycling’s contribution to society

Seventy-two per cent of British adults in 2013 agreed that cycling creates positive benefits in improving the
environment and reducing congestion – 79 per cent in Bristol. This positive response
even extends to arguably more ‘rhetorical’ claims – Britain would be a better
place if more people cycled has 54 per cent agreement (66 per cent in Bristol), with only 13 per cent disagreeing (12 per cent in Bristol).

Is cycling viewed as normal in Britain?

A majority in 2013 view cycling to work as ‘normal’ (65 per cent agree, 10 per cent disagree) and nearly half of British adults agree cycling is ‘cool’ nowadays (46 per cent agree, 13 per cent disagree), although this rises to 56 per cent in Bristol. The
results for Bristol are generally rather more encouraging, particularly with
very high agreement (82 per cent) with the normality of cycling to
work, with only 4 per cent disagreeing, leading to a lower cultural resistance to
commuter cycling in Bristol than average across Britain.

The influence of role models, media and opinion leaders

There is
considerable agreement
(37 per cent agree, 18 per cent disagree) that TV motoring programmes are too negative about
cycling, and split views (25 per cent agree, 25 per cent disagree) that the media are generally
anti-cycling in Britain. Cycling campaigners can take heart that the
apparent anti-cycling stance of some of the media is regarded as such by many
of the public, suggesting that calls for more balanced coverage may have some
success.

The generally positive views of cycling
within society, and widespread support for more governmental funding that
we also found, suggest that any media antipathy to cycling does not
reflect the majority public mood. Cycling sports figures and celebrity sports
people were seen as influential, with 20 per cent agreement that the success of British
cyclists has ‘encouraged me to think about cycling more myself’, in particular
among those who already cycle. For
almost all questions the response are more positive for Bristol.

Attitudes to future growth of cycling

And,
lastly, what of attitudes to the possible future growth of cycling? Perhaps the most important of these results is that
relating to the 49 per cent who in 2013 agreed (23 per cent disagreed) they would ‘not support
any measure that penalises car use’, indicating a broad lack of willingness to be
personally inconvenienced in the cause of growing cycling. We also regard the
result for ‘roads are for cars not bikes’ as possibly concerning
for cyclists, with just over 1 in 4 of British adults regarding roads as a questionable
place for bikes. However, again for Bristol the results are better: ‘roads are for cars not bikes’ dropped 10 percentage points
to 18 per cent.

At the national level, other responses were more heartening for
pro-cyclists. For example ‘an increase in cycling will result in the motorist
losing out’ generated more disagreement than agreement. It may be that
(motorist) respondents have simply not appreciated what an increase in cycling
might mean in practice: it may mean the cycling mode
dominating some urban roads, or the introduction of 20 mph speed limits.
Alternatively, these effects may have been noted, but not regarded as
problematic.

Overall, with
low levels of everyday cycling in Britain, it’s surprising that these population
surveys find generally positive opinions of cycling. Increased funding of
cycling has met with broad approval, both in terms of strongly positive
opinions and in Bristol in increased cycling levels. These positives offer useful data to
help pro-cycling organisations position any negativity towards cyclists as
belonging only to a minority. However, more generally for Britain, the picture of car
dominance remains: there is a large gap between the warm predisposition to
cycling as a pro-social practice for others, and the hard realities of
persuading non-cyclists (or occasional cyclists) to cycle (more) themselves.
Indeed, our comparative data on ‘plans to cycle’ in 2010 and 2013 suggests
considerable suppressed demand for cycling, but no measurable (by us) shift in
actual cycling behaviour between these years. So, take some comfort if you live
in Bristol – we appear to be choosing a greener and healthier transport route
to the future.

Tapp, A,
Davis, A, Nancarrow, C., Jones, S. 2016 Great Britain adults’ opinions on cycling: Implications for policy, Transportation Research Part A, 89: 14-18