UTTRI associated faculty Professor Paul M. Hess collaborated with Dr. Raktim Mitra of Ryerson University, and The Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT) on the multi-year SSHRC-funded project “Urban Cycling Facilities and Travel Behaviour Change” featured in a recent BlogTO article.
The study explores bicycling uptake across the Greater Toronto And Hamilton Area (GTHA) and beyond.
The BlogTO article states that safe cycling infrastructure is linked to more cycling:
“… neighbourhoods with more bicycle lanes, cycle tracks and bikeways have more than double the number of cyclists on streets than neighbourhoods that don’t.”
The study’s website provides details:
We conducted an online survey of 1600+ adults living in 17 different neighbourhoods, some with a recently built on-street cycling facility and some without. Results show that 7% of residents were cycling at least once a week for commuting, and 19% of residents were regularly cycling for recreational purposes in the summer and fall of 2019. In most of these neighbourhoods, bicycling uptake has increased in recent years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings provide important baseline data that will be important in planning for active transportation in post-pandemic Canada.
- View an interactive Bicycling Behaviour in GTHA Neighbourhoods dashboard, posted by Ryerson’s TransForm Lab, to see bicycling behaviour in various neighbourhoods in the study area.
- Read “Do new urban and suburban cycling facilities encourage more bicycling?,” by Raktim Mitra, Avet Khachatryan and Paul M. Hess, Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, Vol 97, August 2021.
- Read “Pioneering study finds bike lanes have doubled the number of cyclists in parts of Toronto,” BlogTO, June 2, 2021.
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