Social Cycling: Exploring the Use of Social Networks to Overcome Barriers to Cycling

Mechanisms to encourage the use of cycling for transport tend to focus heavily in the areas of infrastructure provision and education. While necessary components of the cycling environment, such efforts may not adequately address person-level barriers to cycling participation, such as lack of adequate information, discomfort with being in an unfamiliar environment, or feeling outside of the cycling “community.” Cycling Social Networks (CSN) have been proposed as mechanisms to overcome some of these barriers, as they provide both a repository of information for the interested party, as well as facilitating on- and off-line social connections that may contribute to overcoming some individual barriers. In this paper, the authors report on the findings of two surveys – one general population, and one directed towards users of The Chainlink, a Chicago-based CSN – to assess the potential for such networks to serve as mechanics for fostering ongoing and sustained use of cycling

  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANF20 Bicycle Transportation. Alternate title: Social Cycling: Exploring Use of Social Networks to Overcome Barriers to Cycling
  • Corporate Authors:

    Transportation Research Board

    500 Fifth Street, NW
    Washington, DC  United States  20001
  • Authors:
    • Cottrill, Caitlin D
  • Conference:
  • Date: 2015

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 16p
  • Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01555089
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: 15-4045
  • Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
  • Created Date: Feb 26 2015 10:03AM