Understanding Walking and Cycling Using a Life Course Perspective

UK transport statistics suggest there was a marked decline in levels of walking and cycling in the second half of the twentieth century, yet how this played out in the life course patterns of walking and cycling of individuals and cohorts alive during the period is unclear and unknowable from present sources. This paper introduces research in progress that applies a life course perspective with a life history methodology to understand life course patterns of walking and cycling of individuals. Trajectories of walking and cycling are reconstructed with older and younger cohorts through life history interviews. These cohorts are drawn from the same families to construct Parent and Child dyads. Walking and cycling trajectories are depicted through biographical accounts, summary descriptive texts and visual depictions. Emergent findings are that wider social changes are apparent in inter-cohort variation in life course structure and timing and that this is producing inter-cohort variation in walking and cycling trajectories. There are also indications of intergenerational influence on walking and cycling trajectories within families much of which is mediated through caring roles. This approach has the potential to deliver a more sophisticated understanding of the processes of change in travel behavior in individual lives, their relation to events in multiple life course trajectories, and the interdependency of life courses. Looking ahead, potential policy implications could include the need for a policy approach which recognizes that population cohorts’ walking and cycling trajectories are shaped by the social and historical contexts they experience.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Jones, Heather
  • Chatterjee, Kiron
  • Gray, Selena
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
• Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: 16p
• Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Age; Bicycling; Families; Social factors; Travel behavior; Walking
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
• Subject Areas: Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01366104
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 12-3229
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 27 2012 8:09AM