Riding Tandem: Does Cycling Infrastructure Investment Mirror Gentrification and Privilege in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois?

Bicycles have the potential to provide an environmentally friendly, healthy, low cost, and enjoyable transportation option to people of all socio-economic backgrounds and demographics. Increasingly, however, the ways in which cycling culture is manifested in North American cities is being questioned on the grounds of transportation equity through concerns over gentrification and the cooption of cycling culture to promote the agendas of the privileged class. This research assesses the geographic distribution of cycling infrastructure with regard to community demographic characteristics to better assess claims that cycling investment arrives in tandem with incoming populations of privilege or is targeted towards neighborhoods with existing wealth. Using census and municipal cycling infrastructure data in Chicago and Portland from 1990 to 2010, the authors create gentrification and cycling infrastructure investment indexes at the census tract level. Linear regression models are used to estimate the extent to which community demographics associated with gentrification and cycling infrastructure investment are related and if community change is a major driver in investment or if existing community characteristics are also involved. In both cities, the authors identify a bias towards increased cycling infrastructure investment in areas of privilege, whether due to an increase in characteristics associated with gentrification or pre-existing conditions. This paper provides evidence that marginalized communities are unlikely to attract as much cycling infrastructure investment without the presence of privileged populations, even when considering population density and distance to downtown, two motivators of urban cycling. To alleviate the continuation of inequitable distributions of cycling investments, it is proposed that planning processes both actively seek out diverse stakeholders and be sensitive to citywide community input and stated needs in future transportation projects, contributing to reinvestment achieved through bottom-up processes of revitalization rather than through the impositions of gentrification.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANF20 Standing Committee on Bicycle Transportation. Alternate title: Riding tandem: Does cycling infrastructure investment mirror gentrification and privilege in Portland, OR and Chicago, IL?
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Flanagan, Elizabeth
  • Lachapelle, Ugo
  • El-Geneidy, Ahmed
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 24p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycling; Equity; Infrastructure; Investments; Motivation
• Uncontrolled Terms: Gentrification
• Geographic Terms: Chicago (Illinois); Portland (Oregon)
• Subject Areas: Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01594571
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-1493
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 28 2016 5:47PM