Reflections on a Research Project

Rachel Aldred, one of the researchers behind the Cycling Cultures report (which we covered last month), talks about the background to the project and how it got started:

            Last month, Kat Jungnickel and I launched the final report from our Economic and Social Research Council funded ‘Cycling Cultures’ project, which explored cycling experiences in four relatively high-cycling English urban areas (Bristol, Cambridge, Hackney and Hull). You can read the report here and a variety of other publications are listed/linked to on the website. This piece isn’t intended to summarise the Cycling Cultures findings, but to provide some personal reflections on how my understandings of cycling, cycling policy, and cycling research have changed over the past few years. Cycling Cultures has been a great experience (working with Kat, who’s phenomenally talented, for one) and it’s had a big effect on me personally.

Kat with Florence, Hull - Bike Portrait photo session

I carried out pilot research for the project back in 2008. I’d managed to get hold of some money for train tickets and transcriptions, and spent my summer travelling up and down to Cambridge, interviewing people who cycled. It was a new research direction for me and one I’d partly followed because of my own interest in cycling. I’d cycled as a teenager (mainly just to get out of the house, sometimes to see friends) but then I’d hardly been on a bike between the age of 17 and 25. It just didn’t occur to me, even though I often had little money and buses were infrequent or expensive. So, I’d been wondering, why did I stop cycling, and why did I start again?

             Those 2008 Cambridge interviews produced a lot of material about how people on bicycles relate to the world around them. Participants talked about how you get to know your city differently when you cycle, and the different kinds of social interactions that are enabled. If you drive, you often can’t stop easily; if you’re on a bus, you can’t get off unless you’re at a stop. But on a bike, you can usually pull in, get off and speak to a friend you see walking down the street. So I wrote the ‘Cycling Citizenship’ article about how people on bikes are connected to the world around them. What’s also interesting about Cambridge – where cycling rates are the highest in the UK – is how inclusive cycling is there; many people talked about how cycling enabled them to maintain mobility when otherwise it would be difficult (older people, people with chronic illness).

            In all our four case study areas, cycling experiences are associated with extremes for many people; the strong positives attached to it (feelings of freedom, joy, discovery, relief from everyday stress) alongside some very negative experiences (from everyday experiences of close passes to less common experiences of serious injury and assault). Clearly, even in places where cycling is relatively ‘normalised’, cyclists are still treated poorly by what a recent DfT report calls ‘Other Road Users’. Cycling environments in the four areas, while in some respects better than in much of the UK, are often still not ideal. One paper I’ve been writing recently looks at how national political and policy contexts continue to limit what is seen as locally possible. The nature of everyday mobility sets limits on localism: like users of other transport modes, people who cycle don’t just cycle in their neighbourhood, but often cross ward and local authority boundaries.

An A road, much the quickest route on the map, but a hostile environment for cycling

Across case study areas, I was struck by a continuing stigmatisation of cyclists, even though cycling levels are locally relatively high and cycling has for twenty years been an official policy goal. This can be seen in the constant pressure for cyclists to condemn ‘bad cyclists’, as if cyclists are responsible for the behaviour of all other cyclists. While a very different context, this process reminds me of how Muslims are constantly made to prove they are ‘moderates’ who condemn terrorism. Debates become narrowed and don’t stretch to the causes of the behaviour being condemned or other problems faced by the group; such as discrimination. If you think that’s too strong a word applied to cyclists, try reading some of the comments posted after an article about a cyclist’s death (in those few online news sources that allow comments in such circumstances).

The 2008 pilot research had suggested that people generally didn’t seem to draw broader policy conclusions from their experiences of cycling. One participant was unusual in discussing the prospect of congestion charging, but then drew back suggesting that people have preferences that you can’t easily shift. Mostly, people found it hard to identify specific changes that might substantially improve cycling. But by the time Kat and I carried out the main research project, in 2010-11, this seemed to have changed, with many participants able to identify a range of desired infrastructural and other changes (financial, organisational, cultural, etc.) The lesson for me has been that the link between cycling experiences and beliefs about cycling policy is not as fixed as I’d first thought. Where cycling is becoming more politically salient, people who cycle may interpret their experiences differently, and draw different conclusions.

We can see this shift in what I’ve called the ‘repoliticisation of danger’, related to follow-on research I’ve been conducting with Maria Bühner into cycling advocacy in London. London is obviously distinctive – the relative dominance of public transport, relatively low car ownership, and recent shifts in cycling: in particular, cycle commuting by people who live in Inner London has increased, generating distinctive political pressures, often amplified by use of social media. But while London is different it matters for other areas because (a) what’s happened in London has implications for other urban areas (such as the synergy between better public transport infrastructure, and political opportunities to restrict car use) and (b) developments in London get a lot of national press attention, potentially then generating the opportunity for cyclists and advocates elsewhere to get their voices heard.

Blackfriars Bridge protest, July 2011

            Finally, I feel I’ve developed my understanding of the link between infrastructure and culture. I don’t want to be seen as promoting culture in opposition to other components of a cycling system. Cultural support for cycling is necessary but not sufficient. For example, after World War Two, Stevenage built some pretty good (by the standard of the times) dedicated bicycle infrastructure. It’s much better quality than the more famous cycle tracks in Milton Keynes (although later additions or omissions have messed it up in parts). But – in my view – it didn’t generate a cycling revolution primarily for cultural and political reasons. The 1950s were a terrible time to be encouraging cycling in the UK. It simply wasn’t part of mainstream transport policy and discourse. The bicycle signified poverty while the car was an object of desire, particularly in a New Town with wide, free-flowing dual carriageways. The outcome – not particularly high cycling levels – isn’t just a product of infrastructure, but of infrastructure in its cultural context (or vice versa).

Stevenage cycleway

In the areas we studied, there is a vast amount of informal cultural support for cycling; although the environments in which people cycle – as elsewhere in the UK – are still often problematic. Unpaid and unsung cycling promoters advise friends on bicycle purchase, show colleagues the best routes, and lend relatives bicycles and equipment. They’ll tell others (in person and via social media) about new infrastructure, incentives, bike shops. More formal schemes exist at workplace and local level, supported by authorities, campaigns and companies. This to me demonstrates the potential for a step-change in cycling levels. If the right infrastructural (and other) changes are made, existing cyclists will talk about these to friends, neighbours, and workmates; some may decide to give cycling a go; if they like it, they will talk to friends, neighbours, etc. and so on. I believe it’s possible to create a virtuous circle where culture and infrastructure complement each other, where progress isn’t incremental but generates feedback loops. We’re not there yet but I see signs that perhaps we are on the way.

Peak car?

Rachel Aldred, University of East London