Did Safe Cycling Infrastructure Still Matter During a COVID-19 Lockdown?

Abstract

The UK government introduced strict measures (including asking people to work from home and a lockdown) to slow the spread of COVID-19 by limiting people’s movement. This led to substantial reductions in traffic, making roads much safer for cyclists. This provides a unique opportunity to study the role played by safe cycling infrastructure. Many UK cities have provided cycling infrastructure to improve safety and encourage cycling. However, access to safe cycling infrastructure varies across neighbourhoods, potentially contributing to inequality. Since roads became safer due to the unprecedented reduction in traffic during the lockdown, safe cycling infrastructure may not play a significant role during this period. On the other hand, safe cycling lanes are often connected to amenities, potentially attracting cyclists even if they confer no additional safety benefit. That is, connectivity might matter more than safety. In this study, we utilised crowdsourced cycling data and regression models to examine the extent to which cycling intensity for non-commuting purposes changes with different types of cycling infrastructure in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. In addition, we selected some areas with large increases in cycling intensity and examined the surrounding environments using Google Street View. Our results showed that non-commuting cycling activities increased significantly after the government interventions on both typical roads and safe cycling lanes while much higher increases were observed on safe cycling lanes than on other roads. A further analysis showed that there were large increases in cycling volumes on both typical roads and safe cycling lanes with good amenities and connectivity, highlighting the importance of these factors when building new cycling infrastructure. Since safe cycling lanes are not equally accessible to people, providing temporary cycling lanes during the pandemic considering these conditions could encourage people to cycle more, and thereby improve their health.

Six months in: pandemic crime trends in England and Wales

“…Cycling increased, as noted above, and bicycle theft returned to the expected range as restrictions on outdoor activity were relaxed. However, it remains unknown to what extent the surge in cycling, increasing potential target availability and stimulating the secondhand market on which stolen bicycles can be sold, will continue in a post-pandemic era (Hong et al 2020 ).…”

Six Months In: Pandemic Crime Trends in England and Wales.

“…Bicycle theft quickly returned to the expected range as restrictions on outdoor activity were relaxed. It remains unknown to what extent the surge in cycling witnessed during the summer, increasing potential targets, will maintain itself in the post-pandemic era (Hong et al, 2020).…”

The trend and interest in sports cycling during the Covid-19 pandemic

“…Kegemaran masyarakat terhadap olahraga bersepeda terus meningkat dengan adanya pandemi covid-19 (Hong et al, 2020). Olahraga bersepeda dipilih oleh masyarakat karena memiliki daya tarik tersendiri, selain memiliki banyak pilihan genre.…”

“…Bersepeda menjadi kegiatan dengan tingkat partisipasi yang tinggi dan semakin popular (Hong et al, 2020). Dalam beberapa waktu terakhir ini bersepeda telah berubah status dari olahraga elit Eropa menjadi olahraga partisipasi massa di seluruh dunia (Visentini, 2017).…”

“…Tren tersebut turut menaikkan keuntungan penjualan sepeda yang melonjak hingga tiga kali lipat atau 300% walaupun harganya naik 15% (rzy, 2020). Fenomena ini tentunya dipengaruhi oleh kondisi global yang sama-sama mengalami perubahan kebiasaan karena efek pandemi (Hong et al, 2020) Hal ini dikuatkan dengan beberapa laporan penelitian dari penelitian serupa, dengan judul Motivasi dan Minat Masyarakat dalam Berolahraga Sepeda di Kota Semarang (Romadhon & Rustiadi, 2016), dari hasil analisis data yang dilakukan mayoritas orang dalam melakukan olahraga sepeda memiliki motivasi dengan kategori baik sebanyak 34 orang dari total 62 sampel, sementara dengan kategori sangat baik, 28 orang dari 62 sampel, dan tidak ada orang dalam kategori kurang baik atau kurang. Kesimpulan bahwa mayoritas sampel masyarakat yang berolahraga sepeda di Kota Semarang dominan masuk dalam kategori baik.…”