How infrastructure shapes culture
Why is it that British teen-agers (especially girls) reject cycling, even though most have had positive experiences when they were younger? Could it be that the unfriendly roads turn them off and paint riding a bike as ‘not cool’?
Beauty and the Bike is an initiative that has allowed a number of English girls from Darlington, in the North East, to spend a week in Bremen with girls of similar age and who cycle everywhere, in a relaxed and safe environment.
Listen to Kate:
The most important point she makes is that German girls seem to have a lot more freedom, because they can just get on their bike and go everywhere. This is indeed the biggest failure of British urban transport policy: it robs young people of their freedom.
Puts Susan B. Anthony's famous quote into new perspective:
“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”
Bicycling is a woman's birthright. It's a shame if they are unable to hold onto it, for whatever reason.
There are a number of well publicised initiatives in the UK at the moment (fashion shops, bike to school etc) addressing this issue, but this one gets straight to the heart of the matter – crap infrastructure. The OP is dead right – UK transport policy is actively denying teenagers their mobility. Gentle urban cycling on dutch bikes requires safe cycle paths on every major route. Is it any wonder that girls in particular give up on the matcho challenge that is cycling in Britain today? Cycling is a feminist issue.
[...] Vía Velorution: Why Do Girls Stop Cycling? [...]
Darlington Cycling Campaign (click my name for link to DCC blog) provide mechanical support for the project to lend these bikes to the girls.
Cycling levels in Darlingon have more than doubled (up 120%) in the last five years, since the town became a Cycling Demonstration Town, and there are now some great traffic-free routes in place. There is still a lot (a hell of a lot) to do though, and many trips are impossible without battling traffic or taking to the pavement.
I think any transportation system that is centered around the automobile is discriminatory towards huge numbers of the population. The youth, the conscientious (those who *choose* not to own a car), the poor – their options are all limited if there are not good alternative transportation options available.
Not only are bicycles a cheap and accessible form of transportation which anyone in society can make use of, they are safe, quick, and can carry a lot of stuff. I hope that we start to figure out in our English-speaking countries, respectively, that we help all of society if we help the lowest rungs of society – effort and funds spent on making our countries accessible to everyone is not money wasted.
In order to see more bike riders, roads infrastructure and safety measures must be improved.
I’m 27 & about to get back on the saddle for the 1st time in ten years.
I stopped cycling all those years ago due to not feeling that safe on the roads – and a change of lifestyle at the time too. I do still have slight fears about cycling in London but can’t wait to get back on a bike and start again.
I lived in Bremen for two months and you absolutely could get into town quicker than any other form of transport and hardly had to stop due to the sequencing of the traffic lights. Beautiful city too. Blame those british bods from the fifities and sixties, Bremen got raised to the ground in the war and the town planners made it beautiful and planned it well for public transport and cyclists, but here, well, it didn’t happen quite like that. But then London is incomparable really, it’s huge and based on a very old infrastructure.