Gender differences in bicycle infrastructure use and preferences: A disconnect between ideals and reality
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2025
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International Journal of Sustainable Transportation
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Taylor and Francis Group
Melbourne Authors
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Architecture Building and Planning
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Journal Article
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Pearson, L., Bhowmick, D., Winters, M., Saberi, M., Nelson, T., Pettit, C., Nice, K., Dai, D., Gupta, M. & Beck, B. (2025). Gender differences in bicycle infrastructure use and preferences: A disconnect between ideals and reality. International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 20 (7), pp.657-668. https://doi.org/10.1080/15568318.2025.2608985.
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Abstract
In low bicycling countries, bicycling participation is typically dominated by men. There are differences in the types of infrastructure women and men feel comfortable riding a bike in, where women report a preference for protected infrastructure that separates them from interactions with motor vehicle traffic. We know little, however, about differences in the types of infrastructure and roads women and men actually ride on, otherwise described as the difference in stated versus observed preference data. In this study, we quantified differences between women and men in the types of infrastructure they ride a bike in, and how this differs from their stated preferences. We conducted a prospective observational study of trips taken by adults made by bicycle in Greater Melbourne, Australia. We mapped the trips to road and bicycle infrastructure types using OpenStreetMap (OSM) data and stratified the results by gender. A total of 673 participants were included in the study (34% were women), who undertook 19,782 bike trips. There were statistically significant differences in infrastructure types used between women and men (X2 =3743.5, p < 0.001), where a larger proportion of trips taken by men were made on off-road paths (38% vs. 32%), and on arterial roads in mixed traffic (18% vs. 11%). A larger proportion of trips made by women were on local roads in either mixed traffic or painted bike lanes. For the 57% of women who reported feeling uncomfortable in mixed traffic, 46% of their trips were spent in mixed traffic environments. Further research that identifies the influence of a range of factors on women’s bicycling travel behaviors, including trip purpose and conditions (e.g. if riding with children) is required to better understand how we implement infrastructure to enable more women to ride a bike.