Hi everyone, my name is Ben Illingworth and I’m a master’s student currently studying Transport Planning at the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. For my dissertation I am focusing on the travel patterns of people who participate in various forms of leisure cycling including Mountain Biking, Road cycling and BMX. At, present because of the inaccessibility of many locations, leisure cycling can be very car dependent.
The link below is a survey that I hope that cyclists across the country will respond to and tell me their travel patterns and participation in cycling. Then I can understand the environmental impact of these travel patterns and propose various changes to make leisure cycling more accessible by all modes (e.g. improved public transport to cycling destinations).
It would be of great help if anyone could take the time to complete the survey because the results could be very useful in improving leisure cycling for everyone. The survey takes 10-15 mins.
Interesting in some ways although I wonder what is intends to achieve. The posters comments don't really say. The fundamental issue is that most people don't live in the nice places to cycle so have to get there. Any method of travel apart from personal car is not efficient and not pleasant. To achieve anything else without a catastrophic occurrence eg. All fossil fuel banned, will not happen. War time fuel rationing is the sort of thing that would work. Provision of alternatives by government will never happen. Sad maybe but realistic.
Thank you for your reply. My project is mostly focusing on spatial analysis and the travel complexities of leisure cycling. However in terms of policy, as you say, radical changes (i.e banning fossil fuels) are obviously unrealistic; however making substantial changes to other modes of travel (making them more attractive) that is not just the car has potential. At present, leisure cycling is extremely car dependent because obviously the car is more flexible through time and place, and leisure cycling sites can be very inaccessible without the use of a car. This throws up the question whether cycling is as 'green' as we think? Especially as many people 'excess travel' for leisure cycling, where they travel much further than closer alternatives. The survey will allow to identify people/area types where excess travel is common, and then I can describe the spatial pattern. These insights could be very useful for policy makers (e.g. finding people/area types associated with excess travel but aligned with pro-environmental attitudes).
Ben. I completed the survey. One comment: the survey assumes that the respondent has a car and asks questions based on this assumption. Questions like "What would make you use a car less?" don't make much sense to someone who lives in the middle of London and doesn't have access to a car. Most of the people I know as well as those I cycle with don't have a car. In inner London the majority of people don't have access to a car. But plenty of us get on a train to take us a little further away for a cycle ride or holiday.
Thanks for your participation and the reply LinusR. I admit that some of the questions are very car focused, therefore making it difficult for cyclists like yourselves to answer. However, many cyclists do use the car, and that is where the environmental impact is at it's greatest. The environmental questions were very car focused, but that is where changes in travel need to be made the most. Ultimately, if every cyclist travelled like yourselves, then this would be a topic up for less discussion.
got half way through then gave up, sorry, questions were becoming too ambiguous and not giving options on some questions where multiple options were valid.
