We can finally share the cycling research Auckland Transport did a few months back, interviewing Aucklanders – both cyclists and non-cyclists – about their attitudes on cycling. The survey covered over 1,000 respondents, among them about 300 at least “occasional” cyclists (several times a year or more) and within that group, 100 “regular” cyclists (at least once a week or more).
The results are highly interesting. Here are a few bits and pieces at random:
- Among “regular” cyclists, only 24% are female. Among all at least “occasional” cyclists, this rises to 37%, while in the full sample, females are 52% (unsurprisingly).
- Maori were somewhat, and Indian-ethnic people substantially overrepresented among the regular cyclists compared to the total sample.
- 64% of respondents never cycle. Not even “once a year or so” – whereas 2% of the respondents cycled 5 times a week or more.
- 66% of the total sample noted that they didn’t feel confident cycling in Auckland – interestingly, even among the “regular cyclists”, 41% still did not feel confident riding in Auckland. A sad state of affairs, and probably the key psychological reason why “selling” cycling will fail until we get better conditions.
- This is also supported by the next results – once you drill down WHY people don’t feel confident, “Danger” and “Heavy traffic” lead the list, followed by “Bad drivers” and “Bad road design”. “Lack of confidence” / “Health issues” run much lower.
The full, quite substantial report can be found here. We also previously blogged about the results for those cyclists that arrived at the survey form via CAA’s website.
