- Email: [email protected]
Is bike-sharing unegalitarian?
Preventive Medicine 55 (2012) 1–2
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Preventive Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ypmed
This Month in Preventive Medicine
Is bike-sharing unegalitarian? It is becoming increasingly clear that transportation mode is one of the keys to addressing two of today's major energy-related problems: global warming and obesity (Morabia and Costanza, 2010; Rojas-Rueda et al., 2011). Switching from travel modes that consume more fossil fuels and less bodily energy to modes that consume less or no fossil fuels but involve more physical activity offers a golden opportunity for potentially tremendous public health improvements. Because transportation is an essential and structural component of our modern way of life, even modest gains occurring on mass, population-wide scales in different settings across the world could lead to sizable changes in these scourges. Bike-sharing programs have been receiving more attention from researchers lately. Since 2008, the rate of growth in bicycle -sharing schemes and fleets has probably outstripped growth in every other form of urban transport (Midgley, 2011). Today there are an estimated 375 bicycle -sharing schemes operating in 33 countries in almost every region of the world employing around 236,000 bicycles (the largest is in Hangzhou (population 8.7 million) in the Zhejiang Province of Eastern China, with an estimated 40,000 bicycles) (Midgley, 2011). The paper by Ogilvie and Goodman (2012) in this month's issue of Preventive Medicine is an excellent case in point. In their analyses they compared the personal data and area-level characteristics of around 100,000 users who registered in the first seven months of the Barclays Cycle Hire (BCH) Scheme in London to the area-level characteristics of two general populations (residents of Greater London, and residents and workers in the BCH main zone), and came to two conclusions. The first conclusion was that the usage of bike sharing was not socially homogeneous. Specifically, men and people from less deprived neighborhoods biked more than women or people from more deprived areas of London. The second conclusion was, however, extremely important: after adjustment in the multiple linear regression analyses of the number of BCH trips for proximity to bike-sharing docks (to account for the fact that people living in more deprived areas were less likely to live close to a BCH docking station than people in less deprived areas), the social trend was reversed. In particular, people from the most deprived areas (highest quintile of deprivation) made, on average, 0.6 more BCH trips per month (95% CI: 0.4, 0.8) than people from the most affluent areas (lowest quintile of deprivation) (Ogilvie and Goodman, 2012). In other words, the residents of the lowest income areas tended to share bikes more than the residents of the highest income areas when there were bike docking stations next to them. Thus, for a bike-sharing program to be more egalitarian, the distribution of bike docks needs to be thought out carefully. This may be more easily achieved when, like in New York City, high-rise housing projects are surrounded by affluent areas, than when they are relegated to the urban periphery, such as in Bogota, Columbia. But Bogota has recently extended its network of bicycle paths through lower income neighborhoods (Byrne, 2012). In large cities a sustainable and health-conscious transportation policy may also require a thoughtful articulation of bike-sharing and quality public transportation. This can be expected to provide better access to biking for people whose work commutes cannot be reasonably entirely biked. Switching modes of commuting entails more than just leaving our car to ride a bike, a bus, or a train. It may also necessitate changes in other aspects of our daily routine. The fraction of the day dedicated to transportation may change. Access to food and exercise may be modified. Accompanying children to school may need to be reorganized. All these changes can have health-related implications. There is a huge domain of population-based research that hopefully will be canvassed soon. PM will pay lots of attention to new submissions addressing these issues. References Byrne, D, 2012. This is how we ride. New York Times, May 26. Accessed 5 June 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/ opinion/sunday/this-is-how-we-ride.html?pagewanted=all. Midgley, P., 2011. Bicycle-sharing schemes: Enhancing sustainable mobility in urban areas. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Commission on Sustainable Development, Nineteenth Session, New York, 2-13 May. Accessed 5 June 2012. http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/resources/res_pdfs/csd-19/Background-Paper8-P.Midgley-Bicycle.pdf. 0091-7435/$ – see front matter © 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2012.05.008
2
This Month in Preventive Medicine Morabia, A., Costanza, M.C., 2010. It takes a train to knock down global warming and obesity. Prev. Med. 51, 449–450. Ogilvie, F., Goodman, A., 2012. The public's preventive strategies in response to the pandemic influenza A/H1N1 in France: Distribution and determinants. Prev. Med. 55 xxx-xxx. Rojas-Rueda, D., de Nazelle, A., Tainio, M., Mark, J., Nieuwenhuijsen, M.J., 2011. The health risks and benefits of cycling in urban environments compared with car use: health impact assessment study. BMJ 343, d4521http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ bmj.d4521.
Alfredo Morabia Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, E Remsen Hall, Queens College – The City University of New York, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, NY 11367, USA Michael C. Costanza 6 Newbury Close, Rushden, Northamptonshire NN10 0EU, UK E-mail address: [email protected]
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Preventive Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ypmed
This Month in Preventive Medicine
Is bike-sharing unegalitarian? It is becoming increasingly clear that transportation mode is one of the keys to addressing two of today's major energy-related problems: global warming and obesity (Morabia and Costanza, 2010; Rojas-Rueda et al., 2011). Switching from travel modes that consume more fossil fuels and less bodily energy to modes that consume less or no fossil fuels but involve more physical activity offers a golden opportunity for potentially tremendous public health improvements. Because transportation is an essential and structural component of our modern way of life, even modest gains occurring on mass, population-wide scales in different settings across the world could lead to sizable changes in these scourges. Bike-sharing programs have been receiving more attention from researchers lately. Since 2008, the rate of growth in bicycle -sharing schemes and fleets has probably outstripped growth in every other form of urban transport (Midgley, 2011). Today there are an estimated 375 bicycle -sharing schemes operating in 33 countries in almost every region of the world employing around 236,000 bicycles (the largest is in Hangzhou (population 8.7 million) in the Zhejiang Province of Eastern China, with an estimated 40,000 bicycles) (Midgley, 2011). The paper by Ogilvie and Goodman (2012) in this month's issue of Preventive Medicine is an excellent case in point. In their analyses they compared the personal data and area-level characteristics of around 100,000 users who registered in the first seven months of the Barclays Cycle Hire (BCH) Scheme in London to the area-level characteristics of two general populations (residents of Greater London, and residents and workers in the BCH main zone), and came to two conclusions. The first conclusion was that the usage of bike sharing was not socially homogeneous. Specifically, men and people from less deprived neighborhoods biked more than women or people from more deprived areas of London. The second conclusion was, however, extremely important: after adjustment in the multiple linear regression analyses of the number of BCH trips for proximity to bike-sharing docks (to account for the fact that people living in more deprived areas were less likely to live close to a BCH docking station than people in less deprived areas), the social trend was reversed. In particular, people from the most deprived areas (highest quintile of deprivation) made, on average, 0.6 more BCH trips per month (95% CI: 0.4, 0.8) than people from the most affluent areas (lowest quintile of deprivation) (Ogilvie and Goodman, 2012). In other words, the residents of the lowest income areas tended to share bikes more than the residents of the highest income areas when there were bike docking stations next to them. Thus, for a bike-sharing program to be more egalitarian, the distribution of bike docks needs to be thought out carefully. This may be more easily achieved when, like in New York City, high-rise housing projects are surrounded by affluent areas, than when they are relegated to the urban periphery, such as in Bogota, Columbia. But Bogota has recently extended its network of bicycle paths through lower income neighborhoods (Byrne, 2012). In large cities a sustainable and health-conscious transportation policy may also require a thoughtful articulation of bike-sharing and quality public transportation. This can be expected to provide better access to biking for people whose work commutes cannot be reasonably entirely biked. Switching modes of commuting entails more than just leaving our car to ride a bike, a bus, or a train. It may also necessitate changes in other aspects of our daily routine. The fraction of the day dedicated to transportation may change. Access to food and exercise may be modified. Accompanying children to school may need to be reorganized. All these changes can have health-related implications. There is a huge domain of population-based research that hopefully will be canvassed soon. PM will pay lots of attention to new submissions addressing these issues. References Byrne, D, 2012. This is how we ride. New York Times, May 26. Accessed 5 June 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/ opinion/sunday/this-is-how-we-ride.html?pagewanted=all. Midgley, P., 2011. Bicycle-sharing schemes: Enhancing sustainable mobility in urban areas. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Commission on Sustainable Development, Nineteenth Session, New York, 2-13 May. Accessed 5 June 2012. http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/resources/res_pdfs/csd-19/Background-Paper8-P.Midgley-Bicycle.pdf. 0091-7435/$ – see front matter © 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2012.05.008
2
This Month in Preventive Medicine Morabia, A., Costanza, M.C., 2010. It takes a train to knock down global warming and obesity. Prev. Med. 51, 449–450. Ogilvie, F., Goodman, A., 2012. The public's preventive strategies in response to the pandemic influenza A/H1N1 in France: Distribution and determinants. Prev. Med. 55 xxx-xxx. Rojas-Rueda, D., de Nazelle, A., Tainio, M., Mark, J., Nieuwenhuijsen, M.J., 2011. The health risks and benefits of cycling in urban environments compared with car use: health impact assessment study. BMJ 343, d4521http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ bmj.d4521.
Alfredo Morabia Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, E Remsen Hall, Queens College – The City University of New York, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, NY 11367, USA Michael C. Costanza 6 Newbury Close, Rushden, Northamptonshire NN10 0EU, UK E-mail address: [email protected]