Story by Laura Arenschield / Ohio State News / arenschield.2@osu.edu
People agree that bike commuting improves health, reduces air pollution and eases traffic, a recent survey suggests. But that wasn’t enough to get most people to commute by bike.
New research indicates that a person’s neighborhood may play a large role in influencing the decision to commute by bike.
The study, published recently in the Journal of Transport and Land Use, could give city and regional planners new clues about how to design neighborhoods, streets and bike trails with active commuting in mind, said Yujin Park, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate at The Ohio State University Knowlton School of Architecture.
“Bicycling contributes to urban vitality and, as a planner, I was interested in what the most influencing factors could be to make people be willing to choose a bicycle to commute,” Park said. “We are interested in the urban factors that make a person ride a bicycle more.”
See what factors may influence bikers to commute more in different communities than others.