| Bicycling is widely used as a zero-polluting means of transportation, as well as a form of physical activity, thus both bicyclists and communities benefit from bicycling and accordingly to achieve a high bicycling level is a desirable societal goal. However, the level of bicycling is low in the United States compared to Canada and some European countries with similar living standards and auto ownership. Differences in the physical and social environments in these countries may explain this phenomenon. Previous research has established an association between environmental factors and bicycling. However, empirical knowledge about the influence of physical-environment and, especially social-environment factors on bicycling is limited.;This study uses data from an online survey conducted in 2006 in Davis, CA, which presents a high bicycling level, and 5 comparison small US cities. It aims to find the relative influences of physical and social environments on bicycle ownership, regular bicycling, bicycling frequency, proportions of transportation bicycling, and bicycle commuting, controlling for socio-demographics and attitude factors, by the employment of various logit models.;The results show that individual factors, especially attitude factors, play important roles in encouraging bicycling. People who chose their residential location in part because of the supportive bicycling environment favor bicycling. In other words, communities may succeed more by attracting bicycle-oriented residents than by changing the behaviors of existing residents, given adequate bicycle infrastructure to begin with. Physical-environment factors have influences on bicycling. The perceived safety of bicycling to selected destinations is positively associated with regular bicycling and bicycling frequency, suggesting the potential of an indirect influence of bicycle infrastructure on bicycling. Distances to destinations negatively correlate with proportions for transportation-oriented bicycling and bicycle commuting, implying that providing some land-use policies designed to put residents closer to destinations will lead to more transportation bicycling behaviors. Transit access encourages transportation bicycling, which may result from synergies between bicycle and transit use. The impact of Social-environment on bicycling is also shown in this study, suggesting that programs to increase bicycling should include efforts to build a bicycling-supportive community in addition to providing improved infrastructure and mixed land use patterns. |
