Using bicycles for organising everyday life
Encouraging families to cycle
Introduction
As a result of task sharing and the erosion of traditional gender roles, the definition of a family as a “married couple with children and clear division of responsibilities between husband and wife” has changed. Additionally, families of today are more diverse than ever: patchwork families, single parents, LGBT parenting – these are just a few examples. Mobility, everyday activities and time budgets play an important role for the organization and interplay of every kind of family. In this context, family mobility is characterized by a large range of obligations and work-related activities outside the home, which account for around two thirds of all trips.
Mobility patterns
How mobile are families and how do they realize mobility?
Parents
Parents are highly mobile – they make more trips per day than singles and couples without children of the same age group in particular. Single parents with on average 4.2 trips per day are most mobile, with parents in couple households making 3.7 trips per day. By way of comparison, couples of parenting age that do not have children make 3.2 trips per day. In the context of family mobility, two thirds of all trips cover obligations and work-related activities outside the home. This includes, for example, employment and training but also family and household work, which involves accompanying children and other relatives [BMVI 2015].
The transport choice of parents is unambiguous: 98% of all families in Germany own at least one passenger car (all households: 82%), and more than half of the family households have two or more passenger cars. Around 80% of all parents state that they have access to a passenger car at any time. Many people consider a car to be the solution for their trips, which change as their family grows, and for balancing the family’s mobility needs and their own professional needs. Nevertheless, despite this high availability of passenger cars, parents use other means of transport for one third of their trips: 20% walk, 9% cycle and 5% use public transport [MiD 2008].
Children and young people
When children and young people go out without adults, they mostly walk or cycle. The “walk to school” campaign, which has been run by the Kinderhilfswerk (German Children's Fund) and VCD Deutschland e.V. (German Transport Club) since 2009, examined this theory within the context of a survey and found that four out of five children prefer to go to school together with friends or siblings and do not want to be taken to school by car. Nowadays, however, children rarely travel on their own: they are accompanied by parents or grandparents during nearly all their trips. In 2000, only 17% of first-year schoolchildren went to school unaccompanied, while in 1970, 91% were unaccompanied. Depending on the children’s age, between 36% and 57% of the journeys to school were in their parents' car. The proportion of accompanied children decreases as the children grow older and is higher for girls than for boys. However, on the whole it is continuing to increase [Hänel 2012].
To motivate children and young people to cycle or walk, thereby encouraging them to adopt sustainable mobility patterns, the design of the walking and cycling infrastructure has to be adapted to the specific requirements of children and young people.
Family mobility by bicycle
The use of bicycles in total and in families varies greatly from city to city, but there are also differences between the rural regions. The “Family mobility in everyday life” study considers regions like the Emsland to be very bicycle-oriented, but at the same time, there are cities in other regions which are, as a result of a transport policy that has been oriented towards passenger cars for many years, considered to be less bicycle-friendly and therefore unsafe. But it is not only external factors that impact on the use of bicycles. For example, the distance regarded as being appropriate to be covered by bicycle also plays a role [Bauer et al. 2017].
How can bicycles satisfy the mobility requirements of families?
These aspects mean that families face major challenges when they want to adopt sustainable mobility patterns: How can my child get to school safely and afterwards to music school? How can major shopping expeditions be undertaken on a bicycle? Where can my high-quality cargo bicycle be parked? These are only three of the many questions that parents ask themselves, in particular against the background that the mobility of parents and children influences the amount of quality time that families can spend together. It is therefore of great importance for the promotion of sustainable family mobility that trips can be efficiently and safely combined. To promote this, the transport and settlement structure, which has so far been geared to a car-oriented society, as well as the public space in cities and rural regions should be transformed.
Network design and ensuring road safety
In addition to the already mentioned aspects, family-oriented cycling planning should also provide safe infrastructure and an area-wide cycling and walking network. To support children and young people in their independent mobility and to convince parents that their children do not have to make all their trips by car, this network should directly interlink relevant amenity and play areas. Moreover, it is important to interlink important origins and destinations – i.e. places where people work, shop and spend their leisure time – with each other as well as with residential neighbourhoods within this network. The walking and cycling network should also include comprehensible signage and ensure safe use during the day and the hours of darkness.
In short, the focus should be on
- an area-wide safe network of footpaths and cycle tracks, divided into primary and secondary routes,
- safe and as direct as possible routes between all relevant origins and destinations,
- safe routing for cyclists at nodal points and
- cycling and walking-friendly traffic light phasing.
Family-friendly walking and cycling planning must also take account of children cycling on footways.
- Children under the age of 8 must cycle on footways and may be accompanied by adults,
- Children are allowed to cycle on footways in both directions,
- Children are allowed to cycle on all cycle tracks (physically separated as well as mandatory and advisory cycle lanes) from the age of 8, but do not have to do so until the age of 10.
Therefore, footways, crossings and visual axes have to be planned in such a manner that no children, accompanying persons or other road users are placed at risk.
Promoting independent mobility
As described above, the independent mobility of children has significantly decreased. The concern for the safety of children in road traffic is one factor for parents to restrict the independent range of action of their children and an important reason for the high number of trips that parents make by car to drop off or pick up their children under ten years of age. This need to protect their children can be found in the most different shapes, in big cities due to social heterogeneity and crime, but also in rural areas, particularly with regard to major transport arteries and the speeds of passenger car traffic. However, the fact that road safety can only be acquired through practical experience is often ignored in this context. The earlier children are allowed onto the roads by themselves and learn to independently and safely find their way through road traffic, the better they will be able to be aware of risks and dangers and to assess these situations [Stete/Schober 2016].
Throughout Germany, there are a number of different projects and campaigns that directly address schoolchildren and aim to promote independent and sustainable mobility. The VCD for example wants to use its “FahrRad! Fürs Klima auf Tour” (Bike for the Climate) youth campaign to motivate young people to make as many journeys to school and leisure trips as possible independently by bicycle. Local authorities can support this and similar initiatives by informing schools and non-educational institutions about such schemes and inviting them to join the campaign.
Urban development, amenity value and residential environment
In suburban, rural areas, but also in periurban areas with less frequent public transport services, mobility in total and of families in particular is strongly characterized by cars. For this reason, conditions should be created that allow families – wherever they live – to optimally coordinate their mobility without a car and that enable children and young people to enjoy safe and independent mobility. A key element is the promotion of local mobility. In addition, a good educational and local amenity infrastructure is also of high importance to turn residential neighbourhoods into a living environment. To enable children and young people to freely develop, the amenity value of the residential environment as well as the existing supply of space for non-motorized traffic is essential.
In the city of Freiburg for example, the establishment of traffic-calmed areas creates an important possibility for improving the quality of the environment in residential neighbourhoods. Since the beginning of the 1980s, more and more traffic-calmed areas have been designated in new-build housing areas. In addition, the city has developed a specific strategy for existing streets in older residential areas. Upon request of the majority of the residents of existing residential streets, these streets are modified by cost-effective measures in such a way that they can also be designated traffic-calmed areas. This is done by, for instance, strips across the road, markings, bollards or staggered parking spots. Residents can find the course of action for transforming an existing residential street into a traffic-calmed area on the website of the garden and civil works department of the city of Freiburg.
Trailers, cargo bicycles and high-quality cycle parking facilities
How am I supposed to do my weekend shopping by bicycle? And if I buy an expensive cargo bicycle, where can I park it so that it is secure and sheltered? These questions have to be answered by many families that want to change their mobility taking into account sustainable aspects. In Copenhagen, for example, 28% of all families with two children own a cargo bicycle [Behrensen 2017]. The CycleLogistics project, which analysed 6,000 purchases at supermarkets and hardware stores, comes to the conclusion that 51% of all motorized transport operations in European cities could be shifted to bicycles, bicycle trailers or cargo bicycles. The greatest shift potential is inherent in private trips (69%). The cycling portal key topic “The (re)discovery of cargo bicycles. Alternatives to private and commercial cargo transport” provides a variety of information on cargo bikes, ranging from the different types to cargo bicycle sharing.
In cities such as Berlin, Munich, Hamburg or Cologne, families travelling by cargo bicycle have become a common sight. Since 1 January 2017, the city of Munich has followed Vienna and Oslo in providing financial assistance totalling 1,000 euros for the private purchase of e-cargo bicycles on the basis of the Electric Mobility Funding Guidelines. This financial incentive can enable local communities to support families in their sustainable mobility.
If a family decides to buy an expensive electric cargo bicycle, the question arises as to where a secure parking facility can be found. Many cities do not sufficiently provide secure parking facilities that are adequately spaced for cargo bicycles or bicycles with trailers – at important origins and destinations in the road environment as well as at residential buildings. The city of Potsdam addressed the issue of bicycle parking at residential buildings and commissioned – in close cooperation with the local housing company, ProPotsdam – a guide for the planning of bicycle parking facilities at residential buildings. The guide is addressed to housing companies and aims to demonstrate opportunities for integrating secure and user-friendly bicycle parking facilities for different tasks (new construction, refurbishing the existing building stock) and for different building and settlement types. But as mentioned before, sufficiently spaced parking facilities in the road environment are important as well. The city of Osnabrück, for example, has installed 32 bicycle parking stands in the city centre within the context of the “Mobile future” project, which, due to their enlarged spacing, are also suitable for the secure parking of cargo bicycles.
Summary and Outlook
Families can also be mobile without a car – but for this purpose it is necessary that a variety of factors be taken into account and interlinked by city and traffic planners. One of the most important aspects is to provide appropriately safe and reliable infrastructure that enables children and young people to be independently mobile. In this way, the positive experience gained in their childhood and youth can be decisive for the future sustainable mobility behaviour of children and young people. On the other hand, this enables parents to be assured that their children safely reach school, friends or just the playground.