Blog views - why women won't ride
Transport planner Rachel Smith writes: Last week my colleague told me that she was selling her bike. She likes the idea of cycling and has no actual hostility towards her bicycle it's just, as she says "our roads are too dangerous for females".
So why don't Australian women cycle? In other cities around the world the bicycle is a central part of life for most women.
It's not just here. The problem is the same in London too. Transport for London's latest report Travel in London found that the London cycle hire is primarily used by white men from higher-income households, thus coined by the tabloid press as "Boris' Posh Boys Toys".
A while ago I conducted focus groups with women in Brisbane to find out why the bicycle was the "elephant in the room" and what planners really needed to do to make riding acceptable. Unsurprisingly, I was not surprised with the answers I heard at coffee shops, at my yoga class and at work: women didn't want to ride because of a lack of safe and dedicated cycle infrastructure, traffic fears, personal safety fears and topography. What Australian women wanted was complete separation from parked and moving cars.