This blog was written by Sina Zhen, Sustainable Mobility Officer, ICLEI World Secretariat, with contributions from Yiqian Zhang, Sustainable Mobility Officer, ICLEI World Secretariat

Data from all over the world has shown a lack of gender parity in active mobility such as cycling. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, cities across the globe have observed increased popularity of active mobility with bike surge as most visible including women cyclists. In response, cities are starting to make pop-up cycling lanes permanent to attract more people to use active modes. The pandemic has presented a unique opportunity to build infrastructure that promotes sustainability through walking and cycling among women. As we adapt to the new normal, cities may want to ask: How can we maintain the positive momentum of cycling among women in the post-covid era?

In May 2021, ICLEI’s Sustainable Mobility team in partnership with Autonomy Digital hosted a session on “Empowering women through active mobility” where the panelists discussed the barriers and solutions in redesigning and recreating gender-inclusive public spaces for active mobility. The diverse panel of experts provided insights from three regions. This blog will highlight key insights shared during the session.

In India, women are over-represented as pedestrians and under-represented as cyclist

Sonal Shah, Founder of The Urban Catalysts, opened the session with two important questions: 1) In what way is walking and cycling important? and 2) Why should cities conduct gender assessments? Both questions raised important findings regarding active mobility among women in India. Based on research in tier-two and tier-three cities in India, the study found that although women made fewer trips than men overall, they made 1.6 times more trips by walking than men, whereas only making one-fifth as many cycling trips as men. In this sense, we see that women in India are more represented as pedestrians but significantly less represented as cyclists, a trend seen across the Global South. She also shared that women make 61% of all walking trips, making this mode critical in terms of gender-sensitive planning. Hence, it is imperative to find out the barriers in the safety and comfort for women as pedestrians.

On the contrary, of all the cycling trips, only 15% were made by women, showing the need for targeted strategies to increase women’s share of cycling. Sonal also highlighted that it is imperative to also disaggregate the data into age. How many girls are currently cycling and will continue to cycle as adults? What are the barriers preventing girls from cycling?

Removing barriers to active mobility for women in Nigeria

In 1957, a bike was a prize for women in Nigeria but as time passed by, the hype for bikes started to phase out and private vehicles became the new status symbol. What factors affect women walking and cycling in African cities? Emmanuel John, Director of Africa Sustainable Urban Mobility Course and Coordinator for Open Streets Abuja, shared some insights into a gender aggregated survey of urban mobility in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. One of the key findings was that 84% of those surveyed who carried two bags were women and 95% of the 119 commuters traveling with children were women. This reaffirms that women and men have different travel patterns and that, women remain as the predominant care provider in many societies, even today.

The study also highlights women as captive users of walking; when asked of their preferred mode choice, only 0.5% of women would prefer to walk. However, if better infrastructure and facilities are provided, the preference for personal car drops, and more women prefer to use public transport and to cycle. Currently, the cycling mode split for women that participated in the survey is 0% but with adequate facility, 13% of women would cycle. This shows that the infrastructure development and policies in Abuja are currently not gender-sensitive, although there are current efforts in policy reforms to change that narrative. One of the solutions presented to the Nigerian government is known as #Love30, asks the government to reduce road speeds to 30kph and to factor in gender in infrastructure design.

Based in the Netherlands, Mirjam also shared insights from her native country. The Dutch are known for their cycling culture. In some cities in the Netherlands, 46% of trips are made by bike – it is something that has been built upon for decades. The Dutch Manual for Bicycle Traffic requires separated, dedicated bike lanes for all roads with speed limits up to 50 kph. Although this requires more space and cost, safe infrastructure is a must for municipalities in order to attract cyclists, especially women cyclists, which is evident as the Netherlands have the closest gender parity in cycling. The Netherlands have also done extended research on traffic lights, where Mirjam shared that cycling infrastructures should be open, bright, and well-lit for women’s safety and security. Another important aspect is to have a comprehensive network of cycling infrastructure, which Dutch cities exemplify and which Paris is also ambitiously embarking on.

The importance of safety and access for women to partake in active mobility

There are two aspects of safety: the perception of safety and the experience of safety. In developing nations, road safety is particularly important as traffic rules are not fully enforced and protected bike lanes are extremely limited. Other aspects of safety include crime and sexual harassment where women fear harassment and assaults more than men. There is a clear need for women to have access to bicycles, but issues of safety, street harassment, and poor infrastructure limits bike transportation for women. Hence, safety needs to be addressed in a holistic view.

Access is an important aspect in women partaking in the cycling revolution. A couple of access barriers in two different regions and solutions include:

• In India, a large group of women belong to the informal working class and have limited access to mobile phones. There needs to be an alternative mechanism in registration and registration fees in order to reach groups that have limited access.
• In the Netherlands, research was conducted to find out who is not cycling and why. Some of the access barriers include cost and knowledge. With this information, two initiatives were implemented; cycling banks for women and providing second-hand bikes to children where families can’t afford them.  In the Dutch capital, the Ministry of Amsterdam is providing cycling education to immigrant women to learn how to ride a bike; basics like balancing, as well as maintenance and repair.

Gender-inclusive designs and policies need to include women in mobility planning

The mobility sector remains a male-dominated field. Although, in recent years, we have seen an uptake of women entering the sector, technical and leadership roles are predominantly male. There needs to be dedicated effort to increase women participation, to enhance female leadership in the sector and to encourage male allyship in promoting and hearing female voices in order to design for a more gender-neutral infrastructure for active mobility. As the African proverb states, “If all you have is a hammer, everything around you looks like a nail”. If only male perspectives were considered, then the design will likely only benefit men, so it is imperative to have mobility planning that includes both men and women.