Bicycle commuting in an automobile-dominated city: how individuals become and remain bike commuters in Charlotte, North Carolina

Abstract

In Charlotte, North Carolina less than one half of 1% of commuters ride a bicycle to work despite several decades of public investment in bicycle infrastructure and planning. Like many fast-growing cities of North America, Charlotte’s rapid physical growth in the past half-century has left its residents little option but to navigate the city by car. To date, research on utility cycling has paid relatively little attention to the practice of bicycle commuting in auto-dominated cities. This article uses grounded theory methodology to build a context- and time-sensitive explanation of how individuals adopt and sustain the practice of bicycle commuting in Charlotte. Through interviews with 26 Charlotte-area bicycle commuters—20 men and 6 women, mean age 40.3—, we find that, according to subjects interviewed, initiating and sustaining the practice of bicycle commuting involves the renegotiation of relationships between the cyclist and (1) the bicycle, (2) other local cyclists, (3) urban space, and (4) the workplace. Dynamics in these relationships are overlapping and simultaneous. This time- and context-sensitive explanation broadens the array of policy interventions that complement the infrastructure-centered approach to promoting cycling in Charlotte today. Elected officials, planners, and bicycle advocates stand to benefit by understanding the transition to cycling as a process of social learning that exposes individuals interested in bicycle commuting to less hostile “neighborhood” thoroughfares.

Appendix 1

See Table 2.

Table 2 Participant demographics

Appendix 2: Interview guide

Phase One: Setting the Stage.

[The goal of this section is to make participants feel comfortable by asking them questions designed to gauge how long they have been on a bike.]

• Q1: Tell me about the first time you rode a bike.

  • Did you ride a bike to and from school or university?

• Q2: How do you feel when riding a bike? Why do you do it?

• Q3: How long have you been riding, and in what capacity? For recreation, to commute? For fitness? To run errands?

• Q4: Where do you work now? What do you do?

Phase Two: From home and to the workplace.

• Q1: Take me through your most recent commute. Was it this morning? A couple of days ago? Can you describe what you did to get ready?

  • What did you bring with you?

  • What clothes did you wear?

• Q2: Why did you start commuting by bike? When did you begin?

• Q3: When you first started commuting by bike, how long did it take you to get used to your new commuting routine?

  • Did you ever make any mistakes? What were they?

  • How did you learn your route?

  • Do (or did) you ever feel unsafe? How did you respond?

• Q4: Do you ever not bike to work? What might lead you to decide to take other forms of transit?

• Q5: What are the best parts of your commute? The worst? Can you compare this to how you feel when you use other forms of transit, such as a car?

• Q6: In general, after commuting to and from work by bike, do you find yourself biking more (e.g. recreationally, socially, or for errands) than you used to?

Phase Three: Discussing the workplace.

• Q1: Has it been easy/is it easy to bike to work where you are employed?

  • OR Do you think your work would be accommodating if you biked to and from work?

• Q2: How do your coworkers feel about your biking to work? How do you feel around them when you arrive with your bike in tow?

  • OR How do you think your coworkers would feel about you biking to and from work?

Phase Four: Wrapping things up.

• Q1: What are some lessons that you would say are essential to anyone interested in commuting by bike?

• Q2: In general, what does it mean to commute by bike?

• Q3: Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you think we should discuss?