Operator Survey Illuminates Barriers to Bike Share Equity

May 29, 2017
Principal Investigator: Nathan McNeil
Learn more about this research by viewing the Summary Report, related publications and the full Final Report on the Project Overview page.

While bike-sharing systems become increasingly common in American cities, questions about the equity of such systems are making their way to the forefront of the conversation.

Bike share can provide a cheap and healthy means of transportation, but many systems are not serving the lower-income and minority populations who, arguably, could benefit most from having the additional travel option.

A survey of 56 bike share system operators in the United States offers an overview of how these equity concerns are being addressed.

The survey is part of a larger research effort, Evaluating Efforts to Improve the Equity of Bike Share Systems. To gain an understanding of the challenges and opportunities involved in providing more equitable bike share, TREC and NITC teamed up with the Better Bike Share Partnership: a collaboration between PeopleForBikes, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), the...

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Webinar: The Impact of Transportation-Related Barriers on Self-Perceived Physical Health among Adults in the US

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

OVERVIEW

Drawing from the framework of social determinants of health, the objective of this study is to investigate the cross-sectional association between transportation-related factors and self-perceived physical health among adults in the U.S.

Data for this study were derived from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey. An analytic sample of 71,235 respondents aged 18 and 64 years was analyzed using binary logistic regression. Of the 71,235 respondents examined, 8.9% perceived their physical health to be poor. About 36% of the respondents had fewer vehicles per individuals in the household.

Controlling for the effects of other factors, respondents who had fewer vehicles per individuals in the household were 1.27 times more likely to report poor self-perceived physical health when compared to their counterparts with more vehicles per individuals in the household (AOR=1.27, 95% CI=1.17-1...

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Webinar: Breaking Barriers to Bike Share: Insights on Equity

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Breaking Barriers to Bike Share: Insights on Equity

While the number of public bike share systems in the United States grew considerably in recent years, early evidence indicated that many systems were not serving the diverse populations of cities, particularly lower-income residents and people of color. Lack of bike share stations in...

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Webinar: Racial Bias in Driver Yielding Behavior at Crosswalks

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Webinar: Racial Bias in Driver Yielding Behavior at Crosswalks

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WEBINAR SUMMARY

This webinar discusses research exploring how social identity factors (race and gender) influence drivers’...

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Friday Transportation Seminar: Pedestrian Safety and Social Equity in Oregon

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. You can join us online at 11:30 AM.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

THE TOPIC

Past research and planning has highlighted the existence of pedestrian injury disparities throughout the US and some local agencies have performed cursory analysis in Oregon. However, no statewide analysis of pedestrian injuries in Oregon has been completed to see how these injury outcomes differ by race and income.

This presentation aims to help better understand the factors...

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Bicycling Toward Equity: Opportunities, Barriers & Policies for Vulnerable Groups

Friday Transportation Seminar: Bicycling Toward Equity: Opportunities, Barriers, and Policies for Vulnerable Groups

Friday Transportation Seminars at Portland State University have been a tradition since 2000. You can join us in person at 11:30 AM, or you can also watch online.

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

THE TOPIC

This seminar will include two papers that will be presented earlier in the week at the Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, DC. 

Adaptive Bikeshare: Expanding Bikeshare to People with Disabilities and Older Adults

John MacArthur, Portland State University
Nathan McNeil, Portland State University

Bike share systems are expanding efforts to be more equitable and accessible...

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What’s keeping people of color from using Divvy?

New Look at Philly, Chicago and NYC Shows Path to Bike-Share Equity

Webinar: A National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs. Image shows three young women biking away from the camera.

Webinar: A National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs: Best Practices and Lessons Learned

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

OVERVIEW

Connecting with cities and bike share operators from across the United States, Portland State University conducted a nationwide scan on what programs and initiatives were running to address equity in bike share. The report “National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs” documents responses from over 70 bike share systems. This resource will help cities and operators navigate the range of actions that have been implemented to make bike share systems more equitable, examine successful strategies employed across the U.S., and understand how those successes (and challenges) are being measured and articulated. In doing so, we hope the report helps bike share systems learn from the experiences of others, innovate, and more quickly move toward greater equity. The research team will be joined by a bike share operator to discuss what they learned, best practices, and where they see the future of bike share equity programs headed.

THE RESEARCH

This webinar is based on a study funded by the Better Bike Share Partnership and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) and conducted at...

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Webinar: Mobility for the People: Equity Requirements Across 239 US Shared Micromobility Programs

PRESENTATION ARCHIVE

OVERVIEW

Equity requirements in shared micromobility programs have become increasingly prevalent in recent years, but our understanding of the scope and breadth of these requirements has been relatively limited. To address this gap in understanding, we collected documentation about 239 shared micromobility programs from the U.S. and have compiled all the data into an online, interactive dashboard. In this webinar, we will discuss the kinds of equity requirements that are most prevalent, the strategies cities/agencies employ to operationalize equity, and the extent to which these programs are monitored and evaluated. We’ll present findings from our review of 239 U.S. programs, supplemented by five case studies.

In addition, we’ll introduce attendees to two practitioner-focused tools we created to accompany this work:

1)...

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