This thesis is an exploration of the gender gap in bicycling which uses Blue bike data from the Boston area. The author's use of spatial, statistical as well as qualitative methods to understand how the built environment can affect the choice to bike is a much needed addition to transportation research.
There is a staggering gender gap in bicycling with nearly twice as many men biking to work than women in most American cities. In its nascency, bikeshare was posited as the solution to the bicycling gender gap by removing barriers associated with bicycle ownership such as maintenance, repair, and storage, but the gender disparity persists. Urban design philosophy and related research suggest the built environment can strongly influence personal mode choice. Considerations such as land use diversity; household and employment density; and the street network design at a trip’s origin and destination may have substantial impact on a person’s decision to use bikeshare or another mode of transportation. This study employs greater Boston as a case study to investigate the relationships between characteristics of the built environment and gender parity, as well as ridership by gender, at bikeshare stations. It also serves as an example of how to incorporate gender mainstreaming into local transportation planning and emphasizes the value of gender disaggregated data. Results show residential density, transit frequency, and job access by transit are likely to incite greater bikeshare demand by female riders. Using these results, planners can design safer streets for multimodal transportation and site bikeshare stations near transit to advance equity and promote bikeshare use by women.
