Exploring gender differences in awareness of new active transportation projects: Réseau Express Vélo (REV) case study

Abstract

Many cities are currently planning and building new large-scale active transport networks to achieve a wide array of environmental, economic, and social equity goals. This is often combined with developing public campaigns to increase public awareness of their plans and introduced infrastructure to build a culture that celebrates and supports using them. While several studies explored the impacts of active transport infrastructure on users perception and travel behaviour, very little has been done to explore the factors associated with people’s awareness of such infrastructure at an early stage of their introduction. Accordingly, this study examines the factors affecting people’s likelihood of being aware of a new flagship cycling network in Montréal known as Réseau Express Vélo (REV), while understanding equity of awareness across gender identities. To achieve this goal, the study uses summary statistics and weighted multilevel logistic regressions to analyze data collected from a large-scale survey. The results of the paper show that various socioeconomic factors including age, ethnicity, income, language, as well as individuals’ travel behaviour and lifestyle are associated with being familiar with such a large bike network. Significant differences between women and men can also be observed, in which women are less likely to be aware of REV. Younger women in their 20 s tend to know much less about the project in comparison with men in the same age group. Women who identify as non-white only and used English to complete the survey are the group with the lowest probability of being aware of the project. Findings from this research unmask key aspects related to the likelihood of being aware of a new large-scale cycling network, offering important insights to transport planners, policy makers, and researchers.