Between or Beyond Bicycles and Cars? Navigating E-Cargo Bike Citizenship in the Transition to Sustainable Urban Mobility

Abstract

E-cargo bikes have gained academic and policy interest for their potential to replace car trips in cities. Like bicycles, they require pedaling, produce few emissions, and use cycling infrastructure, while offering capacity for transporting passengers and goods, like cars. Yet, additionally to mode and infrastructure changes, shifts in identities, culture and citizenships, are needed to challenge the dominance of automobility. This article introduces the concept of ‘e-cargo bike citizenship’ as a cultural identity shaped through e-cargo cycling practices to understand how they challenge both automobility and vélomobility in transitions to sustainable urban mobility. We analysed 108 interviews with 49 e-cargo bike users in Brighton, Leeds, and Oxford, conducted during a trial loan project. Results indicate that e-cargo bike citizenship broadens cycling identities in contexts where cycling has negative cultural associations. Additionally, e-cargo bike citizenship is often family citizenship, contrasting with individualised cycling, and contesting the norm of motorised family mobility. E-cargo cycling also enables interactions ‘inside’ between rider and passenger(s), reminiscent of automobile citizenship − although typically with less comfort and varying depending on the type of cargo bike, while being connected ‘outside’ to local communities, reinforcing a sense of belonging that echoes cycling citizenship. Our findings contribute to geography and mobilities research by considering e-cargo bikes’ hybridity, beyond cars and bicycles, and highlight the significance of citizenships in urban mobility transitions, focusing on domestic e-cargo bikes, contrasting with previous studies’ last-mile logistics focus.