Cycling for Active Transport and Recreation in Australia: Status Review and Future Directions

Riding a bicycle is a potentially important but neglected form of sustainable transport that can also contribute to achieving adequate levels of physical activity. Despite the clear health and environmental benefits of cycling, there has been no systematic review of strategies to increase or promote cycling in Australia, nor any consideration of a cycling-oriented health promotion research agenda. This paper reviews the available Australian published and grey literature reporting evaluation of strategies to increase or promote cycling (n=17). The prevalence of cycling in Australia is defined from a range of sources, the main influences on cycling are synthesized, the little available evidence of effectiveness of strategies to increase or promote cycling is reviewed, and research priorities are identified. This review highlights the relatively low level of regular cycling for transport in Australia, and the marked gender disparity of riders. However, cycling is a very popular recreational activity, suggesting that under favorable conditions some of these riders could substitute short car trips for bicycle trips. Almost all the identified cycling promotion program evaluations have shown some degree of increase in cycling, suggesting that if they were implemented on a wider scale and with adequate resources they would lead to increases in regular cycling levels. A number of suggestions are made for cycling related research in Australia.

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