Physical Activity and Public Health Laboratory

OVERVIEW

In Fall 2020 we conducted a survey of bicycle coalition and advocacy groups across the USA. Bicycle Coalitions and advocacy organizations create and sponsor programs which promote the education, engineering, equity, encouragement, and evaluations of biking throughout the community that they serve. All coalitions are different in what they promote, how they promote, and who they promote to. Our goal was to understand to what capacity U.S. bicycle coalitions and advocacy organizations were promoting programs aimed towards underrepresented populations (low-income, LGBTQ+, racial/ethnic minorities, women, youth).

Below you will find our PDF version of the Summary of Results, as well as the methodology and other main results. We hope that these results will help encourage and inspire bicycle advocacy organizations/coalitions to realize the need for equitable opportunities for bicycling. We are excited to continue our research on equitable opportunities in the bicycling advocacy world, and look forward to being a partner in writing the narrative on bicycle equity. The published manuscript can be found here:

Elliott, L. D., & Bopp, M. (2022, 2022/06/01/). Bicycle advocacy organizations and coalitions’ capacity for equitable programming: Findings from a national survey. Journal of Transport & Health, 25, 101367. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2022.101367

Link to manuscript about findings of both coalitions and universities’ prioritization of equity

If you have any questions about this project or its data, please feel free to email Lucas D. Elliott, a PAPH Doctoral student, at lde5065@psu.edu .

2020 Bicycle Coalition Equity Capacity REPORT

METHODS

Coalitions (n = 287) were invited to take an online survey via email, which asked questions based on community demographics, basic functioning of the coalition, barriers/desired tools for reaching underrepresented populations, as well as asked participants to rank the coalition’s most important outcomes and priorities. 95 coalitions responded to the survey, and complete responses (n = 71) were kept for analysis. Frequencies and descriptives described the data.

RESULTS

Demographics of Coalitions can be found here: Coalition Demographics and Functioning

Average ranking of the priorities and most important outcomes for coalitions:

(1 being the most important)

Priorities – Avg. Rank
		M	SD
1	Safety Education	2.50	1.5
2	Encouragement	2.53	1.3
3	Voice for Bikers	3.31	1.7
4	Advocacy Environment	3.59	1.6
5	Underserved	4.14	1.4
6	Social	4.93	1.3
Outcomes – Avg. Rank
		M	SD
1	Health Outcomes	3.08	1.7
2	Sustainability issues (pollution)	3.64	1.9
3	Providing equitable opportunities	4.27	2.6
4	Social outcomes	4.39	1.9
5	Decreased traffic	4.75	2.4
6	Economic outcomes	4.98	1.9
7	Awareness of local bike issues	5.19	2.3
8	Biking for Biking Sake	5.7	2.4

Average ranked most common barriers and desired tools for programming to underrepresented populations:

(1 being the most common barrier OR most desired tool)

Barriers – Avg. Rank
		M	SD
1	Lack of Financial Resources	2.00	1.3
2	Lack of Personnel	2.29	1.4
3	Lack of Infrastructure	3.40	1.4
4	Lack of Interest	3.99	1.1
5	Awareness throughout the community	4.61	1.4
6	Unaware of Strategies	4.71	1.5
Desired Tools – Avg. Rank
		M	SD
1	Grant Funding	1.92	1.2
2	Partnerships with other orgs	2.28	1.0
3	Training for Leadership/Members	2.77	0.9
4	Incentives from outside orgs	3.03	1.0