In May, Love to Ride surveyed 10,000 people registered on the Love to Ride platform.
The aims were to explore whether COVID-19 had impacted:
Here are our findings:
Almost half of the people who are new to riding, and those who normally ride less than once a week (occasional riders), noted they were riding more often in May 2020 than at this time last year.
49% of regular riders (those who ride 2 days a week or more) were riding less often than this time last year. This is likely due to the fact that many regular riders are bike commuters and therefore aren’t biking everyday to work anymore so they’re riding less often.
3 in 5 people who are new to riding, or ride occasionally, say they’re going to ride more often in the coming weeks and months.
About a third of regular riders say they’ll ride more often, but about a third also say they’ll ride less often (most likely due to not riding to work in the near future).
In the UK - half of public transportation users say they are less likely to use public transport to get to work 6-months after the lockdown ends.
In the U.S. - 2 in 5 public transit users say they are less likely to use public transport to get to work 6-months after stay at home orders are lifted.
Of public transport users that said they were less likely to use public transport to get to work 6-months after the lockdown - 57% said they would travel to work by bike instead.
11% of public transport users said they would work from home and 10% said they would commute to work by driving alone 6-months after lockdown.
17% of public transport users noted they would combine more than one mode of transport (i.e. bike and drive alone) or work from home on some days and bike to work on others. These have been grouped within ‘other’.
As frequency of riding increases, a smaller proportion of people (who normally use public transport to get to work and are less likely to do so after lockdown) indicated they would travel to work by driving alone.
16% of new riders said they would drive to work instead of using public transport compared to 6% of regular riders.
If we can encourage and support new and occasional riders to continue to ride more often at this time, then we may see a reduction in intention to commute to work by driving alone after the lockdown is lifted.
As well as riders calling for more bike infrastructure to help them to ride more often and to work after the lockdown, 32% of new riders and 22% of occasional riders noted guidance on local routes as helpful to support them to ride more often.
Similarly, regular riders also noted route guidance as helpful to support them to ride to work after lockdown and 13% of regular riders noted bike maintenance tips as helpful.
We carry out research with participants of our programs to understand their barriers, motivations, intentions and behaviors. If you're interested in getting data to inform the design of your program, or to measure your impact, then please do get in touch - hello@lovetoride.net
