Barriers and facilitators to bicycle commuting amoung college students

Abstract

Confronted with the current challenge of urban mobility, the bicycle has been presented as an alternative to individual transportation. Studies on this topic have mainly identified the individual factors involved in the choosing of this mean of transportation, sometimes putting the environmental factors in second plan, and neglecting the person-environment implications of the bicycle use a mean of transportation. This article aimed to identify, through environmental psychology, the barrier and facilitators in the use of the bicycle among college students in the city of Florianópolis-SC. Eighteen college students (twelve men and eight woman) answered a semistructured interview. The data was organized into two categories of four subcategories each, based on the categorical-content analysis. The results indicated as barriers the Environment factors, social conjuncture, and political and personal factors. Among the facilitators, the time, practicality, motorized system, and personal factors were indicated as main characteristics. The results show a need to comprehend the use of bicycles as a mean of transportation in a contextualized way and as part of a public policy in effect. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the existence of an interpersonal dimension of traffic, which requires from its participants a sharing posture, rather than a competitive one.