Brief report
Taking Up Cycling After Residential Relocation: Built Environment Factors

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Background

To successfully stimulate cycling, it is necessary to understand the factors that facilitate or inhibit cycling. Little is known about how changes in the neighborhood environment are related to changes in cycling behavior.

Purpose

This study aimed to identify environmental determinants of the uptake of cycling after relocation.

Methods

The RESIDential Environment Project (RESIDE) is a longitudinal natural experiment of people moving into new housing developments in Perth (Western Australia). Self-reported usual transport and recreational cycling behavior, as well as self-reported and objective built environmental factors were measured before and after residential relocation. Participants who did not usually cycle at baseline in 2003–2004 were included in the study. Logistic regression models were used to relate changes in built environmental determinants to the probability of taking up cycling after relocation (2005–2006). Analyses were carried out in 2010–2011.

Results

At baseline, 90% (n=1289) of the participants did not cycle for transport and 86% (n=1232) did not cycle for recreation. After relocation, 5% of the noncyclists took up transport-related cycling, and 7% took up recreational cycling. After full adjustment, the uptake of transport-related cycling was determined by an increase in objective residential density (OR=1.54, 95% CI=1.04, 2.26) and self-reported better access to parks (OR=2.60, 95% CI=1.58, 4.27) and other recreation destinations (OR=1.57, 95% CI=1.12, 2.22). Commencing recreational cycling mostly was determined by an increase in objective street connectivity (OR=1.20, 95% CI=1.06, 1.35).

Conclusions

Changes in the built environment may support the uptake of cycling among formerly noncycling adults.

Introduction

Cycling is a moderate-to-vigorous intensity form of physical activity,1, 2, 3 and therefore a good way to achieve recommended levels of physical activity.4, 5, 6 Apart from the health effects of cycling for recreation and transport,7 cycling for transport has beneficial effects including reductions in air pollution, CO2 gas emissions, and traffic congestion.5, 8, 9, 10 To successfully stimulate cycling within a population, it is necessary to understand the factors that facilitate or inhibit cycling.

In the past decade, many studies related environmental factors to physical activity in general and to walking specifically.11, 12, 13 Studies on the association between the environment and cycling behavior are less common and mostly cross-sectional.14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 Important limitations of cross-sectional studies are that environments may change in response to residents' preferences and that residents may choose to live in locations consistent with their preferred lifestyles.

Natural experiments of changes to the built environment that take personal preferences toward cycling into account could help determine how environmental changes are related to behavioral change. RESIDE is a longitudinal study of people moving into new neighborhoods in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia. The aim of this natural experiment was to identify how changes in objective and perceived environmental characteristics determine the uptake of cycling among formerly noncycling adults, independent of previous preferences toward cycling.

Section snippets

Study Design

The RESIDE study is a quasi-experimental longitudinal study of people moving into 74 new housing developments in Perth, Western Australia (details are described elsewhere).20 Data about self-reported cycling, individual factors, and self-reported and objective environment factors were collected before people moved to their new neighborhoods (T1: 2003–2004) and after relocation (T2: 2005–2006). The total longitudinal study sample consisted of 1427 participants. All participants in the study

Results

Table 1 shows the baseline characteristics of respondents who usually did not cycle at baseline and the percentage of noncyclists who reported cycling at follow-up. Multivariable regression analyses on the uptake of transport-related cycling (Table 2) showed that greater objective residential density, increased access to a park, and more recreation-related destinations were positively associated with an increase in transport-related cycling after relocation in the fully adjusted model. A

Discussion

Predictors of transport-related cycling and recreational cycling differed. The determinants of transport-related cycling were mostly functional: In areas with a high residential density and easy access to proximate facilities, residents were more likely to travel by bike. This is likely due to shorter distances between home and potential destinations. For recreational cycling, on the other hand, the neighborhood's physical layout appeared to be important, as indicated by determinants such as

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