Women will only cycle en masse if local authorities deliver more segregated cycle lanes

Rachel Smith - Transport Panner

03 June 2011

Rachel Smith was based in Exeter but is now a principal transport planner in Brisbane. Her Cycling Super Highways toolkit and study tour received financial support from the 2008 Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management Janet Brash Memorial Scholarship.

A colleague recently told me that she was selling her bike. She likes the idea of cycling and has no actual hostility towards her bicycle; it’s just, as she says, “Our roads are too dangerous for females”. I’m a transport planner based in Australia but I suspect my colleague’s feelings are similar to those of many women in the UK. It seems that London may have a similar problem, given that Transport for London’s recent Travel in London report found that the...