Bikeable cities of tomorrow: A Chinese perspective on the built and the perceived environments - Thesis

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Bikeable cities of tomorrow

A Chinese perspective on the built and the perceived environments

Chevalier, A.

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2020

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Chevalier, A. (2020). Bikeable cities of tomorrow: A Chinese perspective on the built and the

perceived environments.

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BIKEABLE CITIES

OF TOMORROW

A

Chinese Perspective on the Built

and

the Perceived Environments

ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor

aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus

prof. dr. ir. K.I.J. Maex

ten overstaan van een door het College voor Promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen

op maandag 22 juni 2020, te 15:00 uur door_{Aline Chevalier}

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Promotores: Prof. dr. M.C.G. te Brömmelstroet Universiteit van Amsterdam Prof. dr. ir. L. Bertolini Universiteit van Amsterdam

Copromotor: Prof. dr. L. Xu Tongji University

Overige leden: Prof. dr. ir. T. Tillema Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Prof. dr. K. Pfeffer Universiteit Twente

Prof. dr. R. Oldenziel Technische Universiteit Eindhoven Prof. dr. J.J.M. Hemel Universiteit van Amsterdam Dr. ir. C.J.M. Karsten Universiteit van Amsterdam Dr. A. A. Nikolaeva Universiteit van Amsterdam

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As a student, I rode my bicycle daily in France. This habit was reinforced as I got impressed by the quality of the cycling environment once I moved to Den-mark. Mimicking the local population, I was using my bicycle for all utilitarian purposes, even for longer distances. After moving to Ireland, cycling became a life style for me. Not only I was cycling for commuting and shopping, but I started to spend most of my free time on wheels, wandering across the island, mostly under the rain, all senses alert, enjoying the fusion bicycles provide with the surrounding environment.

When arriving in China more than eight years ago, I was delighted to set foot into another cycling nation. Two-wheeled vehicles were everywhere, all kinds of people using them, for many Chinese families the only child sitting on the extra seat tied to the grand-parents’ bicycle. To a western eye, it was an amazement to see these large fleets crowding at the traffic lights, swaying to the rhythm of the street, sometimes setting sometimes holding pace with other road users.

Of course, my experience of Shanghai had no comparison with the one I would have had some twenty years earlier when the bicycle mode share was over 50% in most Chinese cities. However, despite a decrease almost by half of the bicycle use in Shanghai, my impressions did not greatly differ from the ones described by the photographer Wang Wenlan in the 1990s: “During rush hours, countless bicycles pour out of hundreds of thousands of small lanes. The flowing traffic of bicycles makes a series of magnificent long dragon formations as they circle and cross the various overpasses in the cities. This mobile “Great Wall” is a marvellous spectacle that cannot be observed anywhere else in the world. When you are in the midst of it, you feel like you are the blood in the veins of society, lively and vigorous, sensing endless potential. Bicycles thus seem to have souls, pulses, and breath (Wang, Wenlan1991).”

As a matter of facts, bicycles remain inescapable inhabitants of the city, parked on every pavements, in every lanes or courtyards and on every land-ings, even in the 30 stories buildings. Wang Wenlan’s statement is as vivid as it was 20 years ago: “In China, wherever there are people, there are bicycles.” When I arrived in the early 2010s, cycling as a practice was however indis-putably on the decline. Some five years later, the appearance of the dock-less shared bikes all over the city set bicycles once again at the heart of the Chinese urban life. This confirmed to me the urgent necessity to study a practice which is intrinsically part of the urban landscape and yet widely under-investigated

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in this country. In fact, the various perceptions in terms of physical environ-ment and personal appraisal as well as the objective and subjective barriers in cycling remain mostly outstanding issues. In an effort to answer some of these pending questions, I decided to investigate not only the effect of the built environment, but also and maybe mostly the various perceptions attached to the practice of cycling.

This endeavour also finds its roots in my personal sense of the Chinese city. While strolling in Shanghai and various Chinese cities of different sizes and with different historical, geographical and socio-economical backgrounds, I went to ask myself various questions relating not only to the future of cycling but rather to the one of Chinese cities themselves. It occurred to me that in order to understand the bicycle’s position in the city, the problem could not be approached as an entity standing on its own, especially when considering the complexity of urban mobility in general.

Although being a foreigner in China could be viewed as a hindrance to fully grasp all the aspects related to cycling in this country I believe it to become a strength when tackling the problem on a more global point of view. In fact, as time went by and my understanding was progressing, the imperative of a multidisciplinary approach grew stronger in my mind.

As a result, my initial ambition to investigate bikeability has driven me into a five years journey across multiple disciplines. When I started my PhD in Tongji University (Shanghai) I was not expecting to travel that much both intellectually and geographically. But capricious winds sometimes take the traveler much farther than he had intended to. Over the course of my encoun-ters and exchanges with scholars from all around the world, I often got to redi-rect my steps towards a new approach through the lens of different fields. And these figurative peregrinations ended by a move to Amsterdam, in a literal sense this time. Although these course-alteration points were often a source of exhaustion and sometimes frustration, they were highly stimulating and helped me grow as a researcher and as a world citizen. This personal growth and the present research would have never been possible without the valuable insights of specialists that kindly opened up their fields to me.

First and foremost I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my super-visor, Pr. Marco te Brommelstroet (UvA), to be the catalyst for the completion of this thesis not only by making all of this technically and administratively possible but also for his enthusiasm, availability and genuine encouragements. I am equally grateful to Pr. Luca Bertolini (UvA) who, by his cheerful and at-tentive personality revived my spirit and along with the other colleagues of

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the Urban Cycling Institute restored my endeavour to bring this project to an end. I am also grateful to BAM for supporting me financially in the finishing straight line. Moreover, I would like to thank Pr. Xu Leiqing (Tongji Univer-sity) for kindly supporting me in my choice of topic, always granting me with the greatest freedom in any of my academic choices, works and pursuits.

Through my cooperation with R. Clancy, Professor of Philosophy (SJTU), I greatly benefited from his thoughts and perspectives on the urban phenomenon. Another fundamental aspect of my research dwells in statistical and mathe-matical modelling. In this regard, the expertise of J. Liu, Professor in Statis-tics (SJTU), and M. Charlemagne, Professor in MathemaStatis-tics (SJTU), was most valuable. I ow them a lot for the variety and quality of the statistical models which are the result of captivating, yet time-consuming discussions. To each of them, thank you for your time, energy, and passion.

The comprehensive approach developed in this dissertation was initially triggered by passionate exchanges with R. LeGates, Emeritus Professor of Ur-ban Planning (UC Berkley), who kindly granted me with valuable directions for my research. Its development would not have been as polished without the effective reviews and meaningful recommendations of L. Laurian, Professor in Urban and Regional Planning (University of Iowa). I am very grateful for their help to meet international standards in Urban Planning, and want to sincerely thank them for their support.

Also I thank my native-speaker friends (Galen, Joel and Elise) who largely contributed to the quality of the language employed in this thesis. In par-ticular, I am grateful to Pr. J. Tybon (SJTU) for all the hard work she put into this fastidious task. My sincere thanks also goes to Pr. Chen Guangxing (Shanghai Foreign Studies University) for his constant support in accurately translating my work into Chinese whenever necessary, thus insuring the ex-actness of working tools such as the questionnaires employed in the various investigations.

Last but not least, I want to thank my daughter and my husband for their patience and acknowledge all the time and attentions I had to give up on them in order to complete this exciting project.

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Publications

Journals

Chevalier, Aline (2020). ‘When Connectivity Makes Safer Routes to School: Conclusions From Aggregate Data on Child Transportation in Shanghai’. In: Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Under review.

Chevalier, Aline, Manuel Charlemagne and Leiqing Xu (2019a). ‘Bicycle acceptance on campus: Influence of the built environment and shared bikes’. In: Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment 76, pp. 211–235. doi:10.1016/j.trd. 2019.09.011.

Chevalier, Aline, Manuel Charlemagne and Leiqing Xu (2019b). ‘可骑行性在中国的定 义’. In: 上海城市规划 (Shanghai Urban Planning Review) 02. In Chinese.

Chevalier, Aline, Manuel Charlemagne and Leiqing Xu (2019c). ‘家长为什么不骑自行车 带孩子上学：安全感知如何定义？’. In: 北京规划建设 (Beijing Planning Review). In Chinese.

Chevalier, Aline, Manuel Charlemagne and Leiqing Xu (2020). ‘Beyond the dream of Modern Cities: Moving towards the practicalities of life’. In: Habitat International. Under review.

Chevalier, Aline and Leiqing Xu (2020a). ‘Data on public bicycle acceptance among Chinese university populations’. In: Data in Brief 28, p. 104946. doi:10.1016/j. dib.2019.104946.

Chevalier, Aline and Leiqing Xu (2020b). ‘On the applicability of a Western bikeability index in the Chinese context’. In: International Review for Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development 8.1, pp. 59–93. doi:10.14246/irspsd.8.1_59.

Book chapters

Chevalier, Aline, Manuel Charlemagne and Leiqing Xu (2017). ‘Towards a definition of bikeability in the Chinese context’. In: Activating Space: Returning to Human-Centered Urban Planning and Design. Accepted/in press. IACP Annual Conference. Harbin, China: Springer.

Chevalier, Aline, Manuel Charlemagne and Leiqing Xu (2018a). ‘Cycling to school: Identifying patterns in safety perception’. In: Sharing Cities: Challenges and Re-sponses to New Urban Planning. Accepted/in press. Xian, China: Sage.

Clancy, Rockwell F. and Aline Chevalier (2018). ‘Urban design, ethics, and happiness: Theoretical perspectives applied to Chinese urban cycling’. In: Technology and the City. Accepted/in press. Springer.

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Conferences

Chevalier, Aline, Manuel Charlemagne and Leiqing Xu (2018b). ‘Improving Bicycle ac-ceptance: On the impact of station-less shared-bikes and built environment’. In: The Continuing City: People, planning, and the long haul to urban resurgence. 58th Annual ACSP Conference. Buffalo, New York, USA.

Chevalier, Aline and Julia Gabriele Harten (2020). ‘Mobility Practices, Micro-economies, and the Street: Beautification and Design Governance in Shanghai’. In: American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting. AAG Annual Conference 2020. Denver, United-States.

Chevalier, Aline and Leiqing Xu (2017). ‘On the applicability of a Western bikeabil-ity index in the Chinese context’. In: Happy Cbikeabil-ity, Happy Life. SPSD International Conference. Seoul, South Korea.

Others

Chevalier, Aline (2006). ‘Orientations for the Regeneration of Saint Michel’s Prison in Toulouse (France)’. Manuscript in French. MA thesis. Architecture School of Ver-sailles, France.

Chevalier, Aline (2007). ‘Royaumont Abbey (1864 -1905): Exemple of a 19th century ar-chitectural restoration’. Manuscript in French. MA thesis. Versailles Saint-Quentin University, Faculty of History and Sociology, France.

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Chapter 1 Introduction

Knowing what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

Confucius1

Due to their rapid development and expansion, Chinese megacities are crys-tallising current socio-economical and environmental problems, in a manner and on a scale never before seen. In view of the multiple and complex sustain-ability issues to which urban China is increasingly confronted, drastic mea-sures have been and are being undertaken in terms of planning and design solutions.

In relation to the problem of urban mobility, solutions and approaches are based on global knowledge developed throughout the past few decades that, despite a growing attention given to social and environmental issues in cur-rent policy and research, fails to reach substantial achievements in general and to address the paradigmatic change in Chinese urbanity in particular. Scholars nourish a growing interest for liveability while sustainability is now widely acknowledged as a necessary means to balance urban growth. As a socially inclusive and environmentally-friendly transportation mode, cycling can easily be set at the core of the debate around globalization and urban de-velopment. But cycling is also – and perhaps most importantly – a human-scaled, geographically-localized practice which thus imposes another form of debates, turning the attention towards the complexity of sociocultural circum-stances within each context investigated. Eventually, all these debates relate to personal experiences and call for a critical examination of the urban phe-nomenon in the light of societal and individual perceptions. This thesis aims to contribute to the debates on this complex and intricate problem by studying urban cycling (i) as an inherent part of a global transportation system and yet (ii) deeply ingrained in the context specificities, while (iii) being the object of norms and practices constantly readjusted by the perceived environment as the product of a pluralistic and fickle conception.

To set the stage, in this chapter I first provide an overview of the debates around urban cycling along those lines. Then, I discuss the knowledge gaps therefore addressed by this research. Following this discussion, I expose the objective of this thesis and the question central to its development. Finally, I

1_{Quoted from: Confucius (2003). Confucius Analects (trans. E. Slingerland).}

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present the approach and the research questions underlying this thesis.

1.1. Ongoing debates related to urban cycling

As an element of urban mobility, cycling is often central to the many contro-versies surrounding sustainable development, liveability and local cultures. Whether the discussion is about increased use of environmentally-friendly modes of transport, reduced mobility or improved quality of life, debates on cy-cling transcend national boundaries and disciplinary scopes. Conducting mul-tidisciplinary research entails addressing a multitude of questions stemming from both discipline-specific as well as cross-cutting challenges. In our discus-sion, urban-cycling related debates are presented along three broad concepts, highlighting clearly the difficulties faced when dealing with the complexity of the problem: (i) sustainability, (ii) liveability and (iii) local cultures.

1.1.1. Debates on sustainability

In a concerted effort to reduce their environmental impact, human societies widely acknowledge the need for sustainable and ecologically-friendly urban development. In that context, the role of individual cycling behaviour becomes evident. It is of major importance to assess the environmental conditions of the practice and its various determinants. The alteration of the built environ-ment in order to create or preserve sustainable transport and lower residents’ carbon footprint is now viewed as an effective means to achieve sustainable cities.

In fact, the effect of the built-environmental features on transport behaviour is one of the most investigated area in urban planning research. Especially in active transportation – that occurs mostly in specific locations or within re-stricted areas – measures and methods usually focus on the analysis of dis-tinctive urban-forms characteristics, which limits the conclusions to a specific context. Probably because of a relatively easy implementation of these meth-ods, cycling-behaviour investigations often take place within a well-defined and rather narrow theoretical and geographical frame. In fact, the focus on localised and specific urban forms largely dominates in urban cycling liter-ature (Cervero and Duncan 2003; Beenackers et al. 2012; Cao 2015). Al-though focusing on the built environment – being by definition geographically localised – surely provides conclusions relevant to other contexts, reasoning from detailed facts to general principles often ensue difficulties to reverse the

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1.1. Ongoing debates related to urban cycling approach and develop a fully informed and global understanding of the phe-nomenon.

To offset this problem, literature reviews, comparative analysis, meta-ana-lysis and studies addressing specification and estimation issues have been de-veloped, trying to integrate new perspectives on environmental factors by deal-ing with aggregated data on different scales and times (Boarnet and Crane

2001; Saelens et al.2003; Pucher, Garrard et al.2011; Hong et al.2014; Wang et al.2016). Indeed, these studies show that infrastructure quality, network connectivity and land use are important elements prompting the cycling be-haviour and play a major role in bebe-havioural changes. However, limiting the study to the physical environment inevitably induces the omission of influen-tial sociological and individual factors.

In general, current research supports the conclusion that there are mul-tiple levels of influence on physical activity, developing theoretical concepts such as socio-ecological models aimed at identifying the relationships between individual, interpersonal, societal, physical-environmental and policy-related variables while highlighting their mutual influences (Sallis et al.2008; Ogilvie et al.2010; Van Acker et al.2010; Mokhtarian et al.2015). As such, cycling behaviour is associated with many forms of environmental, sociological, and individual factors. Acknowledging the need for a comprehensive approach, it is now common practice among scholars to include socio-demographic and socio-economic variables in studies on cycling behaviour (Børrestad et al.2011; Badland et al.2013; Heesch et al.2014; Zhao et al.2018). However, individual demographics and economical characteristics are in the end another form of easily quantifiable data. In fact, very limited research on cycling integrates so-ciological or cultural variables which are much more complex to compute (Van Acker et al.2010; Brömmelstroet et al.2018). The growing interest for changes in travel behaviour is resulting in a fast increasing number of individual be-haviour studies. The downfall of this approach however, could be the oversight of changes and processes only observable at a societal level and yet potentially as important as the objective built-environmental and individual factors in terms of impact (Harms et al.2014; Cairns et al.2014).

Moreover, a review of previous studies concludes that the effects of indi-vidual factors on transport mode choice is equally important to the ones of the built-environment (Ewing and Cervero 2010). This conclusion not only highlights the importance of individual factors, but also points out the ne-cessity to clearly establish the social preconditions specific to each context. Since those preconditions are context-dependent, achieving effective

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travel-behaviour changes towards sustainable transportation implies a careful cross-reading of the circumstances forging cycling behaviour, with regard not only to physical and socio-demographic characteristics, but also to the intangible facts affecting the practice.

Therefore, this thesis contributes to the ongoing debates on sustainability by exploring multiple determinants in cycling. As it strives to develop a com-prehensive understanding of urban cycling in the Chinese context, it provides new insights that feed the debates on the modal shift towards sustainable transportation.

1.1.2. Debates on liveability

The research in mental and physical health clearly establishes the associa-tion between depressive symptoms or various forms of physical pathologies with the features of the built environment, and has developed various meth-ods to identify pertinent environmental components (Steg et al.2012). Visual streetscape images have been added to traditional physical audits, providing direct appraisal of the built environment in community settings (Wu et al.

2014). But this assessment of physical features related to health, while pro-viding a reliable inter-methodology, is often focused on pedestrian activity and seldom applied in the research on cycling. Similarly, the specific area investi-gating the link between cognition, behaviour and built environment design is well-documented (Emo et al.2016), and provides valuable guidelines in defin-ing research methodology and evaluation tools that have been largely applied in the realm of walkability (Ewing, Hajrasouliha et al.2015). Nevertheless, these evaluation techniques fail to reach a systematic implementation in bike-ability.

Another notion, connected to bicycling as a social practice, is the restorative quality of the built environment. New sets of measures have been developed, focusing on the emotional state of citizens and promoting people’s health and well-being. Restorative designs are advocated to support recovery from ef-forts and stress-relief from everyday life (Collado et al.2017). Following its progressive influence in walkability, bikeability evaluation has begun to in-clude perceptions as performance measures, investigating the level of cyclists’ attachment to a typical life-style as well as its impact at a community level. A consistent and ever-growing body of evidence links the built environment to physical activity, and notifies the potential outcomes in health and quality of life (Jensen et al.2017). However, this orientation in research tends to group systematically walking and cycling together as a core entity of investigation

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1.1. Ongoing debates related to urban cycling called: active transportation or active mobility. In fact, only a few of these studies have focused on bicycling as a specific object. An increasing amount of literature addresses the limitations of the active transportation approach and calls for a clear distinction between walkability and bikeablilty measure-ments (Owen et al.2010; Moran et al.2016; Muhs and K. J. Clifton2016).

As a matter of fact, the research in cycling remains very poorly equipped in terms of evaluation tools able to transcribe perceptions into measures. Al-though some studies have been examining the effect of the perceived environ-ment on behaviour and practices in cycling (Ma2015; Willis et al.2015), they are often overly focused on accessibility, facilities, and safety, while mostly revolving around physical environmental features and seldom addressing per-ceptions shaped by societal characteristics. In most studies, the selected built-environmental features themselves reflect a persistent attachment to a level-of-service approach commonly applied in mainstream transportation. Thus those studies often focus on the individual assessment of cycling infrastruc-ture rather than the sensorial and psychological components of a specific feel for areas or cities (Akar and K. Clifton2009; Black and Street2014). This ap-proach may be explained by the dominance in cycling research of a scientific approach constantly in quest of the existing causal links between infrastruc-tural and behavioural factors within a low bicycle modal share. Although nec-essary to achieve some progress in most of the contexts investigated, this ap-proach could overpass all the singular cases where appreciation for cycling lies on something else other than aesthetics, convenience and safety, potentially resulting in an oversimplification of the incentive for the practice (Brömmel-stroet et al.2018).

By exploring all forms of emotional or psychological barriers as well as any favourable preconditions for cycling within the Chinese context, the various studies presented in this thesis aim to enrich the broad debate on the quality of urban life.

1.1.3. Debates on local cultures

Urban cycling as a practice takes on multiple forms and conveys drastically different meanings across space and time. And yet, as an element of research in mainstream transportation – often conforming to the pragmatism of traffic engineers – scholars and policymakers in cycling-related fields have continu-ally been seeking for a generic approach capable of fostering universal solu-tions to solve bicycle-traffic issues in a systematic and consistent way, but with considerably less success than those developed for motorised traffic.

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As an illustration, although the research in cycling behaviour commonly associates individual factors with the bicycle modal share, their effect is not consistent among different locations. For instance, in countries with a low bicycle modal share most studies reveal clear gender and generational differ-ences in cycling behaviour, with young males being more likely to cycle (Vernez Moudon et al.2005). However, in the context of a relatively high bicycle modal share, the practice ceases to be gendered (Fishman2015). In most developed countries, socio-economic associations unveil the dual position of cycling as a transportation mode. In fact, if cyclists are often spotted as having lower incomes it is also viewed as the prerogative of the highly educated urban pop-ulation (Nielsen and Carstensen2013). On a global scale, the car-ownership is recognised as the main factor influencing the level of practice in cycling with a higher car-ownership contributing to a lower bicycle modal share (Pucher, Buehler et al.2011; Fishman et al.2015). An increase of studies within coun-tries that have been left aside in meta-analysis – mostly due to a lack of data – may however contradict this assertion.

As pointed out by some scholars, examining current cyclists’ experiences and the way they are perceived internally and externally could greatly in-crease the accuracy of conclusions regarding the effects of pro-cycling policies, interventions and practices on the overall concept and potential development of bikeability in general (Kroesen et al.2017; Forsyth and Krizek 2011). In fact, this growing concern for the various perceptions related to cycling, not only points out the sociological influences involved in the practice, but also unveils the importance of cultural inclinations. Although context-specific, un-derstanding those inclinations could provide a more detailed picture of urban cycling allowing the development of better informed pro-cycling strategies.

Bicycle culture appears as a generative force, setting cycling as an esti-mated practice central to a main-stream culture. Studying cycling in the Chi-nese context can offer a better understanding of the elements contributing to the construct of a bicycle culture or at least provide new insights on the prac-tice within a high bicycle-modal share environment. This thesis, emphasising the perceptions and cultural dimensions of cycling in the Chinese context, con-tributes to the larger debate on feedback effects and self-reinforcing relations between local cultures and urban development.

Following this overview of the various debates that position the following research at the intersection of sustainability, liveability and local cultures, we now briefly review the major research gaps addressed in the following chap-ters.

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1.2. Research gaps and methodology 1.2. Research gaps and methodology

In fact, the debates on sustainability, liveability and local cultures when focus-ing on urban cyclfocus-ing all address research gaps related to the methodological issues encountered in the evaluation and definition of the cycling environment. Therefore, this work focuses on filling three major research gaps; (i) The effects and implications of the perceived environment on the practice of cycling, (ii) the possible means to measure the perceived-environmental variables for their inclusion in cycling-studies’ analyses and (iii) the importance of the Chinese context’s specificities. While I expose more clearly the nature of these gaps, I also introduce my methodological framework and explain a choice of methods able to solve the various questions addressed in this research.

1.2.1. Research gaps related to the perceived environment

Understanding human behaviour requires understanding its environmental conditions. However the difficulties to conceptualise this environment have long been pointed out as “one of the most refractory problems in behavioural science” (R. Jessor and S. L. Jessor1973). The complexity of this problem often induces polarisation even within the same discipline and results in very com-partmented studies focusing on only one or a few aspects of the environment. The perceived environment viewed as a conceptual framework emphasising the perceptions induced by the physical and sociocultural environments, provides a rich picture of the conditions in which human actions take place.

The imperial need for urban-cycling studies to focus on the perceived en-vironment is now well established (Kroesen et al. 2017; Forsyth and Krizek

2011). However, the difficulties that it implies, especially in terms of data collection and analysis, raise fundamental questions that are still largely un-addressed in mainstream transportation research. Problems such as factor selection or dealing with aggregated data remain outstanding issues in data modelling. Although widely admitted in other fields, those issues are rarely taken into consideration in empirical studies on urban cycling (Post and Bon-dell 2013). For commodity, large panels of sociological and cultural determi-nants influencing the practice of cycling are literally ousted from the scope of most existing urban-cycling studies. This results in very compartmented approaches sometimes narrowing the focus to the extent of completely dis-connecting experimental results from their contextual reality. Although the potential of examining individual behaviour in fostering effective changes is globally recognised, it is common practice in planning and transportation

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do-mains to limit behaviour studies to the influence of objective physical-environ-mental factors and demographics or sometimes to only one of the two.

My aim to address this research gap induced the choice of my methodologi-cal approach. As a result, it was chosen to apply a mixed-methods research de-sign allowing the deployment of several interrelated sub-studies. In this way each sub-study can be designed and carried out to answer a specific research question which contributes to the overall problem. This thesis applies several distinct methods which correspond to what is called the sequential

explana-tory strategy, merging qualitative and quantitative data in order to provide

a comprehensive analysis of the research problem (J. W. Creswell and J. D. Creswell2018).

This methodological framework is commonly defined as a means to combine various forms of data without giving the predominance to either quantitative or qualitative data when forming conclusions (Aramo-Immonen2013; Wisdom and J. W. Creswell2013). Starting by the collection and analysis of qualitative data, it allows a better-informed, thus more relevant analytical approach of quantitative data in the following phases.

As a result, the originality of my approach resides in the inclusion of cul-tural, historical and imagination-based variables specific to cycling. The fol-lowing chapters aim to clarify the construct of the perceived cycling environ-ment through individual perception and appraisal of the built environenviron-ment without omitting the effects of socio-cultural determinants.

1.2.2. Research gaps related to bikeability measurements

The large extent of the knowledge gaps in the definition of the perceived cy-cling environment logically induces an important lack of methods available for the measurement of perceived-environmental factors. There is currently intense questioning regarding the quality of current bikeability evaluation or measurements and still no consensus on the kind of parameters that should be included. Despite a growing interest for multilevel analysis, the avail-able methodological and measurement tools are constantly related to physical and/or easily quantifiable data.

Striving to address this important shortcoming, this thesis is based on a highly diversified source of knowledge and data. During data-collection pro-cesses, I deployed special efforts to gather variables relating to multiple forms of perceptions and with various forms of expressions. Semi-structured inter-views provided data on perceptions orally expressed; Questionnaires – includ-ing open questions – provided data on perceptions semantically and linclud-inguis-

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linguis-1.2. Research gaps and methodology tically formulated; Graphic representations such as localisation and trajecto-ries on maps provided data on perceptions at a visual and mental-mapping level. Gathering different types of data for each investigation allowed me to tackle the problem from different angles and to address multiple distinctive subsidiary questions, insuring quality of the analysis and exhaustiveness of the results, thereby providing comprehensive answers to each research ques-tion (Tashakkori and Teddlie2010).

Therefore, the sub-studies datasets used in the following chapters include information collected through both quantitative and qualitative methods. Al-though the ones answering more generic questions tend to refer to qualita-tive material (observation, documents and literature review), investigations on more specific topics strongly rely on the analysis of quantitative data based on statistical models.

1.2.3. Research gaps related to the context specificities

For about half a century, research in the realm of human behaviour estab-lished the strong connection between sociocultural environments and individ-ual tendencies or inclinations, bringing forward the concept of ecological sys-tems as a broad set of factors determining a particular conduct (Garbarino and Sherman1980; Mcleroy et al.1988). This approach, occulted in the 1990s by the development of computer modelling and statistical techniques, is progres-sively regaining the interest of scholars among various fields (Sallis et al.2008; Ogilvie et al.2010; Van Acker et al.2010; Mokhtarian et al.2015). Cycling is a social fact and the result of responsive and induced choices or actions. Es-pecially in China, the ubiquity of the practice is the consequence of a unique form of appreciation ensuing from singular societal and infrastructural devel-opments. As such, Chinese pro-cycling policies need judicious directions and tailored adjustments in order to face cycling barriers of a very different kind from the ones usually encountered in a western context.

In fact, the overwhelming majority of the literature on cycling displays find-ings and recommendations drawn out from western contexts. Comparatively, very few studies have dealt with the unique setup of Chinese cities, taking into account social facts resulting from such things as their fast-paced development and the remnants of an emerging economy.

Especially in bikeability, symbolic meanings, ideas and aspirations though critical in bicycling are often neglected as a way to measure and forecast its development within urban mobility (Shove et al.2012). This alternative ori-entation has been mainly applied to understand car dependency. It could be

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a valuable addition helping practitioners to comprehend the complex dynam-ics involved in cycling by considering bicycle practice as a social issue, rather than the exclusive result of localised individual behaviour (Spotswood et al.

2015). In fact, a comprehensive policy is progressively advocated as the effec-tive means to increase the bicycle modal share (Pucher, Buehler et al.2011; Pucher, Dill et al. 2010). Relevant recommendations for such multi-faceted policies require an in-depth study of cities, which should cover the multiple ob-jective and subob-jective contextual factors affecting cycling behaviour and trans-port mode choice.

Context sensitive understandings and interventions require the combina-tion of concepts and methods rooted in numerous disciplines to create new multidisciplinary approaches. Thus, to fully benefit from the contributions being made in other fields and to insure that relevant information is not over-looked, this research was undertaken in a multidisciplinary setting mixing a broad range of approaches and methodologies springing from various dis-ciplines such as history, geography, economics, sociology, medicine, psychol-ogy, anthropolpsychol-ogy, policy, ethics, architecture or urban planning. The over-all purpose of this strategy is to provide research findings that can easily be translated into changes in urban design, policies, and practices within various contexts.

Therefore, this thesis addresses the context-related research gaps by en-deavouring to develop a veritable multidisciplinary approach, digging into materials originating from a very wide research scope and building on con-clusions extracted from trans-disciplinary studies. Hence, to acquire a global perspective on bikeability I widen the scope of research to other fields. This multidisciplinary approach allows a better evaluation of bicycle facilities, in-frastructures, and related policies in the light of historical, ethnological or sociological insights.

1.3. Objective and main research question

The overall objective of this thesis is twofold: firstly understand how to im-prove the cycling environment in China and secondly strengthen the global existing base of knowledge to develop integrated pro-cycling policies in this country. This is especially important in order to maintain the existing level of practice and even restore the bicycle to a preponderant position within urban mobility. Indeed, with a bicycle modal share among the highest worldwide coupled to an extensive cycling lane network in the vast majority of the cities, China is still considered as the Cycling Nation of the twenty-first century

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(Es-1.4. Research approach and research sub-questions fehani 2004). Yet, most of the literature available on this topic is based on facts and investigations held in fully developed countries. Moreover, the vast majority of the empirical studies address issues that result from (i) a low bi-cycle modal share or (ii) a drastic lack of cycling infrastructure that renders many findings irrelevant to the Chinese context. The first of these two major discrepancies imply that Chinese road-users’ perceptions are likely to differ from the ones displayed by most of the populations investigated in the exist-ing literature, unveilexist-ing important research gaps in the understandexist-ing of the perceived environment. The second divergent characteristic of this context emphasises the general lack of knowledge in terms of the cyclists’ perceptions related to the built environment. Therefore, this thesis aims to address both of these knowledge gaps by helping to answer the following central question:

Which factors of the perceived and built environments have an im-pact on the appreciation of urban cycling in China?

Since a broad exploration of the appreciation for urban cycling in China promises to provide unique insights on the practice within a high bicycle modal share environment – thus opening-up to solutions towards maintaining a high level of bicycle usage – conclusions in the Chinese context could be beneficial to many other contexts. Indeed, when progress has been made and the bicycle modal share has reached a certain level, the ways not only leading to a poten-tial growth, but more importantly the ones allowing to maintain the practice appear fundamental, since rapid infatuation can easily turn into disinterest over time. This is why the goal of this research is not only to provide direc-tions for reviving cycling in China but first of all to ensure the durability of the actual positive effects resulting from the societal and historical precondi-tions beneficial to urban cycling. Going beyond the global renewed interest for the bicycle and the rapid development of Dock-less App-based Shared Bikes (DASB) in China, this work focuses on unveiling deeper reasons for the bicy-cle’s popularity and identifying lasting solutions to support the actual practice. In turn, this knowledge could bring forward valuable insights for the develop-ment of effective cycling policies in other countries.

1.4. Research approach and research sub-questions

The results presented in the following chapters mostly rely on three distinct empirical investigations and refer to the various data analyses that have been developed through different peer-reviewed papers. As such, this thesis is com-piling seven articles currently published or under review process in

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interna-tional scientific journals. The various datasets and their use in the research development are exposed in Figure1.1.

The overarching strategy of this research is to identify urban-cycling issues at a local scale and provide effective directions to overcome them at a larger scale. In other words, the strategy is to investigate problems set at a com-munity level and define potential means to generalise the findings to a wider population.

Indeed, like walking, cycling, by its high level of penetration is calling for studies, developments, and implementations of local and microlevel pro-cesses (Heinen, Wee et al.2010; Vivanco2013). However, the bicycle allows travellers to go three to four times faster and access a territory ten to fifteen times bigger than a person on foot. This observation confers a pivotal impor-tance to macro-level studies in urban cycling. As a result, investigating cy-cling requires a focus on the interactions and connections between micro and macro-scales phenomena.

The history of mobility is intricately related to urban forms (Nikolaeva and Nello-Deakin2019). In particular automobilty, and its accompanying urban infrastructural changes, relate to the development of modernism and by ex-tension to the image of a modern city. Inherited from the practical visions of the early 20th century theorists, the vast majority of cities have structured themselves around the use of car. From its beginning, this car oriented devel-opment raised virulent criticism (Jacobs1961), although the full extent of its environmental and sociological effects could not be foreseen due to its rapid expansion. Rejecting the modernist credo of a universal solution applicable to any society, post-modernists developed a conception of the urban environ-ment based on the appreciation for sociological diversity and products of the ordinary (Amiri2016; Kolakowski2016).

Today, and in spite of the continuing criticism, the process of reshaping the urban environment so as to accommodate the ever increasing motorised traffic has somehow gained universal validity. Automobility is now considered as a necessary if not the major step towards the development and modernisation of cities due to the fact that it stimulates industries and global economy, en-courages large scale construction projects and provides greater accessibility for goods and people to remote urban areas.

More than anywhere else, China is struggling to reverse this relatively new tendency embraced with a delay of two to three decades compared to western countries. It is of major importance to understand the mechanisms of this fascination that lead generations of architects and planners trapped in the

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1.4. Research approach and research sub-questions

Data

&

Anal

y

sis

Qualitative data: • Literature review • Observation • Semi-structured interviews Quantitative data:

• Survey 1: Bikeability Perception (n = 402) • Survey 2: Bicycle Acceptance (n = 1131)

• Survey 3: Safety Perception on the Route to School (n = 401) Statistical models:

• Model 1 & 2: Bikeability Perception & Riding Propensity (logistic regression) • Model 3: Bicycle Acceptance (ordinal regression)

• Model 4: Perceived danger on the route to school (ordinal regression)

R

esearc

h

de

v

elopment

Chapter 2: Beyond the Dream of Modern Cities

• Qualitative data, literature review

• Paper 1: Beyond the Dream of Modern Cities: Moving Towards the Practi-calities of Life. Under review at an international scientific journal.

Chapter 3: On the Applicability of a Western Bikeability Index in the Chi-nese Context

• Qualitative data

• Quantitative data: Survey 1, univariate analysis

• Paper 2: On the Applicability of a Western Bikeability Index in the Chinese Context. Published in “ International Review for Spatial Planning and Sus-tainable Development” journal, doi:10.14246/irspsd.8.1_59.

Chapter 4: Towards a Definition of Bikeability in the Chinese Context

• Quantitative data: Survey 1, Model 1 & 2

• Paper 3: Towards a Definition of Bikeability in the Chinese Context. Ac-cepted for publication in “International Association for China Planning” 2017 in proceedings.

Chapter 5: Bicycle Acceptance on Campus

• Quantitative data: Survey 2, Model 3

• Paper 4: Bicycle Acceptance on Campus: Influence of the Built environ-ment and Shared Bikes. Published in “Transportation Research: Part D”, doi:10.1016/j.trd.2019.09.011

Chapter 6: Cycling to School in China

• Quantitative data: Survey 3, Model 4

• Paper 5: Cycling to School in China: Identifying Patterns in Safety Percep-tion. Accepted for publication in “International Association for China Plan-ning” 2018 in proceedings.

Chapter 7: When Connectivity Makes Safer Routes to School

• Quanlitative data: Survey 3

• Paper 6: When Connectivity Makes Safer Routes to School: Conclusions from Aggregate Data on Child Transportation in Shanghai Under review at an international scientific journal.

Appendix C: Data article

• Paper 7: Data on public bicycle acceptance among Chinese university popu-lations Published in “Data in Brief”, doi:10.1016/j.dib.2019.104946

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crystallized vision of a perfectly controlled urban environment in both forms and circulations. In fact, I view the exploration of the modernism’s limitations when associated with the car development as a necessary exercise to better position the current approaches in bikeability. Thus the article replicated in chapter2aims at answering the following research question:

How could cycling be positioned within Chinese urban mobility and how does it relate to the imagery of a modern city?

As it is setting the global state of the context and the research background, the second chapter is based on observations, historical documents and a mul-tidisciplinary literature review. In contrast, all the following chapters are fo-cusing on a data-driven analysis.

Over the past two decades, China has witnessed a tremendous growth of car ownership that drastically changed the face of cities and neighbourhoods. Starting from the 1960s, a similar process was observed in western countries, it is thus of great interest to investigate this new phenomenon in light of those past experiences. In particular, the increase in motorised traffic had a di-rect impact on soft mobilities (namely walking and cycling). Indeed, while the urban design and infrastructural development perfectly accommodated cars, walking and cycling suffered from little attention. When not ignored, they were relegated to segregative paths often recognized as inappropriate and/or fragmentary.

Thus, while addressing this problem, the first interrogation that naturally came up was to find out whether the existing measurement tools and solutions usually applied in bikeability were fit for my context, characterised by rapid urbanisation and motorisation in the face of a decreased but still very high bicycle modal share in daily mobility.

Therefore, the paper reproduced in chapter3, is addressing the future de-velopment of urban cycling in China through a thorough examination of (i) the complex mechanisms involved in urban mobility, (ii) the goals to achieve, and (iii) the applicability of western solutions to the Chinese context. This study based on a multidisciplinary research and a univariate data analysis therefore aims to answer the following research question:

Are existing measurements tools and solutions in bikeability appli-cable to the Chinese context?

Bikeability usually described as a measure of how friendly an area is to

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1.4. Research approach and research sub-questions thorough exploration of the criteria commonly included in the bikeability eval-uation I isolated major discrepancies resulting from their assessment – due to the characteristics of the Chinese context – when compared to the usual out-comes. In fact, most of the foregone conclusions in the field, once applied to my ground of investigation, introduce cultural bias as they assume a relatively low bicycle modal share or/and an individual appraisal of the city that greatly differs from the one of Chinese populations. By a thorough study of the bike-ability tools and measurements I refine the goals and select appropriate west-ern strategies and policies, while also introducing new elements fitting the Chinese context. In the end, my three-fold work throws the necessary bases for an in-depth study of bikeability and its future development in China, with a focus on the case of Shanghai.

In the light of those conclusions, the fourth chapter proceeds into an ex-ploration of the various perceptions related to (i) the notion of bikeability and highlights (ii) potential perspectives for urban cycling in China. Therefore, the paper presented in chapter4intends to consider the following question:

What is a bikeable city for a person living in Shanghai?

Despite a wide motorisation over the last two decades, China is now undergo-ing a remouldundergo-ing in terms of urban policies and approaches due to the advent of DASB systems. In major cities such as Shanghai, a pioneer city for the in-troduction of these shared-bike systems, the omnipresence of this new kind of bicycles announces a change in the modal share tendency displayed over the past fifteen years. Thus a clear and thorough understanding of both the expec-tations for a bikeable city and the propensity to ride appears to be a pressing necessity. To this end, the article reproduced in chapter4comes as an answer to the following research question:

How do urban forms and sociocultural factors impact the current and projected cycling behaviour in Shanghai?

Therefore two new statistical models have been developed based on the data provided by a structured questionnaire survey on the perceptions of cycling in general and the appreciation of bikeability in particular.2_{The respondents (n}

= 402) were selected according to a random intercept method in the Shang-hai city centre. The two problems have been modelled using logistic linear regressions. The models’ quality is then assessed with respect to various sta-tistical methods while the most prominent variables are isolated so as to be

2_{This dataset was the result of my first empirical investigation and is also the one that served}

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thoroughly studied following an inter-disciplinary approach. This study’s con-clusions provide a basis for the development of a Chinese bikeability index and bring forward the importance of the perceived environment in the prac-tice of cycling. On a more practical level, it shows that a simple shift from usual transportation to favoured transportation can increase the bikeability level perceived by citizens.

These considerations led me to refocus on the actual views and how indi-vidual opinions whether on cycling as a practice or cyclists as practitioners can affect their own cycling behaviour. Moreover, current research converges to-wards the conclusion that the propensity to cycle is positively associated with a high bicycle public acceptance (Gössling2013; Heinen and Handy2011; Zhao

2017; Nikitas et al.2015). As this investigation takes place in the sociological context of a strong history bound with bicycles, it appears essential to deter-mine the factors that could affect the overall bicycle acceptance. Therefore, the article reproduced in chapter6is examining the public bicycle acceptance in the Chinese context. Therefore, while isolating urban-forms features hav-ing an impact on the citizens’ appreciation of the bicycle, this study aims to answer the following research question:

Which factors of the physical and sociological environments affect public bicycle acceptance?

As the new DASB systems are rapidly spreading in China, this phenome-non cannot be omitted in a study on bicycle acceptance. Furthermore, the previous investigations highlighted that Shanghai population is globally very acceptant towards cycling, thus the aim of this study was to define the effects of the built environment and the fast-spreading DASB systems in order to de-velop effective solutions able to maintain a high level of bicycle acceptance. Although in general, bicycle acceptance can easily be studied from a sociolog-ical viewpoint, an approach from an urban environment perspective is much more complex to arrange. Indeed, such an analysis requires the investigation ground to comply with three major requirements: (i) be within a closed vicin-ity, to ensure a common typology of the urban environment for each group of respondents; (ii) feature a high bicycle modal share; and (iii) present a high penetration level of DASB systems. In that regard campuses in Shanghai, a pioneer city for DASB systems where the bicycle modal share is among the highest worldwide, represent an appropriate investigation ground, answer-ing all those three requirements. In this endeavour I selected five campuses across Shanghai. This second empirical investigation, focusing on bicycle pub-lic acceptance relates to quantitative data. Based on the answers of over 1,100

Bikeable cities of tomorrow: A Chinese perspective on the built and the perceived environments - Thesis

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