Portraying perceptions of bike-sharing schemes (BSS) in Santiago, Chile: What both regular users and pedestrians tell us

Abstract

This paper focuses on portraying experiences and interactions of pedestrians and users of bicycle-sharing schemes (BSS) in the city of Santiago (Chile), where cycling is becoming an increasingly relevant transport mode. The methodology employed an adaptation of content analysis (CA) to assess the testimonies of two focus groups, one composed by regular users of BSS and the other by pedestrians.The findings show that BSS seem to operate in a domain distinct from Santiagós current transport regime, including cycling. Individuals perceive that BSS were mostly used by affluent people and these schemes were of little help in poor areas. However, rather than attributing these problems to long-standing inequalities affecting the city, interviewees attributed them to their personal preferences, characteristics and capabilities (not being lucky enough to live in rich zones or being able to cycle more often). Finally, conflicts between bike-sharing users and pedestrians were rarely mentioned explicitly..