Recreational cycling in a coastal city: Investigating lifestyle, attitudes and built environment in cycling behavior

Abstract

Active mobility and especially cycling can play an important role in increasing sustainable travel behavior of urban residents. While increased recreational cycling can lead to further bicycling for other purposes, this study highlights the factors influencing recreational cycling. Recreational cycling in a coastal city is explored through investigating individuals’ lifestyles, attitudes, and the effects of built environmental features on frequent cycling. Data were collected from 426 residents of Kish Island, an Iranian city which has been provided with well-designed, dedicated cycling paths. Using confirmatory factor analysis, lifestyle patterns have been extracted from leisure activities which are mostly engaged by both tourists and residents. Additionally, attitudes were evaluated by exploring individuals’ preferences through selecting various cycling facilities. Results from ordinal regression analysis revealed that residents with an active and beach-oriented lifestyle have a higher tendency toward recreational cycling. Among other classifications of attitudes, landscape design made the highest contribution to recreational cycling. Furthermore, findings demonstrated that network connectivity does not significantly influence recreational cycling. Although findings from this study suggest that identifying lifestyle patterns and cyclist attitudes in coastal cities can enhance the probability of recreational cycling among residents as well as tourists, they can also be of interest to planners and policy makers in terms of enhancing the frequency of cycling in other regions with similar situations, namely, being a tourist destination and having a well-organized infrastructure in terms of cycling paths and other required cycling facilities that support recreational as well as other types of cycling behavior.