Cycling between the traffic: mobility, identity and space

Spinney, Justin (2008) Cycling between the traffic: mobility, identity and space. Urban Design Journal, (108).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Cycling in London is firmly back on the agenda in a drive to ease congestion and pollution, and encourage a healthier population. But the substantial recent increase in cycling as a form of urban mobility is not without problems. Cyclists’ re-readings of streets often contravene road traffic laws and ignore the spatial prescriptions of kerbs, lane markings, junction signalling, one way systems, bike lanes and pedestrian areas.

Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork with London cyclists and in-depth interviews with local planners, engineers, cycling officers and activists, this article moves beyond simplistic and sensationalist readings of such practices as the actions of pathological risk takers and criminals, and calls for a more nuanced understanding of urban cyclists’ use of space based upon a knowledge of the embodied experiences of cycling. Much of their ‘inappropriate’ use of space can be explained by the significant differences between official conceptions of cyclists’ needs and cycling’s manifold experiential affordances.

The spaces that planners and engineers have traditionally created for cyclists are very different to the spaces cyclists are creating for themselves. After decades of urban design and highways engineering favouring the private automobile, the urban landscape has become polarised, separating cars from pedestrians; cycling currently inhabits a nuisance grey area in between. The unique capacities of the cyclist have increasingly become conflated with those of motor vehicles, leading to inappropriate design.

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