Normalising cycling mobilities: an age-friendly approach to cycling in the Netherlands. Issue 3 (3rd July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: den Hoed, Wilbert; Jarvis, Helen
• Is Part Of: Applied mobilities. Volume 7:Issue 3(2022)
• Page Start: 298
• Page End: 318
• Publication Date: 2022-07-03
• Subjects: Cycling -- mobility -- ageing -- active ageing -- normalisation -- mobile methods; Transportation -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Transportation -- Technological innovations -- Periodicals; Wireless communication systems -- Periodicals; Population geography -- Periodicals; Sustainability -- Periodicals; 303.4832
• DOI: 10.1080/23800127.2021.1872206
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2380-0127

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Cycling is promoted as a form of urban travel with well-established benefits to health, liveability and wellbeing. These benefits are comparatively large for older people, a growing segment in many populations. Yet, support for the normalisation of cycling mobilities for all ages varies considerably. It is usual to contrast low-cycling contexts, such as the UK, with high-cycling areas, typically favouring highest-rate paradigmatic urban centres. To challenge a too simplistic imitation and re-creation of engineering solutions elsewhere, we draw attention to diverse cycling habits and norms in residents of a more ordinary high-cycling area (suburban Rotterdam), and observe how cycling is normalised throughout the lifecourse. Using mobile and biographical methods, we argue that a more nuanced appreciation of cycling normalisation is gained from viewing ageing and cycling relationally and biographically. This is because the habit-forming realm of normalisation functions through both conscious decisions and unconscious practice, bound up with life events and the external environment. The findings suggest that age-friendly city strategies and urban mobility policies should more closely consider locally constituted social and cultural processes, beyond providing infrastructure. This article thus provides an in-depth account of what it takes for planning and policy to normalise positive, empowering, and age-friendly qualities in everyday mobility.