Socio-economics of Belfast commuter cycling // Deprivation

Belfast, my home town,  remains a very divided city in many ways – you just need to look at the recent ‘flag’ unrest for a quick snapshot of some key fault lines.  Riding a bike doesn’t strike me as a particularly divisive activity – in fact it seems like a liberating, egalitarian way of travelling. The Dutch Cycling Embassy would say that in the Netherlands, people at all levels of society and income use the bicycle – “young or old, rich or poor, everyone cycles” – and why would it be any different in Belfast, even with tiny numbers by comparison? But are we overlooking some important details in the bigger picture?

In a city where commuter cycling modal share is only between 2.1% and 4% in 2011, and where the physical environment and perceived danger actively discourages people from cycling for transport, is bicycle ownership purely a luxury? Is there some truth to the suggestion that unhealthy city environments shape the urban cyclist population to be unnaturally male and middle class?

Detailed ward-level figures from the 2011 Census allows us to delve deeper into the mysteries of commuting choices in Belfast. Does the reality destroy such myths, or has the domination of the private motorist, and a city environment unsuitable for mass cycling, left key sections of our society behind? Part 1 of Socio-economics of Belfast commuter cycling, a short series of blog posts being released over 2013, looks at how cycling as a form of transport is unevenly distributed across Belfast.

Cycling across the class divide?

First to set the scene for those who don’t know, Belfast is a relatively small city, with low population density and a highly centralised employment and retail core. The city’s development, heavily affected by The Troubles, has left fractured communities sharply divided by religious background and class – although lines have begun to blur over the last 20 years. Leafy affluent suburbs mix with deprived inner city areas, more concentrated in the central core, west and north.

Crash course on the Belfast labour market

The five central wards with more than 10,000 employee jobs (Shaftesbury, Duncairn, Falls, Botanic, Island) account for 59% of employment in the city (map 1) with the only major employment centre outside the central spine being the Stormont area to the outer east, site of many government department offices. The labour market is split between approximately 55% of workers travelling in from outside the city, and 45% who live within Belfast. But 75% of employed Belfast residents work within the city council area, so the internal labour market seems quite inwardly focused.

To look at how the population is distributed across the city, the Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure 2010 ranks areas of Northern Ireland according to a mix of:

• income deprivation (25% weight)
• employment deprivation (25%)
• health deprivation and disability (15%)
• education, skills and training deprivation (15%)
• proximity to services deprivation (10%)
• living environment deprivation (5%)
• crime and disorder (5%)

12 Belfast wards rank in the top 20 most deprived wards in the whole of Northern Ireland (out of 582). The MDM map above shows a clear divide in the south and east of the city, where some of the more affluent suburbs are situated. For this analysis, and plotted on the maps below, Belfast’s division into 51 electoral wards allows for a nice split into top 1/3, middle 1/3 and bottom 1/3.

Commuter travel choices in Belfast

Any city will have a vast array of daily journeys  to work locations, but Belfast’s bus route map tells you about the dominant commuter traffic flows within the city – predominantly in a radial pattern between centre and suburbs. There is plenty of available data on commuting choices, not least the excellent DRD Northern Ireland Travel Survey which put Belfast commuter cycling modal share at a surprisingly high 4% in 2009-11. But for consistency, and the ability to delve into ward level data, we’ll stick with the recently released 2011 Census Key Statistics.

Belfast, being the main urban centre in the mainly rural Northern Ireland, is much more reliant on bus, walking and bicycle journeys to work, and significantly less reliant on the private car. However, all the various forms of car or van travel still accounts for around 60% of commuter journeys by workers living in Belfast.

Distribution of ‘sustainable’ commuting modes in Belfast

So bearing in mind the level and distribution of deprivation around the city, we can bring in 2011 Census ward level data on main mode of transport to work, split into walking, public transport (bus, train) and cycling. The data can then be ranked by percentage of all main modes of transport to work from each ward, grouping these into the top, middle and bottom 1/3s, and finally mapped to determine any patterns.

Walking is concentrated on the wards closest to the city centre, not surprisingly. The pattern certainly closely matching the most highly deprived areas, but we must be cautious about drawing conclusions here. Walking to work from the outer wards to the city centre would mean journey times of an hour or more – that and the physical effort perhaps making it the least attractive option.

Public transport usage, which is overwhelmingly by bus in Belfast (13.5%, against just 1% who take the train) is most concentrated in the more deprived wards in the north of the city, while the bottom 1/3 wards (same levels of Metro service across the city) show a close correlation to the least deprived areas of south and east.

Amalgamating the walking and public transport data, along with cycling, we can build up a picture of wards ranked by use of ‘sustainable transport‘ as the main mode of travel to work (table below). But does the cycling data match up to the developing pattern?

The overall shape of ‘sustainable’ transport in Belfast fits within a pattern of higher usage in more deprived areas, and lowest in the least deprived areas.

However, the cycling pattern is radically different; a heavy concentration of commuter cyclists within the more affluent areas of south and east, and wards with higher deprivation rankings in the north and west showing much lower percentages of cycling.

Taking a median MDM ranking from the top and bottom 1/3 wards for each of these categories, highlights the unique commuter cycling split across Belfast even more starkly.

For bus/train, walking and all ‘sustainable’ transport, the median MDM rank of the top 1/3 wards is much higher (more deprived) than the bottom third. Cycling flips this on its head, showing higher modal share for cycling in areas of lower deprivation in Belfast.

With the greatest concentration of employee jobs and commuter flows into the city centre, we can rewind these journeys using 2001 Census data (2011 equivalent not available yet) to see where those bikes parked in workplace lock ups have arrived from. The top three wards by number of employee jobs in 2001, Shaftesbury, Duncairn and Falls, accounted for nearly half the employment in the city (46%). Looking at the number of cyclists in each ward making a journey to this central hub, we can again see the concentration in the more affluent inner south-east suburbs.

*Thanks to the NISRA Census Customer Service team for producing  this ad hoc report

There are certain structural issues which influence main mode of transport choices in Belfast. The last map shows a close correlation between areas of high deprivation and lower percentages of household car ownership, and the opposite true of areas of lower deprivation. But the concentration of cycle commuting also closely matches areas of higher car ownership, so perhaps the assertion that bikes are luxury items in Belfast may hold some truth at present.

The Netherlands is the only country in Europe to have more bikes than people. Across Northern Ireland in 2011, just 39% of households owned at least one bike, and less than a quarter own two or more, making an ‘accompanied’ journey possible. These structural issues must be addressed alongside investment in safer routes if a bigger impact is to be made across all levels of society.

Urban cycling for all?

So is cycling to work in Belfast a mainly middle class activity? It is of course impossible, unreasonable and undesirable to attempt to assign labels to every person within a particular area, and many wards in Belfast have a mix of streets where deprivation levels vary greatly. However we can see clear evidence of lower cycling uptake in the more deprived areas of the city, and a localised cluster of higher commuter cycling modal share in more affluent wards. We can speculate on some of the factors at work for people and families in areas of highest deprivation:

• high one-off cost to buy a commuter bike
• the number of deprived wards within walking distance of main centres of employment
• low concentration of leisure routes through communities in north and west Belfast eg Lagan Towpath in south, Comber Greenway in east
• outer wards in north and west situated higher in the hills, physical effort perhaps makes cycling seem less attractive
• larger concentrations of terraced housing stock providing less space for safe bike storage
• a Belfast ‘Troubles’ quirk – a cheap, efficient and social alternative in dedicated black taxi ‘bus’ routes

A more detailed study would be needed to draw clearer conclusions on this. There is some interesting research work on cycling perspectives within deprived inner-city areas, and perhaps this is a rich vein for study in Belfast.

There is also some evidence that the 60% increase in commuter cyclists has been partly due to uptake in areas of higher deprivation, albeit from a low starting base in many instances. This is encouraging and needs to be built upon. One of the upcoming cycling projects in the city is the roll out of a council-led bike hire scheme. While this is more evidence of a growing awareness of cycling as a key urban transport mode, lessons from London should be heeded to ensure broad usage among all levels of society.

I’ve posted the partly financial reasons why I cycle to work in Belfast, and (excluding initial purchase and ongoing maintenance costs) cycling is effectively free transport. It seems reasonable to think that cycling should be viewed as a highly flexible and efficient form of urban transport, but also an option which weighs less heavily on a household budget than owning one or more cars. But it appears many people in the most deprived areas of Belfast are unable or unwilling to reap the many benefits of cycling.

There is a policy challenge here to assess why areas of Belfast are being left behind in adding cycling to their range of transport options, and to create city-wide conditions where cycling is a natural choice for everyone, not just the well-off.

13 ideas to improve Northern Ireland cycling in 2013

With numbers of regular cyclists in Northern Ireland rising, especially in Belfast, 2013 should be a year of steady progress on cycling issues. However ongoing government spending cuts, alongside the natural disinterest of the authorities to transport and utility cycling, mean radical ‘big ticket’ cycling projects are unlikely to be pedalling up the agenda.

But instead of being deterred, we need to organise and innovate! Since I started blogging about Belfast cycling I’ve seen amazing resourcefulness and passion among local people who choose to get around by bike. New community connections are being built every day, and spawning innovative action such as Reclaim Belfast’s Cycle Lanes 1 and 2. It is among the people who ride our streets every day that we will find creative solutions to change the experience and perception of cycling here.

So here are 13 ideas for simple, realistic, achievable improvements to Northern Ireland and Belfast cycling that can be pursued despite the austere economic circumstances. These include suggestions from regular Belfast cyclists. Please feel free to add your own ideas to the comments section! In no particular order..

1) Action plan to tackle rising cycling casualties

Road safety authorities have been rightly praised for a record year for road safety in Northern Ireland. While every death on our roads is a tragedy, it is heartening to see numbers falling year on year.

Yet looking behind the headlines, there is a worrying trend of rising cycling casualties. With greater numbers of cyclists observed and expected on our roads, Roads Service and DOE must acknowledge the developing problem, look into any underlying reasons, and develop a plan to improve the situation.

More detailed road safety statistics, including KSI rates per million journeys in NI for different road users, are available on the DOE website.

2012 saw the welcome inclusion of cycling in a higher profile DOE media campaign, and a dedicated cycling awareness drive – which avoids patronising cyclists – could be a good start in 2013.

>> Thanks Denise Hart, Johneen Wright, Peter Stewart

2) Install a high profile cycle counter at a key Belfast gateway

Copenhagen is just one city where highly visible counters show real time cycle traffic stats. This helps to highlight cycling as a commuter choice, and can be a strong statement for Belfast, even if numbers are low – we’re a city that is proud of our cyclists.

Ask any regular cyclist and they’ll tell you Belfast cycling has seen an explosion in number over the last 18-24 months. Belfast is in real need of a cycling census, a regular check on actual daily flows around key points. DRD cycle counters have logged increases of over 200% (PDF, 499Kb) between 2000 and 2010 in some areas of Belfast. But the reports, just like the counter devices themselves, take some finding.

Placing a counter on a key shared arterial route will add a sense of pride to regular cyclists, and a help to encourage others to join the growing cycling community.

3) Action plan on illegal parking in advisory cycle lanes

One of the more innovative campaigns of 2012 was Reclaim Belfast’s Cycle Lanes, a crowd-sourced survey of illegal parking which ran over two weeks, in July and November. The first report led to a bizarre attack on cyclists by Regional Development Committee Chair Jimmy Spratt, no stranger himself to the world of handlebars, chains, lube and lycra. (see picture)

The dismissive nature of most official responses has been disappointing, if not unexpected. It highlights a cultural change needed in government, as well as on our streets. New traffic management measures promise much, but have yet to deliver change. This is the year Roads Service needs to admit the problem, raise the priority in line with so much active travel rhetoric, and put a cycle lane action plan at the heart of parking enforcement.

>> Thanks Chris Murphy, Mark Tully

4) Setting a challenging Belfast Active Travel Strategy

Following the (yet to be published) Northern Ireland Active Travel Strategy, Belfast City Council is working on a complementary vision for the city. The NI document is expected to aim for an overall cycling modal share of 1.5% by 2020 – startlingly modest, even of that represents a doubling by some measures. Belfast already has a broad commuter modal share of 2.1% as of 2011, and further census figures to be released in 2014 will show even higher rates in the 0-10km target range for urban cycling.

It is for this reason, along with the 60% rise in commuter cyclists over the last 10 years, that Belfast demands a wholly separate cycling strategy. The Active Travel Strategy, while not exclusively focused on cycling, presents a real opportunity for a first step to setting challenging and stretching targets for urban cycling, driven by an ambitious local council. Those tasked with producing the document could do worse than to draw on existing cyclists’ knowledge of commuter routes, perhaps utilising basic online mapping and geotagging tools, to crowdsource the main areas for improvement.

Pushing for transport infrastructure budget reallocation will only be successful if political will and leadership is demonstrated by Belfast. This document can be a key tool to advance the cause of cycling for transport in Belfast.

>> Thanks to Steven Patterson, Roy White

5) Progress plans for (at least) one ‘quality cycling corridor’ in Belfast

Everyone knows what’s wrong with cycling in Belfast – fragmented and inconsistent cycle routes, illegal parking blocking access to advisory cycle lanes at rush hour, cycle boxes with no direct access, few separated cycle paths, dangerous junctions and pinch points, poor civic and work facilities, bin lanes instead of cycle lanes – but little time is spent describing in detail what is required to upgrade the infrastructure.

The success of cycling in the Netherlands, Copenhagen, and to differing extents New York, Montreal, Seville and London, is due to the quality of the cycling routes, with an end-to-end approach to planning. Belfast needs at least one demonstration ‘quality cycle corridor’, with every aspect of the route studied and adapted to find the best and safest solutions to moving cyclists from A to B, and all the Cs along the way.

Yes, this probably means a deal of separation, but not every arterial route absolutely must cater 100% for motor traffic. Belfast even has strategic roads with plenty of space for Dutch-style separation, but we don’t appear to have the wit to try it. Let’s get the discussion started on what real progress could look like.

>> Thanks to Neal Reynolds, Kenny McC

6) PSNI to record cycle box offences

This is a difficult selection given the difficulties police are facing on a daily basis across Northern Ireland with flag protests. But the occasionally exceptional nature of Northern Ireland society and policing should not deter us from seeking safer roads.

A common complaint from cyclists is vehicles blocking advanced stop line cycle boxes. A recent Freedom of Information request reveals that PSNI do not distinguish between different types of stop line offence, meaning specific statistics on cycle box infringements are not collected. This unfortunately obscures both the prevalence of the problem, and the sense of priority given to enforcement.

Belfast has a great number of dangerous junctions where cyclists are required to take risks to filter towards cycle boxes. For example, see picture – there is a third lane to the right of the van. For the sake of transparency, PSNI must begin to record cycle box offences separately.

>> Thanks Borghert Borghmans

7) Gritting and lighting the Comber Greenway

The Comber Greenway is rightly lauded and strongly defended as a key community resource in Belfast. Whether for walking the dog, running down the energy of the kids, leisure or commuter cycling, or just a proper dander, it’s a little gem in the city. And then winter arrives.

Between October and March anyone using the Greenway after 5pm does so in darkness. Cyclists need a strong light, and to be on their wits to avoid pedestrians or dogs in the gloom. Walking alone in the dark just isn’t an attractive option. And when frost and ice arrive, the path becomes lethal, regardless of how you’re getting about.

Putting the Greenway (and Laganside paths) on the gritting schedule, and designing plans to install early evening lighting on urban sections will ensure key transport corridors are available for use all year round.

8) Maintain a challenge to taxis in bus lanes

In 2012 Roads Service served up a cold reminder to cyclists of their place in Northern Ireland society. A consultation on a plan for allowing taxis into bus lanes was roundly rejected by 86% of respondents. Yet DRD dismissed opposition with a single comment of contempt – “those were mainly from cyclists”. So Roads Service will press ahead with no additional review of the impact upon cyclists and cycling rates, so sorely missing from the original consultation document.

You can listen to the DRD briefing in full:

Audio sourced from the Northern Ireland Assembly – subject to Parliamentary copyright.

This token consultation exercise hasn’t changed DRD’s mindset, but the real fears of cyclists must be addressed. As with access for cyclists and motorcyclists before, so taxis in bus lanes must be introduced on a pilot basis, with close monitoring of the effects on cycling traffic and any increase in collisions, with retention of other options if it proves detrimental.

9) Ban politicians from cycling photoshoots

The three main barriers to cycling in Northern Ireland are:

• fear of roads
• the weather
• the sight of politicians on bicycles

Really, if there is one thing guaranteed to wreck the image of cycling as a serious option for commuting, shopping or leisure, it’s the sight of squirming, disingenuous MLAs keen to hype an activity which most clearly despise, while wearing a daft helmet and wobbling around the Stormont Estate. It hasn’t managed turn Northern Ireland into the 13th Dutch Province to date, so let’s stop embarrassing everyone and maybe try something really innovative for Bike Week, such as…

10) A Belfast Ciclovía

Started in Bogota in the 1970s the idea of temporarily closing a section of a city to motor traffic, for the exclusive use of pedestrians and cyclists, has spread around the world. This would be a great way to promote the benefits of sustainable travel options in Belfast, and could be turned into a weekend mini festival to attract new customers to shops, cafes and restaurants. The Ormeau Road or Stranmillis Road are two prime candidates, with direct NCN cycle route access, parks, and good diversionary routes for normal traffic.

>> Thanks to Neal Reynolds, Roy White, Sally Hinchcliffe, Stephen

11) Supporting a 20mph Bill through the Assembly

In early 2013 we will see a 20mph Bill introduced at the Assembly, developed by SDLP MLA Conall McDevitt. This aims to bring Northern Ireland into line with the developing movement across Europe for safer residential streets. Existing 20mph/30kph zones demonstrate the benefits of lower urban speed limits to the quality of neighbourhood life, casualty survival rates, and increase in active travel.

No doubt there will be fierce resistance from certain lobbies, but this is a key element for cycling in Northern Ireland and especially urban areas. Strong support will be required to progress this Bill in a form that will benefit Northern Ireland society as a whole.

>> Thanks Chris Murphy, Conall McDevitt

12) Northern Ireland Assembly all-party group on cycling

All-party groups provide a forum for MLAs to engage with the public and interested organisations on important topics. The idea of an all-party cycling group at Stormont has been knocking about for a few years now, but little progress has been made to actually constituting a group.

Such groups are working diligently at Westminster and Holyrood, and it is time for politicians at Stormont to add cycling to the list of ‘normal’ mainstream politics, as Northern Ireland continues to be mired in tribal issues.

The Northern Ireland Assembly has its share of cycle-friendly politicians, and providing a voice and forum within the heart of the local administration can only help to speed progress on cycling issues.

13) Develop a stronger urban cycling community

Cycling in Northern Ireland is quite a fractured specialised set of groups, with varied and even clashing aims and opinions. Urban cycling – specifically commuter, utility and transport cycling – has been developing links and the beginnings of an identity. Action such as Reclaim Belfast’s Cycle Lanes has brought people together in new ways to tackle specific issues.

There is momentum in so many areas of cycling in Belfast and Northern Ireland, and people can really see the potential for meaningful change.  Major hurdles remain stubbornly rooted, and the best chance to overcome problems and demand real change is by sticking together and growing bonds of community. Hopefully 2013 will be an interesting year for building concerted action.

>> Thanks to everyone who interacted with NI Greenways in 2012!

So that’s a wish list for 2013 - some quite realistic, others less so. What do you think of these, and do you have any more ideas which could be pushed forward? Comments are open!