(Two) wheels on the bus : road user perceptions of a bike bus and how this links to addressing global health challenges

Harrington, Deirdre and Bardid, Farid and Cory, Katherine and Dixon, James and Drakopoulou Dodd, Sarah and Ferguson, Neil and Roberts, Jen and Bonner, James (2024) (Two) wheels on the bus : road user perceptions of a bike bus and how this links to addressing global health challenges. Journal of Physical Activity and Health. ISSN 1543-3080 (In Press)

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Abstract

Background: Excessive car use hampers progress towards tackling global health challenges, including climate and sustainability issues and is linked to lower physical activity. Local communities have been developing solutions through bike buses. The paper, one of the first on bike buses, explores how a bike bus is perceived by other road and place users. Methods: An interdisciplinary instrument with dialogic-style questions was distributed on flyers to road and place users on the bike bus route including when the bike bus was passing. Responses were thematically analysed using analytic framing to identify themes and sub-themes. This paper focusses two domains related to physical activity’s link to the global health challenges of climate and sustainability issues of excess car traffic: climate actions and community level activism. Results: Overall, 172 responses were received from 542 distributed flyers (31.8%). The climate actions domain identified: a bike bus as a solution that creates a transport mode shift, reduces emissions, improves air quality. Themes associated with community level activism domain include perception that a bike bus is a form of activism or a protest and that it is a disruption to the status quo on the roads. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that this active mobility practice goes beyond the utility of getting children to school and being a way to promote physical activity. A bike bus is seen as local level community action that could create a transport mode shift, draw attention to road space allocation and help tackle global health challenges.

ORCID iDs

Harrington, Deirdre ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0278-6812, Bardid, Farid ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8591-0596, Cory, Katherine, Dixon, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8930-805X, Drakopoulou Dodd, Sarah ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3140-8194, Ferguson, Neil ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3166-2694, Roberts, Jen ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4505-8524 and Bonner, James;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)