Revealing the determinants of gender inequality in urban cycling with large-scale data

Cycling is an outdoor activity with massive health benefits, and effective solution towards sustainable urban transport. Despite these benefits the recent rising popularity of cycling, most countries still have a negligible uptake. This uptake especially low for women: there largely unexplained, persistent gender gap in cycling. To understand determinants this cycling at scale, here we use massive, automatically-collected data from tracking application Strava on 61 cities across United States, Kingdom, Italy Benelux area. Leveraging associated usage information, first quantify emerging recreational city-level. A comparison rates women within similar geographical areas unveils broad range gaps. On macroscopic level, link heterogeneity to variety indicators provide evidence traditional hypotheses gender-cycling-gap. We find positive association between female rate road safety. microscopic identify preferences street-specific features city New York. Enhancing quality dedicated infrastructure may be way make environments more accessible women, thereby making transport everyone.