2.4 Safety (cont.) Social gender norms between men and women, issued at a young age, impact a person’s experience and confidence in cycling and therefore their perceptions of safety. Another study showed that the participation of women within the active transportation environment was dependent on the physical structure and the perceived safety that is associated with it. In Valencia Spain, the built environment affected the interaction of women and mobility. Moreover, females showed greater preference than males for greenways and cycling around parks while job density is negatively associated with females’ share of trip (M.Pellicer-Chenoll et al., 2020).This indicated that a presence of physical separation away from busy vehicular traffic is preferred amongst women. In addition, the perception of safety indicated the time of day in which these trips are made in that same study in Spain. The third peak was lower among women than men, probably due to the different perception of safety at late hours, since women are more risk averse than men (M.Pellicer-Chenoll et al., 2020). The data suggests that due to normative social practices, women and bicycling trips revolve more around daytime activities that occur daily, like child rearing and procurement of household goods. Lastly, the perception of safety indicated the spatiality of these bicycle trips amongst women. In a study revealing gender gaps in urban mobility, women’s movements were shown to be more spatially localized than men, as shown by the distributions of range by gender (L. Gauvin et al., 2019). Within the study it revealed that men tend to travel at farther distances between destination points and with no time constraints because their awareness of safety is seldom at risk. From the data collected, this exemplifies that women based their bicycle trips upon locality, often avoiding the outward fringes of a city where safety is perceived to be at risk.
16
