Table 3.
Broad barriers and specific factors limiting cycling identified by HSBC UK staff focus group participants.
| Broad barrier | Specific factor | Supporting extract |
|---|---|---|
| Lack of time | Family and/or work commitments | I'd like to do more, but for me it's just lack of time. I don't get a minute to myself of a morning or of a night really. I couldn't structure it in… (Participant 4, M, Liverpool) |
| Lack of perceived safety | Lack of confidence |
At the moment, I'm afraid on my bike. I'm not completely confident of the route in and out to work (Participant 2, F, Edinburgh) …we don't know how to deal with icy footpaths, we don't know how to deal with crosswinds, we don't know how to deal with, you know. So, it's the actual physicality of being safe (Participant 2, F, Edinburgh) |
| Poor environmental infrastructure | We need to improve the infrastructure more than anything else…you'll get cycle paths and then all of a sudden, no cycle path. And you're just stuck in the middle of the road (Participant 3, M, Manchester) | |
| Poor road surfaces | [the] bike riding side just reminds me of potholes…I just don't think our roads are great (Participant 5, M, Liverpool) | |
| Traffic | …I'm afraid to stay on the road, because I'm afraid of the cars, the traffic, or I don't have confidence with traffic (Participant 2, F, Edinburgh) | |
| Effort | Hills | It's quite a hilly country….I don't want to cycle up a hill. I want to cycle on a flat, serene ground (Participant 5, M, Manchester) |
| Distance | …if I worked a lot closer to home, that would assist, cos then I wouldn't think about the taking the car. Even if I worked, like, five or six miles away, I could bike. But that's unlikely to be able to happen (Participant 2, F, York) | |
| Cost | Cost of bike | “I've been talking about, with my wife, that we should get a bike, but they're quite expensive and, you know, you just…you know, kind of, postpone it and postpone it (Participant 6, M, Manchester) |
| Cost of equipment (e.g., helmet and clothing) | There's quite a high barrier to entry if you want to buy a bike and not stand out like a sore thumb…because you spend at least a few hundred quid on a road bike and then you look at clips, shoes, lycra, gloves, helmet, jersey, two or three water bottles…It's a grand before… (Participant 3, M, Birmingham) | |
| Lack of social support | Work colleagues, friends, family not interested in cycling |
Me and my husband have got a bike and I've asked him loads of times, but he's just not bothered (Participant 2, F, Birmingham) For me I mainly cycle at home, and the limiter for me would be friends, because none of my friends really do it (Participant 2, M, London) |
| No cycling role model/mentor | …if I had a buddy, that would teach me the etiquette, what to do when I'm coming across someone, you know…who's got right of way (Participant 2, F, Edinburgh) | |
| Lack of facilities at home | Practical and secure storage |
I live in a very small flat…I've got nowhere to keep a bike (Participant 3, F, London) I'd have no space to put the bike away. Just…prams, there's kids' toys…the house is just one big nursery basically. I'd have no space (Participant 4, M, Liverpool) |
| Lack of facilities at work | Secure storage | If you're going to encourage everyone to bike to work, say 20/25 people are all coming here on a bike, then there's nowhere near enough places to leave your bike (Participant 5, F, York) |
| Showers | More facilities at work like showers. At the moment we've got two showers, one in the men's, one in the ladies'. And I think…they're not private (Participant 5, F, York) | |
| Lockers | …there's a massive waiting list for a locker (Participant 5, M, London) | |
| Lack of cycle friendly workplace culture | Professional dress code |
It would be odd to just have some people who dress down…the whole culture would have to change (Participant 7, F, London) …and then I need to put my shirt in my bag and then that's going to be creased (Participant 1, M, York) |
| Bike spares/tools (inner tube, pump etc.) | That sounds good, actually…like a maintenance station that's at your workplace. So if there is anything that's to happen, to go wrong, then you know you could fix it, or there's spare whatever, in the building (Participant 1, F, Edinburgh) | |
| Lack of skills | Unsure how to cycle on the road | ….I knew how to ride a bike, but I didn't know how to do it safely on the roads…I'm used to getting to places by trains or buses or Ubers, but I've never actively gone out to gain that education on how to ride bikes on the roads. It's mainly the safety element for me (Participant 1, F, Birmingham) |
| Lack of experience | …some of these fears that we have it's probably because we never rode bikes on these busy roads when we were kids. (Participant 5, M, London) | |
| Lack of bike maintenance skills | …changing an inner tube, etc…is something people would need to know (Participant 5, M, Liverpool) | |
| Lack of knowledge | Unsure which cycle routes are suitable/how to plan a route | I'm in the center of the city, so how do I get from point A to point B, to a point of safety (Participant 3, F, Edinburgh) |
| Lack of knowledge about cycle schemes (e.g., cycle-to-work) | …the cycle to work scheme. That's quite good, isn't it. Do HSBC do that? (Participant 4, M, York) |