Accessibility to the winter cycling network in Montréal: A transport equity diagnosis

Abstract

Recent studies have demonstrated the importance of a well-maintained and safe bicycle network to increase winter cycling. However, inequities in the access to cycling infrastructure in winter have not been documented yet. Based on the concept of equity in transport, this research aims to fill the gap and assess whether inequities are exacerbated during winter in the city of Montréal, Canada. The distance to the nearest cycling network section and kilometres of cycling network with 2.5 km and 5 km were computed in GIS. Two types of statistical analysis were then conducted to assess potential inequities for four population groups: weighted t-tests and seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) models. Our results demonstrate that the winter cycling network is more concentrated in central neighbourhoods and that accessibility issues are increasing in winter. Visible minorities face the most lack of accessibility, compared to the rest of the population. People under the age of 15 and over the age of 65 years old are also in unequal situations, while the low-income population has better access to winter cycling infrastructure than other groups. Our results innovate by incorporating measures of accessibility to the winter cycling network into the assessment of transport inequities.