IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jotrge/v126y2025ics0966692325001140.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cycling cities: Measuring urban mobility mixing in bikeshare networks

Author

Listed:
  • Fraser, Timothy
  • Van Woert, Katherine
  • Olivieri, Sophia
  • Baron, Jonathan
  • Buckley, Katelyn
  • Lalli, Pamela

Abstract

To promote low-carbon transit, cities are increasingly adopting public-private partnerships to offer bikeshare services. But some neighborhoods use bikeshare services more than others, raising questions about how equitable these public programs' rollout has been. We examined the entire temporal directed network of individual rides from Boston's Bluebikes program, tracking bikers' starting and ending stations from 2011 to 2021. We hypothesized that ridership levels are lower between neighborhoods of color than white neighborhoods, and greater between wealthier neighborhoods than working class neighborhoods. We designed edgewise block permutation tests to measure the statistical significance of mobility between similar neighborhoods, while controlling through permutation blocks for population density, program geography, distance, and the distribution of race, wealth, education, and age. The network is deeply stratified by race and income, with more homophilous movement between neighborhoods from similar income brackets than expected due to chance. Race is linked to considerable homophily, but with low statistical significance. However, homophilous mobility by income and race has dropped sharply from 2011 to 2021, suggesting that Bluebikes is gradually reaching a broader range of neighborhoods. This presents signs of hope for a transition to equitable transit options in other major US cities as well.

Suggested Citation

  • Fraser, Timothy & Van Woert, Katherine & Olivieri, Sophia & Baron, Jonathan & Buckley, Katelyn & Lalli, Pamela, 2025. "Cycling cities: Measuring urban mobility mixing in bikeshare networks," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:126:y:2025:i:c:s0966692325001140
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2025.104223
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692325001140
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2025.104223?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:126:y:2025:i:c:s0966692325001140. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-transport-geography .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.