Findings (May 2021)

Who Bikes? An Assessment of Leisure and Commuting Bicycling from the Canadian Community Health Survey

  • Caislin L. Firth,
  • Michael Branion-Calles,
  • Meghan Winters,
  • M. Anne Harris

Abstract

Read online

We used 2013/2014 Canadian Community Health Survey to describe who bicycles for leisure, commuting, or both leisure and commuting. Nearly one-quarter of Canadians bicycled in the 3 months prior to the survey: 7 Canadians bicycled for leisure for every 1 person who bicycled for commuting purposes. People bicycling for leisure were more likely to be younger, male, higher income, and identify as white. Commute bicycling captured a very small proportion of the bicycling population; men were nearly twice as likely to commute compared to women and there was little difference in bike commuting across racial identity.