Safe cycling to school: Rethinking inequalities in the distribution of cycling infrastructure

Bicycle riding as a mode of transport is advocated by academia, government, and community organizations due to its well-recognized health and environmental benefits. Enabling children to ride to school safely is fundamental to developing lifelong cycling habits. Previous studies show that the lack of safe cycling infrastructure is the main parental concern that restricts children from cycling. However, whether socially different communities have equitable access to safe cycling facilities and how such inequalities can be effectively identified remain underexplored. This study introduces two important yet underexamined dimensions of bikeability assessment: infrastructure quality and connectivity to key destinations, and conceptualizes bikeability as continuous access to destinations via high-quality (safe) cycling infrastructure. Using the Greater Melbourne Area, Australia, as a case study, we first applied a ‘Cycling Infrastructure Classification System’ to categorize facilities and identify those deemed ‘safe,’ with classification validated using street-view imagery. Spatial queries were then employed to identify dwellings with general versus ‘safe’ cycling access to public schools. The distribution of these dwellings and their association with socioeconomic factors were subsequently analysed using inequality statistics and a Robust Geographical Detector (RGD). Our analysis of Greater Melbourne reveals that while dwellings with safe cycling access to schools are distributed with relative equality across socioeconomic groups, this apparent equity is primarily driven by an overall scarcity of safe infrastructure. Furthermore, spatial analysis shows that areas with fewer families with children or more zero-vehicle households, which contain 80% of all dwellings, have the lowest levels of safe cycling access, underscoring a critical need for future cycling networks to prioritize both quality and equitable coverage.