In order to reduce car use, stimulate cycling and make a modal shift happen, policy makers have to act, among other things, on individual travel behaviour. To make the most effective policy choices, it’s important policy makers have proper knowledge about both the actual travel behaviour in their region and people’s opinion about cycling and (sustainable) mobility in general and corresponding policy. Especially on the latter aspect, researchers and policy makers in Flanders lack clear evidence. Therefore, Mobiel 21 thoroughly studied public opinion about sustainable mobility in Flanders. Via the Bpact online panel, we issued a survey with a representative sample of 2000 respondents.
Our results deliver some interesting results about the public opinion on cycling in Flanders and, more importantly, show a strong preference for more investments in cycling and cycling infrastructure. A majority in Flanders support public policy aimed at cycling. However, the discourse around cycling often seems to point to the opposite. Policy makers base a lot of their decision on what they think public opinion on cycling and the car is. As research by Walgraeve shows, politicians are not the best readers of public opinion. This might lead to car centered policy that doesn't correspond with public opinion on (sustainable) mobility. Therefore it's crucial that results about public preferences, like for example the results from our survey, properly reach policy makers.
At CRB, we would like to discuss how to best put our results to use, in order to counter a general negative feeling around cycling, showing that in fact a vast majority is in favour of cycling (policy). We specifically want to focus on how we can better inform policy makers about public preferences.