#bikeparking now: Bike Parking Patterns in the Landscape with Instagram Crowdsourced Data

Progress in human development creates unwanted consequences in society. The public has been threatened with health issues that stem from the anthropogenic use of the environment. This is mainly the reason why the idea of a healthy city is an emerging topic. There must be a balance between having convenience and efficiency by affording health-supportive environments in the urban setting. The concept of active mobility is pushed for as it requires people to get exercise as a mode of transport. The mode of transport takes advantage of walking and cycling to get from one point to another. Between the two, the paper looks at cycling as it can reach farther distances and more locations with shorter periods.

In looking at active transport as a necessity to navigate between locations, the destination is the important reason for travel. If cycling active mobility is to be further encouraged, a sense of inclusivity must be provided through bike parking. This paper investigated current bike parking patterns in social media. Data was crowdsourced from Instagram with the hashtag “bikeparking” - #bikeparking (n=440). This study suggests a framework behind the considerations of bike parking by looking at dimensions of the user (parking typology, human presence, and type of bike used), cycling infrastructure (count of bikes parked, built overhead protection, and bike parking load), and environmental settings (visible elements and time settings) viewed through what social media labelled as #bikeparking. The sampled images were processed through content analysis. The variables collected were analyzed by Chi-square tests to find relationships within the suggested framework.

The data revealed that although there is a trend for cycling mobility, bike parking strategies in the landscape tend to vary based on the interactions between the variables of the user dimension to the other identified dimensions of cycling infrastructure and environmental settings. The contemporary patterns of bike parking elaborated in this paper provides an idea of ways wherein contributors of crowdsourced data find a scene they deem acceptable to be tagged as “#bikeparking.” In planning for more developments geared towards active mobility and health supportiveness, the landscape at the endpoints needs bike parking. Social media data through #bikeparking can contribute to this process through consideration of the framework interactions with security, demand, and environmental settings dimensions.