2026/01/08 by Kate Ball · 2 voices
Social Sciences · Health Professions · #Urban Transport and Accessibility #Older Adults Driving Studies #Disability Rights and Representation
paper · doi:10.16997/ats.1923
This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.Cycling is associated with a range of well-established positive effects, from personal physical and mental health improvements to financial, environmental, social and logistical benefits (Public Health England, 2020) (Department for Transport, 2014) (Ding, et al., 2024). Disabled people are under-represented in cycling (Transport for London, 2021) and especially utility cycling (Wheels for Wellbeing, 2024), in view of our relative lack of access to independent mobility via other modes (Transport for All, 2023). Disabled people are therefore disproportionately missing out on the benefits of utility cycling. This paper reframes existing evidence on cycling, active travel and use of public spaces, using the context of a Disabled family including individuals moving alone and in accompanied groups (Wheels for Wellbeing, 2025) to discuss a wide range of intersectional factors which affect access to utility cycling for Disabled people. Since there is little representation of or published material on Disabled families using cycling for utility journeys (Aldred & Pedroso, 2024) (Rahman, 2025), the author has leveraged her own experiences gained through over three decades of utility cycling, including as part of a Disabled family group and as a campaigner. This auto-ethnographic approach (Larrington-Spencer, 2025) has informed selection of factors which affect access to cycling for Disabled families. Factors considered as being of especially high importance to Disabled family utility cycling include time, energy, physical, cognitive and emotional capacity, money, accessible infrastructure, social privilege, relevant personal expertise, and availability of appropriate skilled support. Potential risks including the potential severity of adverse consequences and potential magnitude of benefits is an overarching factor that forms a part of all others: barriers, benefits and risks associated with utility cycling are frequently different in kind or in magnitude for Disabled families as compared to non-disabled individuals.