Bikelife | Bristol – 2015 – Taking the pulse of bike life in Bristol

BikeLife2015 Main cover image

Sustrans and Bristol City Council have been collaborating with seven cities in the UK – Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Greater Manchester and Newcastle – to report on progress towards making cycling an attractive and everyday means of travel.

Bike Life is inspired by the Copenhagen Bicycle Account, and is an assessment of cycling development including cycling conditions, new initiatives and satisfaction with various aspects of cycling.

This is the first of two reports, with the second being published in 2017.

The information in this report comes from local data, including a representative survey of over 1,100 residents in Bristol.

Key facts for Bristol at a glance

  • 18 million bike trips in Bristol in a year
  • 31% of people ride a bike once a month or more
  • 8 in 10 people support increasing the safety of cycling – more than any other way of getting around the city
  • 70% of people want to see more spent on cycling
  • £28.5 million is the benefit to health in the city, in a single year, from the current level of people riding bikes
  • 11,755 tonnes of CO2 saved by people making trips by riding a bike rather than driving – equivalent to the annual emissions of around 4,629 cars
  • 67p per mile is the saving to individuals and to the local economy, for every mile biked instead of driven – which works out at over £26 million a year for Bristol at current levels of cycling