Written by Inah Okon | CRB Scholarship Program
Glad to share that I was awarded a scholarship by the Urban Cycling Institute for participation in the Cycling Research Board Annual Meeting held in Zurich, Switzerland. During the conference, I presented results of the findings of our study with CEO of Urban Cycling Institute, Meredith Glaser. The study which is focused on institutional logics for urban mobility choices amongst Nigerian urban residents and the African diaspora in the Netherlands. Our study maps and compares the historically developed institutional logics for urban mobility in both Nigeria and the Netherlands.
Institutional logics guide the way people, organizations, and society behave. A longitudinal, qualitative, two-tailed case study design was adopted for this study, including samples of both Nigerian urban dwellers and the African diaspora in the Netherlands. A sample of participants from both tails took part in the semi-structured interviews. The two-tailed case study design complemented the trial design in its comparative focus, with the analysis aimed at exploring group differences
Thirty randomized participants (18 in Nigeria and 12 African participants in the Netherlands) were purposively sampled for variance in current bicycle usage and willingness to cycle for utility. Data were collected by a series of semi-structured interviews via phone calls and Google forms. At the level of the individual interview an initial a priori questions were developed and initially applied, focusing on core areas of interest such as factors influencing cycling and perceptions of cycling. In addition to primary data collection, the urban transport policies and planning framework of both countries were reviewed and critically analyzed. For example, a specific review of the Cross River State Department of Transportation (DoPT) law indicated that there was no mention of bicycling or walking as an urban transport mode, just like many other state and federal laws. This is a huge deviation from what obtains in the Netherlands, where beyond government regulations/laws academia, civil society organizations, regions, counties, and communities all play critical roles to enhance utilitarian cycling as an urban transport mode.
Key findings from the study indicate that the willingness to cycle among the African diaspora community remains very high, even more so than African participants who did not show high levels of willingness to cycle in their home countries. Multiple factors may play a part in this, such as safety issues, lack of enabling infrastructure, vehicular traffic, lack of regulations to protect cyclists and so on.
It was a consensus among participants that the way forward for cycling in their respective countries will include formulation of policies/laws, development of bicycle infrastructure, sensitization/incentives for use, programs/events, free bicycle schemes, among others. There is a glimmer of hope for bicycling in Nigeria and Africa as institutional logics reveal a cycling culture that has been neglected over the years.
