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Within countries with a low cycling mode share (approximately 5% mode share or less, herein referred to as low-cycling countries), cycling is demographically unequal, notably by gender and age (Pucher & Buehler, 2008). A policy concern to diversify cycling has been accompanied by a growth in academic literature on this issue. Aldred, woodcock and Goodman (2015) explored whether increasing cycle commuting (between 2001 and 2011) was associated with greater age and gender diversity in England and Wales.
The results suggest that increased cycling in Inner London and some other, largely metropolitan, areas has not yet been associated with an increase in diversity.

Part of the reason for this lack of diversification may lie in a lack of change in existing cycling environments. Increasingly, authors examine the extent to which experience of active travel environments may vary between groups (Asadi-Shekari, Moeinaddini, & Zaly Shah, 2013; Habib, Mann, Mahmoud, & Weiss, 2014; Oxley, Corben, Charlton, Fildes, & Rothengatter, 2005). For example, an ageing population generates new design challenges for cycle infrastructure (Fietsberaad, 2007), while the engineering requirements of three-wheeled cycles (used to carry children or other cargo, or ridden by some disabled cyclists) differ from that of bicycles (Transport for London [TfL], 2014).
Understanding under-represented groups’ views on infrastructure may help realise policy goals to diversify cycling. Specifically, authors have suggested that people from demographic groups under-represented in lower cycling contexts show greater aversion to sharing with motor traffic than do younger people and men (Chataway, Kaplan, Nielsen, & Prato, 2014; Davies, Halliday, Mayes, & Pocock, 1997). If so, this could be part of the explanation for observed inequalities in cycling, especially higher cycling countries, with better cycling infrastructure, have much greater gender and age equity (Aldred et al., 2015).
To date, however, no systematic review has examined gender and age similarities and differences in preferences for different types of cycling environments. This review helps to fill that gap by systematically synthesising the evidence on what people say they would prefer if given a choice. It does not consider the evidence on what people actually choose in existing cycling environments, in which they may have few options. Its findings have policy implications for building infrastructure for cycling in low-cycling countries.
They speak to an ongoing debate between those who suggest that building more infrastructure that existing cyclists find acceptable will increase and diversify cycling (Office for National Statistics [ONS], 2014) and those who argue that this approach will reinforce existing inequalities (Horton & Jones, 2015).