Sustainable transportation: biking in Groningen, Netherlands

The basis of this thesis research was to identify and analyze daily life patterns among individuals living in Groningen, Netherlands who utilize a bicycle as a main mode of transportation. In the Netherlands bicycles are commonly used for daily travel for trips with destinations within the city. The normalcy of bike use among people living in Groningen who are in a variety of different life phases, have differing amounts of income, and are of different ages and different genders influenced their decision to continue to bike and to view it as the most convenient mode of transportation for distances that are 30 minutes or less away by bicycle. To complete this research, I spent two months in Groningen, Netherlands in the summer of 2017 conducting unstructured interviews, semi-structured interviews, directing participants to complete mapping exercises about their transportation habits, and gaining a deeper understanding through participant observation. This results of this research are based off of the information gained through these methods as well as research completed on the countries political history, development patterns, and important social events that helped to shape the functionality of modern Dutch society. Interview participants routinely stated that biking was an integral part of their childhoods, bike theft influenced their biking habits, their grocery store visits were influenced by their transportation mode choice, they regularly utilized multiple modes of transportation, and factors such as cost and weather influenced their daily decision to use a bike for their commute. Bikes are well integrated into modern life in the country and in Groningen specifically. Residents do not feel that they are limited by their choice to use bicycles for daily transportation