Women Really Need to Talk About Taking Back Our Streets in Portland and Beyond

More research is needed on the impacts of gender on mode choice and traffic violence. That is why BikeLoud PDX decided to do a survey of women who bike in Portland. I also got involved for more personal reasons.

Many decades ago, when I was 14, I took a class at my local university a few afternoons each week. I figured getting to the U by bike would be free and take half the time of going by bus. I didn’t know how much I’d grow to enjoy the ride. I especially loved swooping down a gently winding road through a golf course in the bright spring sunshine. I was on top of the world: in a college class, on my own wheels, amid fresh air and beautiful green hills. Then one day two guys in a pickup truck followed me, catcalled and laughed at me, and nudged me into a patch of gravel where I had to brake suddenly. I flew over my handlebars. I woke up with a golfer at my side. His golfing buddy had gone to the clubhouse to call an ambulance. The pickup truck drivers were long gone,

My broken clavicle and minor concussion healed well in a few months, but my confidence – that feeling of complete control and purpose and joy –  that was shattered. It’s taken me decades to reclaim that feeling on a bike. 

Would a 14 year old boy have had a similar traumatic experience to mine on his bike? Possibly, but statistical modeling has shown that, other factors being equal, women are 3.8 times more likely to be close passed than men. People who bike sometimes call a close pass a “punishment pass”, and women are more often punished for biking.

There are decades of research on how women are constrained in in their use of public space. Women, people of color, children, elders, and gender non-conforming people face barriers when they use public space. Add to that, our society tolerates aggressive behavior from people who drive against people who bike – of all ages, races and genders. We layer intersectional burdens on using public space by enacting laws and building roads that privilege people who drive.

Women who are visible in public are expected to behave in a deferential way. To be safe in many cities that do not provide protected bike lanes, people on bikes need to ride confidently and take the lane. And yet, as one of the women who responded to our survey said, “We’ll be targeted if we’re assertive… But cyclists need to be assertive to be safe.” 

BikeLoud PDX, the main bike advocacy group for the city of Portland, Oregon, published a Women’s Biking Survey in its February 2024 Newsletter. The response to it was huge. In just a few weeks over 500 people answered it: 27 men, 28 non-binary people, and 450 women.

The original Women’s Biking Survey was created and administered in the summer of 2023 by ​​the London Cycling Campaign’s Women’s Network. The London survey revealed shocking abuse faced by women who ride bikes as reported in Momentum.  BikeLoud, with permission, used almost all of the London questions to write its own Portland survey, and the two groups of women – in London and Portland – have started talking to compare responses. 

In both London and Portland, only about 30% of the people who bike are women. In many northern European cities and other places with bike-friendly policies and infrastructure like Japan, women outnumber men on bikes. 

The women in London built an entire campaign using their women’s survey, with rides, petitions, videos, letters to elected leaders and more. Portland women in BikeLoud have just started analyzing the 507 survey responses. 

We began with a deep dive into  just one of the questions:

Please describe the worst – or most common – incident of abuse or aggressive behaviors towards you while cycling, including any terms of abuse.

As in London, we were shocked by the violence women said they experienced while biking.

As a way of putting some structure on what were extremely sensitive, often long, and always heartfelt stories, we divided the levels of womens’ experiences into three levels of trauma. All of the reported incidents of every level of trauma diminish the joy of biking. All of the incidents are intolerable. Even the less traumatic experiences made some women give up biking entirely.

Level 1 Trauma, n=29

Hit and run. Run off road. Throwing projectiles while close passing. Hitting. Dog attacks. Deliberate close pass while kids are on their bikes. Very aggressive stalkingMost common is aggressive and too close driving. Worst was when I got hit by a hit and run driver and the nearby pedestrian told me I deserved it for riding a bike. 

Level 2 Trauma, n=53

Deliberate close pass. Combo tailgating, revving, and close pass. Stalking. Deliberate targeting. Tapping. Projectiles.Driving towards me or extremely close to me to scare or intimidate me; Honking and yelling while driving to startle me; Yelling sexist or explicit obscenities at me;  Speeding past me to get in front of me then slowing down not allowing me to pass;

Level 3 Trauma, n=229

Close pass, yelling, swearing, honking, hunting, catcalling, rolling coal, spittinga car or truck that passes me too close with what seems like purposeful acceleration meant to be aggressive  and intimidating, often with a honk or extra loud engine noise. I have been yelled at but I don’t recall actual terms used. It’s so mean. It’s really upsetting.

BikePortland reported on the Portland survey. The vast majority of aggressive behaviors came from people driving cars. Respondents said 88% of the aggressors were in cars, 7% were identified as unhoused people and 5% were other bike riders.

Photo courtesy of Cycle Portland

Portland women reported on the failure of law enforcement to address public space violence:

A man screaming “get the f*ck off the road” repeatedly while I was cycling on a low traffic route downtown, revving their engine constantly and pulling up too close behind me. I finally got off the road, shaking and crying and called 911. The dispatcher told me there was “nothing we can do, it’s not illegal.” She didn’t want me to report the behavior, even though I had the license plate.

Twenty nine women reported aggressive stalking:

I had a driver stop to tell me that I needed a rear bike light so they could see me. I didn’t respond so he continued to verbally harass me. When the light changed they followed me and kept trying to yell at me. Eventually I came to [a] park and biked into it so they couldn’t follow me. I was scared to bike for a while after that.

Women who answered the Portland survey cited 11 sexual threats, 24 times they were called bitch or cunt, 54 incidents of excessive swearing, including 19 women who reported riding with their children when verbal assaults happened. Over 100 women who answered the survey experienced close passes. Excess speed, excessive horn use, tailgating, and using a car as a weapon were common. There were 14 bottles thrown and 8 gun threats. 

This is how one woman summarized her experience as a long-time bike commuter.

None of these described incidents are rare, aberrant, unusual, or even, really, worthy of note anymore, but they’re the specific ones that come immediately to mind with no thought at all, but that are representative of a whole problem. They happen ALL THE TIME, for seemingly no reason often. The misogyny comes out almost immediately, reflexively…We live in a deeply sexist society and misogynist backlash to feminist gains is observantly real across  both dominant culture and most if not all subcultures. Women already experience this whether they have the interpretive lens to see it or not. Many women I know just don’t want to be extra-burdened by the physical and emotional danger of biking routinely for transportation, because they’re already burdened enough in a way men just aren’t.

Most people who ride bicycles for everyday transportation have stories like these to tell. There are no other areas of public life where people are as aggressive toward each other as they are on our shared public streets. The primacy of cars has magnified people’s aggression toward each other, particularly toward people on bikes and even more toward women who are seen as not having a right to be on the street. 

Road aggression does not only affect women. But women, girls, and nonbinary people suffer far more gendered abuse in daily life and far more on the road. Though we’re just starting to evaluate our survey, many of the experiences of women in Portland are similar to women in London.

What can we do? Here are some specific actions we can take, though many more are needed.

• We need more protected bike lanes that are wide enough for cargo bikes and side-by-side biking for people traveling with children. 
• We need street lighting at night for people riding bikes that meets or exceeds lighting for people in cars. 
• We need laws written and enforced that recognize traffic violence and road intimidation as the public space crimes that they are. 
• We need women and other diverse people who bike at the table to help design, build, and maintain bike infrastructure that is safe for all of us. 

In Portland and in London, women on bikes are visible, vulnerable, and seen by some as fair game for violence. It’s long past time to call out this violence for what it is, to enact and enforce laws to combat it, and build public space that allows women and all people to reclaim the joy of getting around under our own power.

Cathy Tuttle (she/her) is an urban design and planning professional. She worked for the City of Seattle for many years before founding several climate action groups including the Seattle Neighborhood Greenways (SNG) active transportation advocacy group. She moved to Portland in 2021.