Only 31% of NI adults surveyed have access to a bicycle, official figures show

Fewer than one in three people surveyed in Northern Ireland had access to a bicycle in the latest official walking and cycling study, raising a basic question about plans to persuade more people to leave their cars behind for short journeys: how many can realistically make the switch?

The Department for Infrastructure's 2025/26 survey, published on Thursday 5 November, found that 31% of respondents owned or had access to a cycle. Among that group, just 30% said they had cycled during the previous four weeks.

The findings sit alongside another revealing figure. Only 18% of respondents said they would be likely to cycle a short journey of up to three miles, or five kilometres. Nearly two-thirds, by contrast, said they would be likely to walk a journey of up to two miles.

These are answers to different questions over different distances, so they are not a straight measure of whether cycling is less convenient than walking. But they help explain the challenge facing transport planners: building cycle routes is only one part of encouraging people to use them.

The difference between having a bicycle and using one

Access is not the same as regular participation. A bicycle may be available at home but seldom used for shopping, education or commuting. It may serve occasional recreation rather than replacing a car journey.

That distinction is clear in the latest results. The 30% who cycled during the previous four weeks were drawn only from people who said they had access to a cycle — not from the whole Northern Ireland adult population.

It would therefore be misleading to announce that 30% of Northern Ireland adults cycle regularly. The report supports a much narrower statement about recent activity within a particular group.

Even that measure says nothing about how far people travelled, how often they cycled or why they made those journeys. Someone who took one short weekend ride would fall into the same recent-use category as someone who cycled repeatedly during the month.

For transport policy, the distinction matters because increasing leisure cycling does not automatically reduce congestion at weekday peak times.

An 11-point satisfaction gap

Of the respondents questioned, 51% said they were satisfied with conditions for cyclists in their local area. The equivalent figure for walking was 62%.

That is an 11-percentage-point difference in satisfaction between two forms of active travel that often use the same streets but have different infrastructure needs.

A pavement that feels suitable for walking may not offer a comfortable route for cycling. Equally, a segregated cycleway does little for someone whose journey starts on a difficult road or whose destination lacks a secure place to leave a bicycle.

The survey does not prove which specific barriers explain the difference. It does establish that satisfaction with the local cycling environment is appreciably lower than satisfaction with walking conditions.

That should make an important difference to how public spending is evaluated. A new route may add kilometres to an official network, but its usefulness will depend on whether it connects places people actually want to reach and whether prospective users are willing to travel along it.

Why Northern Ireland's dependence on cars matters

Separate official travel statistics for 2024 show that 69% of journeys by Northern Ireland residents were made by car. Walking and cycling together represented almost a quarter of journeys, while public transport accounted for 4%.

Those figures come from a different statistical publication and reporting period, so they must not be treated as a direct continuation of the new attitudes survey.

They do, however, show the scale of the role cars play in everyday transport. For many journeys — particularly those involving several stops, equipment, passengers or locations with limited public transport — a car may remain the most practical option.

The case for improving walking and cycling need not depend on pretending those journeys are interchangeable. Instead, the more credible question is which shorter trips could realistically become attractive without a car, given a connected route, suitable facilities and the means to travel.

What the numbers can tell planners

The report is based on the Continuous Household Survey. Across 2025/26, 4,004 people from 3,459 households participated in the wider survey.

Crucially, the walking and cycling questions were asked through a split-sample arrangement rather than to every participant in the overall household survey. It would be wrong to imply all 4,004 individuals answered every cycling question.

The results also concern people aged 16 and over. They should not be presented as a count of children with access to bicycles or as a measure of cycling within every household.

They are attitudes and reported behaviour, not a traffic counter. They cannot establish how many bicycles passed a road, how many car trips were replaced or whether a specific transport project succeeded.

The test is whether short journeys become possible, not just desirable

The Department says the survey is intended to help identify barriers to active travel and inform policy. That makes the latest figures more than an exercise in measuring public opinion.

If a policy relies on a major rise in cycling, low bicycle access is a practical constraint that needs to be addressed alongside road design. So are storage, the ability to reach a destination safely and confidence in the journey.

At the same time, the fact that 64% say they would be likely to walk journeys of up to two miles suggests there may be different opportunities for changing shorter trips, depending on their purpose and location.

Northern Ireland has repeatedly debated speed limits, cycle lanes and road space. Today's figures offer a reminder that the people expected to use alternative transport must have the equipment, routes and confidence to do so.

For a region where most journeys are still made by car, the gap between ambition and everyday practicality is the real transport story.