Use and activity levels on newly built bicycle playgrounds

Increasing the use of urban green space (UGS) as well as increasing cycling could potentially help address the growing inactivity problem. Three bicycle playgrounds were designed based on a participatory process and afterwards constructed in the UGS along a cycle-route on the historic outer defence circle around the City of Copenhagen, the Copenhagen Fortifications. The concept of a bicycle playground is new, and to examine how the three areas were used, and explore how users experience the areas, this study was designed as a combination of systematic observations, using the System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC), and short on-site interviews with 'typical users'. Based on the structural observations and 12 short interviews it became clear that 63% of the users were active during their use. The bicycle playgrounds main users were teenagers and children, especially boys. The interviewed users were, in general, very positive about the sites; they liked the concept and thought that it offered a new type of activity possibility. Many of the interviewed users said they lived 10-20 min away (by bicycle), but there were also a number of interviewees that lived very close to one of the sites. A future study involving objective before and after measures when a new bicycle playground is build will be needed to reveal if bicycle playgrounds can provide additional activity to its users, or 'just' a different type of activity, in a different location.