ABSTRACT
This chapter gives a brief – and necessarily partial – overview of cycling policy. It outlines the main drivers of cycling policy and resulting manifestations and theorizes cycling policy as a biopolitical mobility fix due to its focus on individual responsibilization and its optimization toward addressing matters of economic concern. The chapter outlines some issues that arise from current policy directions. Behavior change has been a key pillar of UK cycling policy for some time. In its broadest sense, behavior change policy acknowledges that travel behavior is conditioned by structural, attitudinal and habitual factors. Contemporary cycling policy in the UK can be understood as a biopolitical ‘mobility fix’ because of its tendency to responsibilize individuals to adopt new ways of moving in order to address matters of (economic) concern. These matters include speeding up the circulation time of capital and labor; enhancing human capital; boosting industrial and place image; and facilitating production and capture of ‘behavioral surplus’ from user data.
