On 5/10/2014 8:38 PM, Stephen Bauman wrote:
On Sat, 10 May 2014 12:32:01 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:


Even in places with special infrastructure, use is often minimal. I'm
regularly a visitor in a small town with prominent bike lanes on its
major through streets. So far this year, I've seen exactly one bike
being ridden in those bike lanes. Based on prior years, I'll probably
see, oh, a couple dozen total by the end of the year. Heck, even though
I frequently ride for utility in that town, I'm seldom in those bike
lanes. There are better ways to go where I need to go.


I cannot comment on what you saw. I know nothing of the circumstances.
You should not generalize your personal observations to every corner of
the country.

Of course, that advice goes both ways. Those who claim bike lanes (or
whatever) will lead to mass cycling often generalize their examples to
every corner of the country. And it often seems their examples are very
carefully chosen, i.e. atypical.

Had you witnessed NYC's cordon counters during the morning rush hour in
2012 on the West Side Greenway, you would have discovered that inbound
bike traffic was 7% of the motor vehicle traffic of the adjacent West
Side Highway.
...

The results show a much greater increase than the nationwide statistics
show. The cordon count growth rate from 2002 to 2010 shows a compounded
annual growth rate of 18%.

Up to what current percentage?

It depends on the street and time of day. As mentioned above it's around
7% of the motor vehicle count for the West Side Highway and Greenway for
the morning rush hour. Columbus/9th Avenue has a protected cycle track on
the street. Its inbound bicycle count was 12% the motor vehicle count at
6pm on the 2012 cordon count day. At that same time, the figure for West
End/11th Ave was 2% (no bike lanes) and the Greenway (12th Ave) was 7%
with class I bike lane and river view.

Again, some examples seem to be very carefully chosen. From what I
read, overall bike mode share in NYC is still estimated to be 1%. If
your "annual growth rate of 18%" had resulted in that 1% mode share, it
would have meant starting at 0.27% mode share. So you could phrase it
"Almost quadrupling in 8 years" which sounds pretty darn good ... until
people realize it's a change from negligible to negligible.

And I doubt anyone has detected a resulting improvement regarding public
health, traffic jams, air pollution, or energy use as a result.

--
- Frank Krygowski