The City's Transportation Department does an annual count of cars, buses, pedestrians, and bicycles entering and exiting the Central Business District. This "CBD cordon count" is used to track the mode share of commuters. Last October, it was reported that the downtown mode share of transit has reached 50%.
Bike Calgary has just obtained the 2011 CBD cordon count data from the City. The 22-hour count of bikes entering and leaving the CBD has broken 10,000 for the first time, up 6% over last year's number, and up almost 15% over 2009. During the morning peak hour (7:15-8:15 am) only, which the City uses to measure the transportation mode share, 1,182 bikes were counted entering the CBD, of a total of 57,618 people in cars, buses, on bikes and on foot. This amounts to a cycling mode share of 2.05% (up from 1.86% last year). (Other modes: drivers 33.4%, passengers 6.7%, transit 49.3%, pedestrians 8.6%.) [more]
During the 2011 morning peak hour, 19,287 cars, 197 trucks, and 330 buses were counted entering the CBD. The percentage of bicycles among peak hour road traffic is thus 5.6% (up from 5.2% in 2009). For the three hours 7:00-9:00 am, the bicycle count was 1,925, up from 1,653 in 2009. In the longer time frame, the bicycle mode share was 1.97% (up from 1.79% last year), and the bicycle share of traffic 4.96% (up from 4.33%).
The cordon counts of course have their limitations. They're done over several days in May (in 2010, some counts had to be repeated and adjusted in November). Weather is always a factor in how many people ride to work on a given day; in May 2011 the morning temperatures ranged between 4 and 10 degrees, with the last week of May rainy; in 2009 the weather was similar, and early May 2010 much worse (snow and below 0) but mid May much better. By contrast, in mid-May 2008 the morning temperatures reached 20 degrees! (Historical weather data here.) The cordon counts also don't catch everyone: about 140,000 people work downtown, but less than 100,000 were counted as entering the CBD between 7 and 9 am.
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Baby steps but getting better!
Submitted by fixmtl on
We need more frequent surveys to be able to do a better assessment of the situation. The City's Comprehensive Cycling Strategy mentions automated counting stations in section 8.1 Data collection and reporting (recommendation C42):
//Investigate best practices and technology for cycling data collection, purchase automated counting stations and install
them in strategic locations.//
Interesting
Submitted by amf673 on
I recall during the discussion of the Cycling Strategy some nay-sayers using the data up to 2010 and saying that the bike share is flat or declining. It is a bit like the global warming deniers ...
All of us riders have been saying that there seems to be more cyclists. I suspect that the 2012 numbers will show another jump due to the 10St Lanes. 10 St was a missing link to get people from a huge area of the NW to the river pathways in relative safety.
And just think what would happen to the mode share if there was some real infrstructure put in ...
How much would be "our share" of downtown road space?
Submitted by Richard Z on
Instructive, perhaps, to compare the cyclist share of traffic with who gets how much road space downtown: There are about 170 blocks of road downtown. Each is at least 4 lanes wide, so cars get at least 640 block-lanes. Each block has sidewalks on either side, which downtown are usually the same width as a car lane. So pedestrians get about 340 block-lanes. Transit gets 7 Ave, which is 60 block-lanes. Cyclists: we get 0. How much infrastructure would we get if road space was alotted proportionally? 5% of 700 block-lanes of road is 35 block-lanes, and a bike lane is half the width of a car lane, so that amount of space would accommodate about 70 blocks of one-way bike lanes. 30 blocks would give us a direct E-W route through downtown in both directions; leaves 40 blocks for 2-3 N-S routes in both directions.
space
Submitted by mikewarren on
One thing to consider is that bike-lanes take half a car lane IFF you can put bike lanes both ways -- to put in a bike lane, you need to remove car-space (parking, or lanes) and so either you get two-way bike lanes or one-way with wasted space.
Anyway, good estimates etcetera!
A car lane is about 3 m or
Submitted by Richard Z on
A car lane is about 3 m or more and a bike lane about 1.5 m (eg, those on 10 St NW). Right? Or do you just mean that if you put in a bike lane in one direction only on a one-way street you'll waste space?
yes
Submitted by mikewarren on
The latter.
Of course, on roads where narrowing the lanes is possible, it might be feasible to eke out enough space for a one-way bike-lane without "really" eliminating any car-space...
Interesting
Submitted by fixmtl on
What about transit, though? I've heard the Downtown transit mode share is around 50%. How can we factor this in?
Well, it's always difficult
Submitted by Richard Z on
Well, it's always difficult to quantify such things. Here I was just trying to make vivid how much dedicated space each of the modes is provided. Of course you don't want to allocate space just on the basis of mode share, or else we'd have to take out about 80% of the sidewalk space and turn it into dedicated bus lanes.
Mainly my point is this: whenever cycling infrastructure is being talked about, whether it's about the question of how much money to spend on cycling or on how much dedicated space to provide for cyclists, one of the main arguments detractors give is that there are so few cyclists and hence spending money on them or giving them road space isn't fair/not cost effective/pandering to a small minority/etc. But this attitude rests on a false assumption: 2% (of people moved) or 5% of vehicles on downtown roads may be small, but what cyclists are asking for isn't out of line with these percentages -- when talking about the cost of the cycling strategy, we pointed out that both annual operating costs as well as capital expenses amount to less than 1% of overall transportation costs, so are about 1/4 to 1/2 of cyclists' "fair share". And same here: we're told that car traffic downtown is too high to warrant taking space away from cars in order to put in bike lanes: but if you go by the share of cyclists in that traffic volume, putting in a few bike lanes seems perfectly within what I'd consider to be "fair".
Not heavy volume use --not even 8 hrs. daily
Submitted by goforstars on
The big question that should be asked is when the heavier peak periods of car traffic are on wide 4 lane, one way streets in downtown??
Pure statistics don't give the complete story at all. I live downtown and have mentioned several times here, the amount of wasted road real estate after peak car traffic volumes drop off in morning and late afternoon. It's only for short time period folks. On weekends it is laughable and on top of it, long traffic light changes!
I live in the SW area of downtown.
Source of increase
Submitted by Richard Z on
goforstars asked in another thread:
I haven't examined the numbers in great detail but wonder how the cycling count into downtown jives with the overall population increase of Calgary? Or more to the point how many more people just work in downtown regardless of transportation mode in Calgary now compared to ie. 5 yrs. ago?
I only have the data for the last 3 years. Overall, during the morning peak hour (7:15-8:15), 7% more people entered the CBD in 2011 than in 2009, but 9% more bikes. And between 7 and 9 am, the total increase is 5% versus 16% increase in cyclists. Car traffic, by contast, has only increased 1.8% in the morning peak hour, and 4.7% from 7-9 am. Pedestrian traffic into the downtown core has sen the biggest increase, 18 and 17% respectively; transit ridership is in between at increases at 9 and 3%. I wonder how much of the increased pedestrian traffic is people walking from their cars parked outside the CBD, though.
Picked up by Herald
Submitted by Richard Z on
Tom Babin writes a good Pedal post today about what the decision on bike share means and the signs that cycling is on the rise in Calgary.
http://blogs.calgaryherald.com/2012/02/07/bike-sharing-deabte-overshadow...
You're right - a good post!
Submitted by gyrospanner on
Actually, an excellent post - I especially liked the last comment he makes about more cyclists "just do it!"
And at this point in time, there are no idiot comments about it, just one fellow who supports "more infrastructure!"
enjoyed reading this, left me
Submitted by Julie Gregg on
enjoyed reading this, left me NOT grunting and snorting and harrrumphing about like so many other articles have done - good one.
More people support more cycling infrastructure...a good thing
Submitted by goforstars on
Have you noticed? There is more public support for spending money on more cycling infrastructure. Of course, there will be always naysayers, but now no one on Council was striking down spending money on more cycling infrastructure as a ludicrous idea.
The light bulb is switching on in more people's heads!
As presented in May 2011 in Calgary (so much has happened since) for those of you who did attend this presentation:
http://presentation.thirdwavecycling.com/Presentation%20-%20Seville%20-%202011-05-04-V13-Calgary.pdf