From Ken Ohrn:
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Bike to Work Week has come and gone with terrific results.
Registered riders were 10,924 (39% increase over 2014), with first-timers at 2,943 (128% increase over 2014).
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And the cargo bike event was fun and unexpectedly large, with 37 bikes in the event. Next year, HUB should continue it, but with a much stronger focus on making it media and spectator friendly.
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Check out the video of our cargo bike championship here:
And the event photo gallery here: http://on.fb.me/1SRFugw.
Fantastic! One million two hundred thousand commuters and ten thousand on a bike.
Last week at rush hour heading out of Victoria towards Langdale there was a massive electronic road sign declaring Bike to Work Week sign. I did see one cyclist.
Eric wrote: “Fantastic! One million two hundred thousand commuters and ten thousand on a bike.”
a) 10,000 riders REGISTERED, therefore the number of actual commuters was higher than that. I have never registered for bike to work week despite the fact that I bike to work. I can’t be the only one, or even a rare exception.
b) Is tens of thousands of bike riders a bad thing? Is that fact that it’s growing significantly year by year a bad thing? Why would you seem to oppose it?
I don’t oppose it. But, I and many others think that the priority of cycling has gone too far. Less than 2% cycle to work, we should remember this because no matter how much money you throw at it the number will not go up to anything other than a feel-good level for many decades.
37 cargo bikes showed up. I mean, seriously, this is humour.
I see it like wheelchair ramps on every corner. The numbers of people that need them are low but they need mobility and the usual thing didn’t work for them.
Someone told me that the percentage of money towards cycling infrastructure is lower than the current mode share. If true then there should be more money spent on it.
Eric you have 2 assumptions that need to be broken.
1) Money, the annual budget of the city of Vancouver is over 1 Billion. In this Burrard bridge project 8 Million is for the pedestrian redesign. That is less than 1%, are you saying 1% is too much money to spend on active transport???
2)2% cycle (your number I think it is higher) but yet if we do an allocation of road space less than 2% is for bike lanes. Should we not have a match??? IE increase the % of road space for bike lanes to match the actual traffic.
Eric, the number of bicycle trips in Vancouver doubled to 100,000 per day from 2008 to 2014, and increased by 20% in the last year alone – in fact daily cycling trips now represent about 10% of the number of daily car trips. Meanwhile, the number of car trips has fallen by over 20% since 2007. (Source: http://www.theprovince.com/news/Half+Vancouver+trips+being+done+walking+cycling+transit+Officials/11050468/story.html) Should we prioritize investment in the transport mode that’s shrinking the fastest or that’s growing the fastest?
The reason cycling trips are rising so dramatically over the past several years is largely to do with the better infrastructure that’s been built over the same time period. Vancouver seems to be at a point where a critical mass of safe protected cycling routes is persuading more and more people to give it a try.
These trends are a terrific thing – more bike trips means fewer cars on the road, which means less congestion, pollution, and CO2 emissions. And more bike trips means more people are going to be living healthier lives, which will have a positive impact on quality of life and on health care costs. That’s good news whether you bike, drive, walk, or take transit.
Even the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, one of the staunchest critics of the downtown bike lanes, have changed their tune. The disasters they predicted failed to materialize and they now support additional cycling facilities (source: http://www.news1130.com/2015/05/27/downtown-vancouver-businesses-attitudes-towards-bike-lanes-have-changed-in-the-last-five-years/).
And all this is not unique to Vancouver, the same trends are happening in many other cities as well.
So it seems to me that your point of view is starting to sound a bit dated.
Excellent analysis Sean. Good response with solid numbers
I am sure the great weather helped with numbers. It used to be May and June were quite wet. Is climate change making biking more palatable in Vancouver?