Ken Ohrn:
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Went to the Bike Vancouver pre-million celebration station today, and had a great time with friends old and new.
Watched the bike counter reach 990,000.
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I continue to predict that ride number 1,000,000 will create the big clickover late on Friday Aug 21.
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As I was chatting with city staff at the event yesterday, journalist Bob Mackin tweeted that the data was flawed- basically that the million riders claim was fraudulent. He claimed in a tweet that vibrations from trucks and buses can trigger the counter. When I challenged him, he was unwilling to provide any verification for this wrong information.
Others are tweeting that one time the numbers “magically” rose.
I’ve learned to accept fantasy facts from crazy angry people, but I can’t believe (naive me) that so-called journalists can just make stuff up and put it out there as though it’s true, and then refuse to reveal where they got the information– especially so-called investigative journalists who pride themselves on getting to the bottom of things and making everything public.
The city staff I talked to said this happens all the time. Sad, that.
The real story is that the data IS flawed: based on real-time in-person checking by city staff, the counters are too low. They’re triggered by metal passing over the rubber tubes in quick succession. If two bikes go over at exactly the same time, only one will be counted. Some bikes are too light, or have too little metal, to trigger the counter. As far as I know, it is physically impossible for the counters to be triggered by vibrations from vehicles.
But, hey, I could be wrong, duped by the Vision apparatchiks. If that’s the case, would someone please share the evidence that the data is flawed. I will bow to facts.
Otherwise, please refrain from peddling lies in the name of journalism.
The counter at Science World has one counter for both directions. What I find is that if two bikes go at the same time, it counts up two digits. Odd that this one isn’t able to do this.
Another factor on the Burrard counter is that there are sensors on the east side of the bridge for the other direction. For anyone who doesn’t know this, they’ll see it magically hop up two digits and then think it’s counting wrong.
And it’s not a million riders, it’s a million rides.
In any case, nobody can claim with any credibility that there are only a handful of people cycling in Vancouver anymore.
I think that sad is the right word, but we live in a sad era where conjecture, fantasy and partisan dogma often swamp out more considered opinion and reporting. As to Mr. Mackin getting to the bottom, he’s hit it alright.
I suppose that there is little point in describing how CoV staff routinely take manual counts to check on the automated ones.
I wonder if carbon frame bikes trigger the counter? Add another few hundred each week.
I have a steel bike, an aluminum bike, and a carbon bike. It counts them all, every time I have checked.
If it is anything like the counter at Science World, it is probably underestimating.
This week I saw a guy riding east on the bike path at Science World, with one hand he was pulling a supermarket shopping cart with a very nice looking bicycle awkwardly sticking out of it. Does that count as one or two?