Vancouver Bike Commutes
posted by CCA favourite topic of mine on this site has been discussing my observations on bike commuting, relative levels, and the change in rates over the season. This year I have seen a lot of bikes, and my impression was a lot of bikes right through the month of November.
For the first time, I actually have numbers to back this up! There is a guy I talk to on the seabus regularly, who is very active in bike advocacy and lobbying through the city, who has access to the numbers the city has been generating.
According to him, in the month of November the city counted 570 bikes an hour on Ontario street (the busiest bike route). This represents a 30% drop from the summer, which in my opinion is pretty good — a lot smaller drop than I would have expected!
That works out to 10 bikes a minute during rush hour. No wonder I’ve been seeing ‘bike jams’
November 27th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
That is a lot of bikes. I wonder if biking is up over the past several years. My sense when I am biking in Vancouver is that there are more bikes there now than three or four years ago. I wonder if Translink will ever get around to accepting that bikes are here to stay and need to fit into the transportation network.
November 29th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I never would image the bike volume is high on some streets. In the last few years, I did notice the increased riders on the road.
December 1st, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Twice in two days. Twice! I can hardly believe it. Went out for a nice bike ride. Riding around the streets, looking at all the lovely Christmas lights. Riding the nice, quiet, out of the way side streets. Well away from traffic and all the ninety year olds driving around White Rock. Should be perfectly safe. And twice in two nights some idiot almost hit me. In both cases, they turned left in front of me. Oblivious to the fact I was there and had the right of way. Or they didn’t care. Likely the latter, I bet. Both times I had to hit the brakes hard to miss them. Short of beating the car with a bike pump, how does one get their attention. I am starting to think stopping and taking their picture would be an excellent way of catching their attention. All I need is some place to then put that picture!