SBinNYC

NYC has just released a report showing the effects of new bike facilities.

https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/download...n-the-city.pdf

It does not include the the bike share program, which started in late May 2013.

B. Carfree

When the same people who implemented a system then put out a "report" praising how well their implementation worked, complete with "data" that only they are privy to, I am not exactly surprised that they give themselves stellar grades. I'll wait for a more independent analysis rather than buy into the propaganda.

Still, it is noteworthy that they show a pronounced flattening of ridership in the most recent years. I suppose if that trend continues de Blasio will get the blame for messing up their wonderful plans.

SBinNYC

I think it's unrealistic to expect unbiased counts or double blind studies. Counts are costly to obtain. We are lucky to get the meagre data that's available. The only hope is that the methodology is consistent from reading to reading.

There used to be a count in NYC that would probably have satisfied you. Cyclists were counted separately on the Staten Island Ferry, back when there was a nickel fare. You used the automobile entrance, paid the nickel at the ticket booth, received a ticket and handed it to a deck hand prior to boarding. They had daily counts dating from 1905. Sounds like the very independent, unbiased data taking you demand. The problem is it under counted the number of cyclists. Here's why. Just before the boat departed, the deck hand gave the tickets back to the man in the booth. The man in the booth then gave the cyclists who came later a returned ticket and shared the nickel with the deck hand. This scam wasn't discovered until the 1970's. They went to a 3 part ticket with the cyclist retaining one part as a receipt to eliminate this thievery. However, the validity of 70+ years of data are in doubt. The scam was discovered because the perps got greedy and the auditors noticed a decline cyclists using the ferry.

Drug companies are famous for cherry picking data from double blind studies. Are you also guilty without acknowledging the data's validity?

I assume your flattening observation is based on the graph on page 3. However, this graph is repeated on page 4 and superimposed with the length of the on-street bike lane network. You will note that the bike lane network's length flattened a bit more during that same time period.

ModeratedUser150120149

Just a couple of observations that pertain:
- Look to China. Mobs of people riding bikes everywhere in all circumstances were almost iconic on TV. As China became more prosperous bikes became less common and vehicles became so much more common that the last video I saw looked like any other city with few bicycles. Inference: It isn't America or government. It is people. Given a choice people will use motorized transportation, with personal vehicle preferred.
-There is a reason Americans are called Citizens and other peoples are called Subjects. Our ancestors came here for space, land and economic freedom from being crammed together in villages while the aristocracy hoarded the land and open space. That quite clearly translated into suburbia and a highway system. It is still a major factor in today's land use planning, as spending some time working with planning will demonstrate.

B. Carfree

You must have slept through your history and civics classes as a child. Some of my ancestors came here one step ahead of the law (in the first decade of the seventeenth century). Others were escaping anti-semitism in Eastern and Western Europe. Still others fled from the last Czar's sinking fortunes just ahead of the Bolsheviks. At least one came aboard a slave vessel, but not as crew, if you know what I mean.

I seriously doubt if my varied ancestry is unusual in this nation. People have been arriving in America for many, many reasons for quite a while. Most of them settled in the cities of the time, at least during the largest influxes, not counting the ones who were only considered three-fifths of a person. There really weren't very many people in the suburbs until the late 1940s, and they didn't really hit their stride until the '60s, which wasn't all that long ago. There is no natural yearning for the suburban life that I know of. In fact, the urbanization of humanity has been a newsworthy topic for a couple of decades.

As to whether people are inclined to maximize their use of labor saving devices, even when those devices have been shown to cause enormous societal and personal harm, I'm not certain. Clearly many people can be swayed to behave thus by those who profit from such actions. I just don't know if that shows car addictions are inevitable. Looking at the record number of young people who are refusing to drive, I think this could get interesting over the next decade or two. I hope to be here to watch the show.

ModeratedUser150120149

What an encouragement for discussion, starting a reply with an insult. Hope you are not as unpleasant in person as online.

My ancestors indeed came here as you say "one step ahead of the law". But it was their desire for freedom and a share of the wealth and space that put them in trouble with the law. Others bowed their heads and backs and stayed, for better or worse. Yes, some came to this country as slaves, sold into slavery often by members of the tribe just down the road. But, later many others came for the reasons mentioned. Even today it is that freedom and opportunity that brings new folks to this country.

It isn't an "addiction" as you so quaintly characterize it that brings automobile use. It is a reasoned decision based on what a person can afford and what is conveniently takes to live in the community. I don't live in your community. But, in every one I visit I don't see people refusing to drive based on principle. They do what is best for them under the circumstances. If they can afford a personal vehicle they own one. If not, they don't. Sure there are some exceptions, emphasis on some.

Lesson for us who have input into spending of the public's money: Build what makes sense given people's actions. Don't waste money on what might or might not happen IF. Use sound transportation analysis to get the specifics. Nothing much worse than watching a repeat of the empty municipal bus circling its' route because "it was a good idea". This ain't some Field of Dreams.

Still: Keep pitching. You and people who think like you might be able to change the culture and in turn change the demand for bicycle facilities.

work4bike

You might even extend this beyond "people" to animals. Nature forces all animals to expend energy in the search for energy, if you don't you die. So when given the opportunity, virtually all animals opt to adopt a method that uses the least amount of energy. It goes beyond human nature; it's animal nature to be lazy

genec

So riding a bike is easier than walking or running... now if the environment wasn't just build to favor cars...

howsteepisit

People will do whatever gives them the greatest utility. One of the failing of cycle advocates is the belief that since bikes work better for them, they are best for all. Its not the case now, nor was it in 1972 when I started cycling. Face some 95%+ of the population of the US drives more utility from driving than not driving. The only way to change that is to create barriers to driving so that cycling is less painful than driving,and thats not going to happen for a very long time. People will build their environment to what suits them, or gives them the most utility. Thats using vehicles over walking/running/cycling for most people.

genec

I hear what you are saying... and that greater utility aspect comes from the FACT that many of our cities are designed around the automobile, thus it makes sense to drive in those cities. But if the cities were designed around people... as is the case in some dense urban centers, then the utility of the automobile becomes less and less.

Ultimately one has to wonder what will be more sustainable over the long haul... and keep in mind that the automobile has only been a part of the world for the last 100 years or so... prior to that, walking was used quite a bit more frequently for human transportation needs as were trolleys, carts and other forms of more public transit. The bicycle too has a longer history than the automobile.

So that "utility" you mention is something rather short lived, thus far, in the overall history of man...

I can't help but wonder if future energy needs may dictate other alternatives to the current automobile... and thus be the catalyst for a vastly different environment. There are trends right now in the US that point to less and less driving. We may have already seen "peak automobile."

I-Like-To-Bike

Elevators are also relatively new and also responsible for the current design of the buildings in our dense urban centers; any recommendations on replacing them with something promoting a vastly different environment?

How about elimination also of that latest energy wasting scheme, air conditioning?

genec

I don't see either one of those as unsustainable.... unless more and more elevators are now filling buildings to capacity with free elevator parking and demanding the importation of foreign elevator doors or elevator door fracking throughout the nation... but hey, I could be wrong... I haven't been following news on elevators... is there some National Elevator Agency that is monitoring these things?

Is Elevator use on the rise? What might be the down side of excessive elevator use?

Care to keep this going?

Doohickie

I love that our city planner for cycling and pedestrian infrastructure gets this. I don't think she was much of a bike rider when she took the job, but she decided that to better know how to do her job, she should ride her bike to work, and she's pretty much done so ever since. She is active and well know among several cycling groups in the city. And our mayor has been a cycling commuter going back 25 years, so she gets it, too. A developer just finished a major project on two blocks straddling Main Street. They built new buildings on the outside edges of two lots and made the sections facing Main Street into an event plaza. The city signed over control of that block of Main Street to do the developer and now it's one big, pedestrian-only plaza. (You can see the result if you watch Final Four NCAA Basketball coverage on ESPN; they'll be using that plaza for their broadcast headquarters while the tourney is taking place one city over at the Dallas Cowboys stadium).

No, we're not there yet in terms of being pedestrian friendly and bike friendly, at least not as much as we could be, but the shift has been very noticeable.

buzzman

Oddly enough here's an interesting "elevator story".

One of the courses I teach is in a classroom 11 flights up. Though the building is new there are only two, slow operating elevators, which frequently break down, serving the building. Often there is a long line at the elevator. From my teen years, when I first started biking everywhere I also built the habit to take the stairs whenever possible. Avoiding escalators and elevators. I basically take elevators and escalators due to social pressure, nothing kills a conversation more than when you tell a friend mid-conversation, "I'm going to take the stairs." So in cases when I am with other people I take the machine. It's made me a kind of closeted stair climber. I do it when I am solo.

But probably 60- 70% of the time I climb the 11 flights, twice a day to teach my class. Most of the students have had no idea I do this. On some days when I've climbed them particularly fast or I'm carrying a lot of stuff, I'll pause in the hallway to catch my breath before I enter the room.

Every once in a while a student or two will figure it out and, in the past, I've been joined by other students, most often for fitness, one young woman was training for the Boston Marathon. This semester a young man started climbing them regularly after he saw me doing it. But one day the elevators were particularly slow and almost the entire class was down in the lobby waiting for the elevator. They saw me shoot into the stairwell and I heard one of them ask, "Is he taking the stairs?!" I was surprised to hear a couple of students say, "He does it all the time."

Well, I got about three flights up when I heard the whole group of them come into the stairwell and begin to climb. A couple of them turned it into a race but most of them just plodded up talking and resting occasionally. The last one up was a girl who'd seen them filing up but hadn't known it was precipitated by my climb. When she arrived, breathless and panting, she looked at me and said, "Hey, you wanna good workout? Take those stairs all the way up from the bottom floor!!- it's a killer."

After that students began taking the stairs with some regularity. Not all the time and not all of them. But it became a "thing" last semester. It kind of caught on and I would occasionally hear boasts of students having "taken the stairs".

What interests me is that there are reasons why they do it that parallel the bike thing.

1- "The exercise"- it's exhilarating. They get a good workout without going to the gym. And I'm sure they think about it next time they're at a gym and using the stair master.

2- it does save some electrical energy and some of them are environmentally conscious.

3-peer pressure. It had a certain cache with some students and it got in vogue to take the stairs.

4- a lack of dependability of the higher tech infrastructure. The elevators are crowded and sometimes unreliable.

Anyway, just two cents on the whole elevator thing. It's anecdotal and not "data driven" so easily dismissable but..

On another front here is the latest Boston Bike count just released.

The areas with the highest percentage of increase, 100+%, happen to be in areas with new bike lanes and other infrastructure.


https://www.bostonbikes.org/2014/01/2...n-bike-counts/

genec

I am with you 100% I too intentionally take stairs... sometimes they are actually hard to find.

A few years ago I was in a 5 story building and convinced my co-workers to climb the stairs vice use the slow elevators... it got to be a regular thing after lunch to see who could race up the flights (gutsy move right after a belly full of food).

Nice to read I am not the only "stair climber." BTW I have nothing against elevators... should someone determine from these writings that perhaps I am "anti-elevator..." I just happen to be pro-stairs. GRIN

Rollfast

But not for 100 flights...only down, if the building is on fire or something...

Why is there an argument about vertical building? If you can present a way to flatten New York City out over 500 square miles without harm to others I will bicycle to Stockholm to present you the Nobel Prize for Physics myself. Let's stick to the original topic a bit harder.

genec

Do you really follow the threads or just jump in to comment on one or two posts.... ILTB brought in the elevator thing on post 211 as a metaphor for cars... he was being silly with his comment, and I attempted to rebuff him. Then buzzman came in with a quick anecdote on elevators.

You may now return to the content of the original OP.

I-Like-To-Bike

No, I brought up other recent game changing inventions since you are trying to make some sort of wacky point about the short history of automobiles and that previously humans got along quite well without them:

"and keep in mind that the automobile has only been a part of the world for the last 100 years or so... prior to that, walking was used quite a bit more frequently for human transportation needs as were trolleys, carts and other forms of more public transit. The bicycle too has a longer history than the automobile."

Your cliched good old days song sounds a bit tinny to my ear.

genec

I also mentioned sustainability, which you totally overlooked. Ball is back in your court.

Chicago Al 

To save time, here are shorter versions of a few upcoming rebuttals:

The numbers are biased! Correlation is not causation! It's socialism! No one lives in cities anymore! Government is the problem! Look--it's Halley's Comet!

buzzman

Thanks for the heads up. I'm used to it. All part of the vast and intricate bicycle infrastructure conspiracy.

I'm on the lookout, don't you worry.

buzzman

I tried to bring it back to the OP by using the elevator tale as a preface for the recently released Boston Bike Count but I fear I may have slightly derailed us!

Stuck in the elevator!

spare_wheel

1. Install bike infrastructure.
2. The 1-2% of the population that cycles gets excited (woo hoo bike lane!) and stops using alternate parallel routes.
3. Count bikes only on new infrastructure.


Boston ACS cycling mode share data from 2008-2012:

1.6, 2.1, 1.4, 1.7, 2.0

Did they suddenly stop building bike lanes in boston?

Or...mebbee...just...mebee the spike every major city saw in 2008 had more to do with great recession (e.g. a disincentive to drive) than the build out in 2008 (sarcasm).

Keith99

You just reminded me of when I first started riding. I was leery of busy streets and took backstreet routes.

Not that far from me was the Sepulveda Flood and recreation area, which seemed nice to me a new rider.

Rather quickly I determined the back routes were just too much hassle. Or more correctly they were none. For part I was on semi-major streets, and that was after I figured out a route that gave me a half mile more of back roads by using a pedestrian only route that was there for a local elementary school.

Now most of the route on semi major streets is right next to the Orange line bike path. Now I think that path has some virtues, but I'd bet a lot of early 'increases' were really shifts from other roads. I'd also bet that if they did before and after counts it could vary a lot depending just where on the route they counted. In some places it is on a really major road, others not quite so major.

genec

I think your comment regarding people moving to paths or laned roads is probably valid... that there may not be that much increase in general cycling due to infra changes in some areas, but that people chose what they perceive as friendlier routes (due to new infra) and those are also coincidentally the same routes where counts are done.

But how about bridge accesses... in some places there are only so many ways to get to "the island" and if counts are made on such bridges and show an increase in ridership... well in those cases, the isolation of those limited routes may be a good indicator of an actual uptick in cyclist numbers.