I haven't done any direct work on this but a couple of my coworkers are a major force behind it.

It's basically a mobile bike counter that at night projects a display on a nearby structure which shows the number of cyclists that have passed by and the number of dollars they have saved society.

It'll be located at a different place in the city each night during the local "Bike/Walk to work week" which is in June.

More info here: Bicycling Counts

I'll have to do some night riding to see what kind of reaction it gets. We do have a lot of cyclists in the area but because of the infrastructure we can be kind of hidden and I don't know if the general public really understands how many of us there are.

I'm also proud that our organization was willing to pony up the time and the money to get this done.

That's pretty neat. How does it work (i.e. distinguishing bike vs. car or pedestrians)? Image recognition, motion sensor, etc?

have you seen the one from Copenhagen? granted it's not projected on to a building, but it's still cool.

hopefully, they'll add another digit when it hits 10 million cyclists / year (right now it's about 4 million / year over this bridge). also, the city gave away a bike for the 500,000 person (signs installed in 2009.)





over this bridge in fact

It's "kind of" interesting but a little self-righteous and makes cyclists all seem like "activists" for something.

The way to encourage cycling is to make it safer and easier and help people realize just how fun it is and the benefits it gives. This seems less polarizing than saying "look at us, were saving the planet, don't you feel guilty in your car?"

But good luck to them as it takes all types and ways to promote cycling.

The main focus of our organization is energy efficiency so that's the tie in. Something with less potential for polarization might display the calories burned instead.

Though I think that most people in the city recognize that the bike and pedestrian infrastructure is a valuable, I think there's always the question of whether it's worth it and whether or not it gets used enough to justify continued expansion.

This is one way of very publicly showing how much use this infrastructure gets.

Maybe people should feel guilty in their cars.

Putting it another way, is it really a sin to be self-righteous? What if you are, in fact, right?

Anyways, props to the OP. Cool project.

Still waiting to get confirmation but I believe that the mobile counter selected for this uses a heat sensor. Cars won't be counted but pedestrians might if they wander onto the cycling path. This does happen but not as much in some places as others. In most places pedestrians have their own path which runs parallel but is separate.

All right, I'll ask the obvious question . . . how much money does a cyclist save "society" by riding past this heat sensor? Seems like it would be an arbritary amount.

I'll be sure to ride past it a couple of times and let you know how much the counter goes up.

That is a problem with this. You can only estimate based on the average trip distance of a typical cyclist in the area. The sensor only knows that somebody went by it. It won't know how long they were riding. Gas savings really only apply if the trip is one they would have otherwise taken by car. The sensor won't know that either.

OK, I have some more information now. The sensor chosen is not triggered by heat. It's pneumatic.

Savings calculations are based on 2.3 miles per trip which is the average for the Twin Cities. A study done by the University of Wisconsin was used to calculate the financial savings to society. They published a big report last fall showing the significantly reduced health care costs that would result from people using a bike for half of all short trips instead of a car for 6 months out of the year. For Midwestern cities, it amounted to billions of dollars.

For people in the Twin Cities, it's about $10 a trip.

This is what will be projected on a building at dusk at a new location each day starting on the 2nd of June:



For those in the area, the first location will be the Mill City Museum on West River Road.

#BicyclingCounts

Yeah that sounds neat.

Just watched that video from Copenhagen - WOW that's a lot of bikes! That car had to wait forever just to turn right!

If I were on a bike I would be like "yeah car you can wait a few more seconds". But then if I were in the car I'd be like "come on dammit, can't you wait a few seconds to let me through??"