There is a counter on the SW Path at Breese. I've been interested to know the
data since the station was put in maybe 2 years ago. But for some reason it's
not in the report.
________________________________
From: Larry D. Nelson <[email protected]>
To: "STRAWSER, Charles" <[email protected]>; [email protected]
Sent: Thu, June 3, 2010 9:08:11 AM
Subject: Re: [Bikies] Annual Traffic Vol
Ideology aside, can you establish and count the major paths on the west side of
the UW Campus in coordination with the City of Madison and the Village of
Shorewood?
From:STRAWSER, Charles [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 8:48 AM
To: Larry D. Nelson; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [Bikies] Annual Traffic Vol
Absolutely, bikes should be counted everywhere. So should pedestrians.
Larry said,
“We discussed volunteers conducting bike counts on this listserve before but
some folks were concerned that this would somehow manifest a subordination of
bikes to cars. Perhaps we should revisit this issue.”
------------------
As far as data collection goes, there is a subordination of bikes (and
pedestrians) to Motor Vehicles, since with the one exception you pointed out,
Motor Vehicles are all the city counts.
Would the US Census be accurate if it only counted those folks in the
demographic majority? Does the Census pay people to collect data on the
demographic majority, and then expect volunteers to collect the data on
everyone else?
Since the long term transportation planning is based on data collection and
projections made from the data collected, the city should collect data on ALL
road users, not just Motor Vehicles.
As long as the city only collects data comprehensively on one road user group,
transportation planning (and spending) is going to be biased in favor of the
only road user group that gets counted.
It’s great that bikes have been counted for the North Shore/John Nolen Drive
Corridor. But if we only collected data on Motor Vehicles using the beltline,
then how would we ever plan for the rest of our transportation facilities. And
while I would prefer that bikes (and peds) get counted through any means
necessary, I find it offensive that the city spends resources to count one user
group and expects volunteers to perform one of the most basic planning
functions of the city. And, no, I don’t think Parks’ Friends groups are
particularly analogous to this, since the reason Parks Have Friends groups is
because their budgets are tiny compared to the money the city spends planning,
building, and maintaining transportation infrastructure.
chuck
________________________________
From: Larry D. Nelson
Subject: [Bikies] Annual Traffic Vol
The City Traffic Engineer has posted the Annual Traffic Volume Report for
2009. The link follows:
http://www.cityofmadison.com/trafficEngineering/documents/Reports-Studies/2009VR.pdf
The trend for diminished traffic in the isthmus and near west and near east
side continues. In the years 2000 – 2004, traffic in the central part of the
city peaked and has been diminishing each year since that peak. I speculate
that less traffic in the central part of the city is a reflection of less jobs
and less commercial sites that generate traffic. Traffic on the perimeter of
the city continues to increase, suggesting that people are travelling around
the city rather than to the city.
Surprisingly, the bike numbers are also down in 2009. However, bike monitoring
is confined to the North Shore/John Nolen Drive Corridor. It would be helpful
if the bike numbers for the SW, University, and East Isthmus Path (Capital City
Trail) were included. We discussed volunteers conducting bike counts on this
listserve before but some folks were concerned that this would somehow manifest
a subordination of bikes to cars. Perhaps we should revisit this issue.
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