On Jun 3, 2010, Larry Nelson wrote: > [regarding lower traffic counts in the central city...] 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 traveling around the city > rather than to the city.
I'd prefer to see this claim backed up by more than traffic counts. I'd speculate that they are not enough to draw such a conclusion. In particular, there's no mention of transit in the report. Metro ridership has continued to grow over the same period, to unprecedented numbers, in spite of a substantial fare increase: <http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/article_2b5d0c9c-20a1-58f3-b25d-ea83686c89fa.html> Would it be correct to assume that a traffic counter sees a bus as a single vehicle? Also, looking at a route map, the current Metro structure appears to be geared primarily to serve those areas where overall vehicle counts have declined. Also absent from this report is any relationship between traffic patterns and the increase in residential density on or near the isthmus. It's doubtful that a decade of high-rise condo construction has lowered the population downtown. One could reasonably assume that at least some of those residents would make some larger percentage of their trips without a single-occupant motor vehicle than their suburban counterparts. Perhaps this wouldn't seem all that significant to individuals in either group, but it could be quite significant in the aggregate. The results of the current census may offer some insight here. I'm not surprised to see a decline in bike counts, given where the counts are placed. Note that the drop occurs within a year of the August 2006 opening of the Greenbush segment of the Capital City Trail. It would be very interesting to see separate numbers from the John Nolen and Brittingham counters. I suspect that the former remained relatively constant and the latter declined substantially. Anecdotally, as a regular year-round commuter, bike traffic has not declined on the John Nolen to Greenbush to Southwest path corridor over the last three years, and has probably increased. On Jun 3, 2010, Chuck Strawser wrote: > 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. Whether it be subordination or simple neglect, this sums up why this report does not address whether there is more or less activity in downtown. It begs the question of whether an accurate measure of a city's life is how many motor vehicles it can accommodate on any given day. Michael Lemberger Madison, WI _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
