Matt said: So why not plan on accommodating the current demand + induced demand?
That is Transportation Services' plan, but it is not everyone's plan. Also, the number of bicyclists we are seeing is increasing faster than our development plans, and in many cases, (like the Memorial Union) the space on the ground simply isn't adequate to accommodate the peak number of bicyclists no matter what you do. For example, last spring Transportation Services used the most current data I had collected to ask for 20% more bike parking at Memorial Union than the peak demand we had observed (the 20% latent demand we estimated was really just an educated guess). UW Campus Planning and their consultant design firm responded by proposing 8.25% more bike parking than the peak demand we had observed. Three weeks ago we finished collecting data again, and guess what? The new demand we observed at Memorial Union is 8.5% greater than the last round of observations. So we recently started asking for new demand plus 20%. But the plans for Memorial Union have progressed to the point now that allocating substantially more space for bike parking means basically scrapping the current site design and starting over. Does anyone think that's realistically going to happen with a project that was supposed to start this January but is behind schedule enough that it is unlikely to start before 2012 commencement now? Transportation Services does not get the last word in every aspect of hundred million dollar construction projects with many competing objectives. We push as hard as we can push for our needs to get met, and it is making a difference. A few years ago, major construction projects like Union South and Memorial Union would have, at best, replaced the previously existing number of racks without considering (or even really knowing) current demand, let alone latent demand. Now we typically get something more than current demand, but probably less than future demand will be. I'd call that progress. It would help if the city would start to require an adequate number of bike parking spaces at properties that are currently exempt from the city's bike parking requirements because they were built before the requirements were adopted. There are many, many UW racks that overflowing because they are across the street from private housing that has little or no bike parking (or UW Housing that has an inadequate number of racks - and UW Housing is supposed to provide and maintain their own racks). So UW Transportation Services ends up providing bike parking not just for bicyclists coming to campus buildings, but also for the residents who live across the street from the Pyle Center, or on State St near Memorial Library, Union South or Computer Science, or anywhere between University Ave, Regent, Monroe, and Park Streets. Where is the long term bike parking plan for the downtown/campus area, and how is it coming along? Chuck Strawser Pedestrian & Bicycle Transportation Planner Commuter Solutions Transportation Services UW-Madison Room 124 WARF 610 Walnut St Madison WI 53726 608-263-2969 www.wisc.edu/trans ________________________________ From: Matt Logan [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Matt Logan Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 11:19 AM To: STRAWSER, Charles; 'Robert F. Nagel' Cc: 'bikies' Subject: RE: [Bikies] rant about union south parking garage bike ban "So we are steadily making progress, but it will take us several years to meet our current goals (and, like the construction of more road capacity for cars, when you plan to meet peak demand, your target capacity is constantly increasing)." So why not plan on accommodating the current demand + induced demand?
_______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
