Bicycle Counter

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Dave Feucht
Bike Counter

In Portland’s bicycle infrastructure repertoire, we have now added the bicycle counter. This may seem like a relatively un-important piece of infrastructure, but simply having a visible count of how many people are using bicycles – and not just during “commute” hours – is an important and impressive thing, I think.

More details about the counter and the opening ceremony for the counter can be found here at Bike Portland

Just a few quick details: the counter counts traffic both ways on the bridge, 24-hours per day, and records both the daily count, and the yearly count (up to 2 million). I’m not sure why they didn’t allow the yearly count to be a bit higher, as given daily totals so far, we’d hit 2 million in about 270 days, but that’s another story :)

I happened to be riding by after work the day it opened, and at about 4:55pm, it was (as you can see) at about 4,200. By 8pm, it had passed 6,000, and by the end of the day, it counted up over 7,400 people passing over the bridge by bicycle.

It will be interesting to follow this and see how it changes based on the weather, the season, different traffic conditions and whatnot. In any case, it’s pretty great to know there are over 7,000 people per day riding over just *one* of our many bridges on bicycles. Nothing to sneeze at, for sure.

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  • Dan

    Love the counter; I wonder when it resets? It would be fun to be #1 everyday…

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      I think it’s supposed to be at midnight, though Jonathan from BikePortland went by at like 11:50 the first night, and it had already reset, so not exactly sure.

  • Brandon

    In our society, numbers mean a great deal, and so the counter will have a tremendous impact. Numbers only tell part of the story…but it is the part that people (at least think) they understand! I hope all goes well with this project and that it leads to even more improvements in Portland’s cycling scene! In Salem, we are still trying to get more cyclists on the road…

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Heh, reminds me of that big of the Little Prince, where he’s talking about how grown-ups are very concerned with numbers, and that, if you described a house to them as having flowers in the window, and a tile roof, and a nice garden or whatever, they would have no concept of what the house was like, but if you told them it cost so many Francs, they would say “oh, what a beautiful house!” :)

      I agree that, to some extent, the counts are kind of irrelevant, but it does help quantify what’s going on in a society that needs those hard numbers in order to even begin to have the motivation to do anything, sad as it is. Here’s hoping this does help!

      • Brandon

        Ah, the Little Prince…now there’s a book that keeps giving for a lifetime! Numbers do matter, of course: I just wish they didn’t matter quite so much. The counter will be another tool in the process of moving the debate from “bicycles as transport accessories” to “bicycles as transport norms.” This is going to be a long journey, but a lot depends on it.

        • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

          Yup, agreed.

  • crankypants

    that’s pretty great! also a really good way for motorists to be aware of just how many cyclists are on the road – glad to see it stateside – and I hope it makes it to the east coast sometime soon. I thought, it being Portland, there would be more, though. Here in Boston there’s a stretch of Massachusetts Ave that sees at least that many cyclists on a typical weekday (although I think that’s probably mostly inbound from Cambridge traffic- but still an impressive sight during rush hour) – and I’m pretty sure the last official count was before they recently added bike lanes. the counter would be hugely beneficial on a few roads around here – motorists tend to very aggressive and purposefully intimidating – if they saw just how many of us are out here every day maybe it could help.

    • http://pin-hole.tumblr.com Dave

      Portland is at a bit of a plateau, I feel – I would bet this number has been about the same for the last few years (at least during summer). I did feel like there were more people out this fall/winter, but we’ve kind of hit the place where, in order to do better, we have to start to step on toes. Unfortunately, in most cases, we’re not willing to do that, and so we compromise everything.

      That being said, this is just *one* of at least 4 bridges that have bicycle facilities crossing the river into downtown. It’s probably the one with the most bicycle traffic, but I would guess this is only maybe 1/4 of all bicycle traffic going into and out of downtown. And that’s just bicycle traffic going into and out of downtown. Some other parts of town I think honestly have higher rates of cycling.

      Here’s hoping that the counter maybe starts to indicate really visibly just how many people we’re making life difficult for by *not* accommodating bicycles as a means of transport.