Want more bikers? Build more bike lanes.
Neal
DAG
That bikeways development often correlates, though not always, with higher mode share does not establish, if there is one, a causal link between the two correlates. For example, SF was under an injunction for 4 years and the mode share climbed just over 60% during that period even though no sharrows, bike lanes or paths were implemented. This simply shows that factors, most likely social factors, rather than bikeways development, determine increases in mode share. In Davis, mode share has been declining for decades in spite of enormous expenditures for bikeways during the same period. Even Portland saw a drop in mode share in 2009 as facilities development was still increasing. From what I can see in the US, special facilities development is a result of mode share and the advocates that lobby for bikeways, not the other way around.
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Neal
Abstract:
This article analyzes the variation in bike commuting in large American cities,
with a focus on assessing the influence of bike paths and lanes, which have been the main
approach to increasing cycling in the USA. To examine the role of cycling facilities, we
used a newly assembled dataset on the length of bike lanes and paths in 2008 collected
directly from 90 of the 100 largest U.S. cities. Pearson’s correlation, bivariate quartile
analysis, and two different types of regressions were used to measure the relationship
between cycling levels and bikeways, as well as other explanatory and control variables.
Ordinary Least Squares and Binary Logit Proportions regressions confirm that cities with a
greater supply of bike paths and lanes have significantly higher bike commute rates—even
when controlling for land use, climate, socioeconomic factors, gasoline prices, public
transport supply, and cycling safety. Standard tests indicate that the models are a good fit,
with R2 ranging between 0.60 and 0.65. Computed coefficients have the expected signs for
all variables in the various regression models, but not all are statistically significant.
Estimated elasticities indicate that both off-street paths and on-street lanes have a similar
positive association with bike commute rates in U.S. cities. Our results are consistent with
previous research on the importance of separate cycling facilities and provide additional
information about the potentially different role of paths vs. lanes. Our analysis also
revealed that cities with safer cycling, lower auto ownership, more students, less sprawl,
and higher gasoline prices had more cycling to work. By comparison, annual precipitation,
the number of cold and hot days, and public transport supply were not statistically significant
predictors of bike commuting in large cities.
======================================================
You would have to see the whole paper to properly critique it I should think?
DAG
Yes, the summary makes that statement that the two variables correlate when accounting for other factors, but how does one then explain the counterexamples I identified? Both San Francisco and Davis don’t follow this trend. Yet they are interesting because both cities have a strong advocacy presence, and this appears to matter most in determining if bikeways are built.
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Neal
Roadblock
DAG
Mode share has declined quite a bit in Davis while many millions have been spend on tunnels, bridges and other expensive path facilities; this is a well documented fact. And this is nothing to do with the rest of the US. No other city in CA is like Davis, so comparing relative car ownership doesn’t change the fact that mode share declined while facilities expenditures/miles increased. Again, the main point is that mode share is driven by factors other than the creation of bikeways. I’m busy right now, but later I can dredge up the paper that talks about the mode share decline from 1980 to 2000+.
From: Roadblock [mailto:road...@midnightridazz.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 11:59 PM
To: Dan.Gu...@Charter.Net
Cc: nea...@gmail.com; cabo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CABOforum] Want more bikers? Build more bike lanes.
Dan
I'm not so sure that cycling went down when you factor in population of Davis and relative increase in automoble ownership nationwide.
Consider that the population of Davis in 1960 was roughly 9k people. It has since increased to 65,000 (not including the student population of 5700.) The alleged decline in mode share down from a high of 22% during the gas crisis of the 70's to 15% today would have you think that cycling was declining. However the pattern nation-wide over the same period was a heavy increase in automobile ownership and miles driven, something that Davis was of course not immune to as new people moved in and the population increased rapidly by a factor of 7 over the next few decades. Considering that, the city of Davis has withstood the car ownership onslaught and outpaced other cities in terms of mode share by a factor of--- I have no idea..
-d
On May 29, 2012, at 11:05 PM, DAG wrote:
That bikeways development often correlates, though not always, with higher mode share does not establish, if there is one, a causal link between the two correlates. For example, SF was under an injunction for 4 years and the mode share climbed just over 60% during that period even though no sharrows, bike lanes or paths were implemented. This simply shows that factors, most likely social factors, rather than bikeways development, determine increases in mode share. In Davis, mode share has been declining for decades in spite of enormous expenditures for bikeways during the same period. Even Portland saw a drop in mode share in 2009 as facilities development was still increasing. From what I can see in the US, special facilities development is a result of mode share and the advocates that lobby for bikeways, not the other way around.
From: cabo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cabo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Neal
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 10:56 PM
To: cabo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [CABOforum] Want more bikers? Build more bike lanes.
Hello All,
Excerpts:
Yet in a new study (pdf) in the journal Transport Policy, Ralph Buehler and John Pucher suggest that cities might actually be able to influence how many cyclists are on the road. Perhaps all they have to do is — and this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise — build more bike lanes and bike paths.
..................................
If that sounds overly obvious, the authors do note that previous research was somewhat scattered on this question. A few studies had found that more bike lanes in a city were associated with more cycling, though it was unclear which was causing which. Perhaps cities were building bike lanes because they already had a group of devoted cyclists. And this causation question still hasn’t been fully settled, but Buehler and Pucher’s regression analyses — going through a dataset of 90 of the 100 largest U.S. cities — suggest that the relationship between bike lanes and cycling is quite robust. (Previous studies on biking had often just looked at single cities in isolation.)
Roadblock
Mode share has declined quite a bit in Davis while many millions have been spend on tunnels, bridges and other expensive path facilities; this is a well documented fact. And this is nothing to do with the rest of the US. No other city in CA is like Davis, so comparing relative car ownership doesn’t change the fact that mode share declined while facilities expenditures/miles increased. Again, the main point is that mode share is driven by factors other than the creation of bikeways. I’m busy right now, but later I can dredge up the paper that talks about the mode share decline from 1980 to 2000+.
From: Roadblock [mailto:road...@midnightridazz.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 11:59 PM
To: Dan.Gu...@Charter.Net
Cc: nea...@gmail.com; cabo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CABOforum] Want more bikers? Build more bike lanes.
Dan
I'm not so sure that cycling went down when you factor in population of Davis and relative increase in automoble ownership nationwide.
Consider that the population of Davis in 1960 was roughly 9k people. It has since increased to 65,000 (not including the student population of 5700.) The alleged decline in mode share down from a high of 22% during the gas crisis of the 70's to 15% today would have you think that cycling was declining. However the pattern nation-wide over the same period was a heavy increase in automobile ownership and miles driven, something that Davis was of course not immune to as new people moved in and the population increased rapidly by a factor of 7 over the next few decades. Considering that, the city of Davis has withstood the car ownership onslaught and outpaced other cities in terms of mode share by a factor of--- I have no idea..
-d
On May 29, 2012, at 11:05 PM, DAG wrote:
That bikeways development often correlates, though not always, with higher mode share does not establish, if there is one, a causal link between the two correlates. For example, SF was under an injunction for 4 years and the mode share climbed just over 60% during that period even though no sharrows, bike lanes or paths were implemented. This simply shows that factors, most likely social factors, rather than bikeways development, determine increases in mode share. In Davis, mode share has been declining for decades in spite of enormous expenditures for bikeways during the same period. Even Portland saw a drop in mode share in 2009 as facilities development was still increasing. From what I can see in the US, special facilities development is a result of mode share and the advocates that lobby for bikeways, not the other way around.
From: cabo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cabo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Neal
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 10:56 PM
To: cabo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [CABOforum] Want more bikers? Build more bike lanes.
Hello All,
Excerpts:
Yet in a new study (pdf) in the journal Transport Policy, Ralph Buehler and John Pucher suggest that cities might actually be able to influence how many cyclists are on the road. Perhaps all they have to do is — and this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise — build more bike lanes and bike paths.
..................................
If that sounds overly obvious, the authors do note that previous research was somewhat scattered on this question. A few studies had found that more bike lanes in a city were associated with more cycling, though it was unclear which was causing which. Perhaps cities were building bike lanes because they already had a group of devoted cyclists. And this causation question still hasn’t been fully settled, but Buehler and Pucher’s regression analyses — going through a dataset of 90 of the 100 largest U.S. cities — suggest that the relationship between bike lanes and cycling is quite robust. (Previous studies on biking had often just looked at single cities in isolation.)
Roadblock
Mode share has declined quite a bit in Davis while many millions have been spend on tunnels, bridges and other expensive path facilities; this is a well documented fact. And this is nothing to do with the rest of the US. No other city in CA is like Davis, so comparing relative car ownership doesn’t change the fact that mode share declined while facilities expenditures/miles increased. Again, the main point is that mode share is driven by factors other than the creation of bikeways. I’m busy right now, but later I can dredge up the paper that talks about the mode share decline from 1980 to 2000+.
From: Roadblock [mailto:road...@midnightridazz.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 11:59 PM
To: Dan.Gu...@Charter.Net
Cc: nea...@gmail.com; cabo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [CABOforum] Want more bikers? Build more bike lanes.
Dan
I'm not so sure that cycling went down when you factor in population of Davis and relative increase in automoble ownership nationwide.
Consider that the population of Davis in 1960 was roughly 9k people. It has since increased to 65,000 (not including the student population of 5700.) The alleged decline in mode share down from a high of 22% during the gas crisis of the 70's to 15% today would have you think that cycling was declining. However the pattern nation-wide over the same period was a heavy increase in automobile ownership and miles driven, something that Davis was of course not immune to as new people moved in and the population increased rapidly by a factor of 7 over the next few decades. Considering that, the city of Davis has withstood the car ownership onslaught and outpaced other cities in terms of mode share by a factor of--- I have no idea..
-d
On May 29, 2012, at 11:05 PM, DAG wrote:
That bikeways development often correlates, though not always, with higher mode share does not establish, if there is one, a causal link between the two correlates. For example, SF was under an injunction for 4 years and the mode share climbed just over 60% during that period even though no sharrows, bike lanes or paths were implemented. This simply shows that factors, most likely social factors, rather than bikeways development, determine increases in mode share. In Davis, mode share has been declining for decades in spite of enormous expenditures for bikeways during the same period. Even Portland saw a drop in mode share in 2009 as facilities development was still increasing. From what I can see in the US, special facilities development is a result of mode share and the advocates that lobby for bikeways, not the other way around.
From: cabo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cabo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Neal
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 10:56 PM
To: cabo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [CABOforum] Want more bikers? Build more bike lanes.
Hello All,
Excerpts:
Yet in a new study (pdf) in the journal Transport Policy, Ralph Buehler and John Pucher suggest that cities might actually be able to influence how many cyclists are on the road. Perhaps all they have to do is — and this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise — build more bike lanes and bike paths.
..................................
If that sounds overly obvious, the authors do note that previous research was somewhat scattered on this question. A few studies had found that more bike lanes in a city were associated with more cycling, though it was unclear which was causing which. Perhaps cities were building bike lanes because they already had a group of devoted cyclists. And this causation question still hasn’t been fully settled, but Buehler and Pucher’s regression analyses — going through a dataset of 90 of the 100 largest U.S. cities — suggest that the relationship between bike lanes and cycling is quite robust. (Previous studies on biking had often just looked at single cities in isolation.)
David Takemoto-Weerts
Back in the 1960s, when Davis first started building bike-specific infrastructure, the city was very much a “company town” with the company being the Univ. of California campus. From my understanding, a much higher percentage of the Davis residents worked at the University then than do so today. Over the decades since, Davis has evolved into a “bedroom community”, especially for people who work in state government or other “industries” in Sacramento. As it has become an increasingly desirable place to live (coupled with low-growth city policies), the cost of housing has increased significantly over the years, meaning that many lower income University employees can no longer afford to live in the city where they work. University employees who live in Sacramento, Woodland or other nearby communities live at least ten miles (and most much further) from Davis and, of course, few of them choose to commute by bicycle.
The Davis city boundaries have not changed much, although a lot of housing construction in the last thirty years or so filled in undeveloped land within the city limits but farther away from downtown and the campus. However, the longest one-way commute almost anyone has between one’s residence and the campus or most workplaces is about 4 miles.
Ironically, one of the features of Davis most frequently mentioned as a reason for choosing to live in Davis by those who move here but work out of town is its “bikeability”.
FWIW, I first came to Davis as a grad student (and avid cyclist) in 1971. Left in ’73 and returned in ’83. We’ve been residents here ever since, and I’ve been the campus bicycle coordinator since 1987.
David Takemoto-Weerts
Bicycle Program Coordinator
Transportation & Parking Services
One Shields Avenue
University of California
Davis, CA 95616
Ph. 530/752-BIKE (2453)
Fax 530/754-9948
http://www.taps.ucdavis.edu/bicycle/
Roadblock
Daniel Gutierrez
You can't have it both ways. If you are now classifying people into types with regard to infrastructure (apparently those "pesky" commuters aren't enticed by the infrastructure), then the notion that bikeways increase mode share is not applicable to the whole population, so again the presumed causal link isn't valid. From the SF, Portland and Davis experience (and even in my home city of Long Beach), I think a clear case can be made that advocacy drives bikeways development, and that non-infrastructure factors drive mode share and advocacy.
- Dan Gutierrez -
Neal
Hello twotire and All,
Thanks again for your insight into Davis cycling ….. J
If you have any comments on the material below …… fire away!
The differences below might be …… which came first? The chicken or the egg?
Whatever ………. if you get more cyclists and greater safety with bike lanes and bike paths …… that is the good news.
In this discussion we use Modal share, Mode split or Modal split, is a traffic / transport term that describes the number of trips or (more common) percentage of travelers using a particular type of transportation
Dan writes (excerpts):
From what I can see in the US, special facilities development is a result of mode share and the advocates that lobby for bikeways, not the other way around.
And
Again, the main point is that mode share is driven by factors other than the creation of bikeways.
Apologies to Dan if I do not understand your position correctly.
(Emphasis and hyperlinks added for your reading convenience)
Dr. Pucher: we find that the supply of bikeways per capita is a statistically significant predictor of bike commuting.
Mode or modal share for bicycles is a result of many factors and Dan and Dr. Pucher differ on whether bike lanes and bike pathways can affect the bicycle mode share.
As Dan writes (and detailed below) higher cycling levels might be a cause for the creation of bicycle networks just as networks of bike lanes and bike paths might be the cause for an increase in the level of cycling.
And also:
Limitations of the analysis
The cross-sectional analysis in our study aims at explaining differences in cycling rates
among cities but cannot be used to predict changes over time. Moreover, as in any cross sectional
regression analysis, none of our models can prove causality, although the significant
associations we measured are consistent with the hypothesis that bike paths and
lanes encourage more cycling. Our analysis is also limited by its reliance on aggregate,
city-level data, which mask variations within cities, among neighborhoods, and individuals.
The results suggest a statistically significant relationship between bike paths and lanes
and cycling at the city level, but results do not permit conclusions about individual travel
behavior.
In addition to the inherent limitations of cross-sectional regression analysis and
aggregate data, there is a problem of endogeneity among some of the variables in our
models. Cycling levels and the extent of the bikeway network almost certainly affect each
other, so that causation is probably in both directions. In this paper, we have focused on the
role of bike paths and lanes in explaining variation among cities in cycling levels. Conversely,
however, high cycling levels might help explain the provision of a large supply of
bike paths and lanes. Endogeneity and simultaneous equations bias are potentially serious
problems in our regression analysis because the key explanatory variables—bike paths and
bike lanes—are also a function of cycling levels, the dependent variable.
http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/bikepaths.pdf
Discussion and conclusion
Over the past two decades, many American cities have focused on building bike paths and
lanes to increase cycling (Alliance for Biking and Walking 2010; League of American
Bicyclists 2010; Pucher and Buehler 2011; Pucher et al. 2011b; USDOT 2010d). Our
analysis of newly collected data on cycling facilities in 90 large U.S. cities shows that
cities with a greater supply of bike paths and lanes have higher bike commute levels—even
after controlling for other factors that may affect cycling levels. That result is consistent
with other studies that confirm the important role of separate facilities (Dill and Gliebe
2008; Dill and Voros 2007; Krizek et al. 2007; Moudon et al. 2005; Nelson and Allen
1997). Most disaggregate, individual-level studies of the relationship between bikeway
supply and cycling levels focus on only one city or a few cities. Our study is most similar
to two earlier studies, which also used aggregate, city-level data to explore the relationship
of bikeways and cycling commute levels (Dill and Carr 2003; Nelson and Allen 1997). We
expand on those two studies in several ways.
Our sample of 90 U.S. cities was much larger: more than four times as many cities as
Nelson and Allen (18 cities) and more than twice as many cities as Dill and Carr (42 cities).
Moreover, our regressions distinguish between paths and lanes, while the multiple
regressions in the other two studies either combined the two types of facility (Nelson and
Allen) or only included bike lanes (Dill and Carr). Similar to these two previous city-level
studies, we find that the supply of bikeways per capita is a statistically significant predictor
of bike commuting. By including separate variables for paths and lanes, however, our
analysis is able to examine each type of facility separately and finds that they do not have
significantly different associations with levels of bike commuting among cities.
Although the main focus of our study was on bike paths and lanes, the models yielded
new results about the influence of the control variables on cycling levels. The much larger
sample size and data availability for more variables allowed us to include nine control
variables in the regression equations, compared to five for Dill and Carr (2003) and four for
Nelson and Allen (1997). Our control variables include some of those suggested by Nelson
and Allen (1997), such as gasoline price and public transport supply. Similar to the other
two city-level studies, our results show that the percentage of college students in the city
population is a significant predictor of bike commuting. In contrast to these earlier studies,
however, we did not find a significant relationship between bike commuting and precipitation.
Although the precipitation variable was estimated to be statistically significant in
the regression analysis of Dill and Carr (2003), the authors themselves doubted the actual
importance of precipitation as a predictor of cycling, since three of the top ten cycling
cities in their sample had very high levels of precipitation. In our own analysis of climate,
we included two additional climate control variables—the number of extremely hot and
cold days per year—but their estimated coefficients were not statistically significant, either.
Thus, none of our three measures of climate were strong predictors of bike commuting.
Similar to Dill and Carr (2003), our study shows that cities with higher car ownership
have lower cycling levels. Inclusion of additional control variables in our study revealed
that cities with safer cycling, less sprawl, and higher gasoline prices have more cycling.
Regional public transport supply per capita was not a statistically significant predictor of
bike commuting. Thus, we cannot confirm the speculations by Nelson and Allen (1997)
and Schwanen (2002) that public transport supply affects levels of bike commuting.
Most American cities build both bike lanes and bike paths with the expectation that
offering both kinds of facilities provides cyclists with more route options and choice of
facility type. Prior research finds that some cyclists prefer bike lanes, while others favor
bike paths. Some studies find that commuters prefer on-street bike lanes over paths because
lanes follow the road network and provide more direct routes (Aultman-Hall et al. 1998).
The multiple regression coefficients in our models, however, do not suggest a statistically
significant difference between paths and lanes in their relationship to bike commuting.
Furthermore, our coefficient estimates for paths and lanes suggest inelastic cycling demand
with respect to the supply of cycling facilities. A one percent difference between cities in
the supply of bike paths and lanes is associated with less than a one percent difference in
cycling levels.
Similar to all previous studies, our estimates of the role of bike paths and lanes do not
control for the many other differences among cities in their approaches to encourage
cycling. For example, most cities offer suggested bike routes on streets without any separate
facilities and consider them an integral part of their overall cycling network. But
cities vary greatly in the quality of such routes and do not report statistics consistently, so
we did not include bike routes on roads without any dedicated space for cyclists. Similarly,
many other infrastructure measures and programs could not be integrated into the model.
Intersection improvements and priority traffic signals for cyclists, bike parking, coordination
with public transport, traffic education and training, and bike promotion and public
awareness campaigns all influence cycling levels to some extent, and should be controlled
for in models examining the determinants of cycling. The lack of reliable, comparable data
for these other measures prevents their inclusion in the regression models, which are thus
inevitably underspecified to some unknown extent. We share this drawback with all other
studies.
Whatever the shortcomings of our data and regression models, our estimated equations
are consistent with the hypothesis that bike lanes and paths encourage cycling. They reveal
a positive relationship even when controlling for a range of other factors expected to affect
cycling levels. Although not always statistically significant, the coefficients of explanatory
variables in our equations suggest a direction of influence similar to that found in most
other studies.
Acknowledgments This paper is based on a three-year research project funded by the U.S. Department of
Transportation: ‘‘Analysis of Bicycling Trends and Policies in Large American Cities: Lessons for New
York’’. It is part of the Research Initiatives Program of the University Transportation Research Center,
Region 2, for New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The authors are indebted to Pat
Mokhtarian, Bob Noland, Daniel Rodriguez, Dan Chatman, Radha Jagannathan, Kris Wernstedt, and Matt
Dull for their help in revising the paper.
jimbaross
Bike facility improvements can make bicycling more attractive, right?
Improvements in traffic behaviors will make bicycling more attractive, right?
Both, when done right reduce hazards.
I don't worry my chickens about which came first. I care for them.
I care to work on bicycling advocacy for improved facilities AND for improved behavior of users. So does CABO.
I don't need to spend my time being convinced that one is more important than the other. Do you? Do we?
How about sharing plans and efforts to DO stuff. Maybe I'll help.
Jim Baross
San Diego, CA
Sent from hard-to-type-on smart phone.
: -)
From: "Neal" <nea...@gmail.com>
To: <cabo...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "&apos;road...@midnightridazz.com&apos;" <road...@midnightridazz.com>, "DAG" <dan.gu...@charter.net>, "<nea...@gmail.com>" <nea...@gmail.com>
Subject: [CABOforum] Want more bikers? Build more bike lanes.
Seth Davidson
Well said.
Law Office of Seth Davidson
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