Reflections on Bike to Work Day 2012

[smbike]

Bike San Mateo County hosted the energizer station at the downtown San
Mateo Caltrain station. We had 113 stop bys and 114 stop bys. We gave
away all our bags and most of our food. As usual we had too many
bagels.

Some of my observations
1. It seemed like almost all of the bicyclists were already daily
bicycle commutors, most I talked with seemed to have been riding for
at least 1 year. I did not talk with one person who said today was
their first time to try riding to work.
2. In the past years most of the bicyclists seem to be Caltrain bikes
on board users. This year more people were stopping by that were doing
their complete commute by bike. Many were still bikes on board users.
3. All the bikes on board users really liked the service, one person
did report he have been bumped twice in the past year, but did not see
this as a huge problem for him. People did mention bumping is less of
a problem and noticed the increase capacity. A huge thanks to the SFBC
sponsored BIKESONboard team for this.
4. People really like the bags, they have come to expect this a once
an year new bag.
5. Thanks to the efforts of The Peninsula Traffic Congestion Relief
Alliance this years bags had some very usefull information and items.
These included a flyer on using Caltrains bikes on board by the
BIKESON board team, the new county bicycle map (which was very
popular), the good bicycle safety manual and a popular pants band with
LED built in. The county map and the LED pants clip were the most
popular.

And best of all (ok I am biased) each bag included a copy of our "The
Courteous Road User's Guide" we all put together. The Alliance printed
out over 2,000 copies of this and included in the bags. Thanks to
everyone whom helped out on writing this.

For those who either rode on BTWD or worked at an energizer station,
any comments, suggestions to make it better next year?

Some ideas I have
1. Find a way to get more first time riders to participate. Maybe an
active program to get current bicycle commutors to get their co
workers involved.
2. Maybe schools could allow students to work at the energizer
stations, allow them to be a bit late to school if they help out.
Could be used to provide them community service hours and help expose
them to adults riding bicycles.


Steve Vanderlip