Bike traffic in Portland has tripled since 2001.
(Photo © J. Maus)
(Photo © J. Maus)
I gave you a little sneak peek last week, but now PDOT has released their full, 29-page, 2008 Bicycle Count Report (download the 11MB PDF here). In general, biking is way up all over the city. That’s not exactly earth-shattering, but some of the numbers and findings are quite interesting.
I don’t have time to get into many details, but below are the highlights.
- Bicycle use in Portland showed a double-digit increase for the fourth straight year.
- Bicycle traffic on Portland’s 4 bicycle-friendly bridges and at 68 non-bridge locations citywide showed annual increases of 15% and 32%, respectively.
- Compared to 2007, overall bicycle use in Portland increased 28%.
- Bicycles represent approximately 20%, 15%, 14%, and 5% of all vehicles on the Hawthorne, Steel, Broadway, and Burnside bridges (compared with 18%, 15%, 12%, and
3% in 2007), respectively; overall, bicycles represent 13% of all vehicles on these four bicycle-friendly Willamette River bridges. - Bicycle traffic in Portland has nearly tripled since 2001.
- Helmet use is at an all-time high, and has risen steadily since the 1990’s. In 2008, 80% of recorded cyclists wore helmets, up from 63% in 1997 and 76% in 2007.
- The proportion of women riders is at an all-time high. In 2008, 32% of all cyclists were female, up from 26% in 1997 and 31% in 2007.
- Bicycle counts conducted in March were approximately half those of the summer, but are nearly identical to the summer counts recorded in 2002.
And check out the spike in bike traffic (at left on graph below) at SE Harrison and Ladd Circle.
Download the full report (11MB) here.