The July bike data is out, and even allowing for the usual winter dip, there are some dramatic developments. As with the June data, the ‘if you build it’ effect continues – cycleways that have been recently built, upgraded or hooked into the network are seeing more riders than this time last year. Conversely, on routes that are, shall we say, ‘under-loved’ (infrastructurally speaking), existing riders are hanging in there – but newbies aren’t showing up in droves. It’s not rocket science. By all means dig into the numbers and tell us what you see: as always, you can find the raw data on AT’s website. We’ve been graphing them too (full set of plots …
Bike Auckland
On the radio this week, talkback host Mike Hosking shared his reckons about AT’s annual research report into walking and cycling, which we covered yesterday. In particular, he simply couldn’t believe that 65% of Aucklanders think bike paths are good for the community. He didn’t just doubt the results, he doubted the methodology – and described the research as an ‘opt-in’ online survey filled in by ‘keyboard warriors’ and ‘bored deadbeats with nothing to do.’ Similarly, the NZ Herald ran an editorial referring to AT ‘surveying self-selected samples online for the answers it wants.’ But just because something seems too good to be true doesn’t mean it’s false. This study wasn’t an ‘opt-in’ …
Every year, to round out the bare-bones data the automatic cycle counters supply, Auckland Transport commissions independent research, interviewing a representative sample of Aucklanders by location, age, and gender to find out what people think about walking and cycling. (We’ve covered previous surveys here and here.) Note: the screenshots below are from the full research report by TRA, which is located here. Long story short: the 2018 report confirms what our eyes are telling us as we travel around the city – there are more of us on bikes than ever. And people are feeling happier about bikes in general, and bikes in their community in particular. This is the result that’s leading the …
If you’re reading this after census day – you still have until the end of March to complete your census. Everything you need to know is here, or you can call the helpline on 0800 CENSUS (0800 236 787) to speak to one of the team. Every five years, we all stand up to be counted for the national census, and the results help plan investment and policy for the next five years. It’s basically a ‘What Do People Do All Day’ that really, really matters. The 2018 Census takes place on Tuesday 6 March – and if you want bikes to count, you should be sure to add your voice. Why …
In a week where a few people were noisily skeptical about cycleways, it was exciting to get our hands on the November automatic bike trip data. We knew the city centre counts would most likely be up a bit: new connections (notably Nelson St through to Fanshawe/ Market Place), fantastic weather, a big old festival, and that grab-and-go bikeshare experiment. We knew there’d be a bump – but we didn’t quite expect a spike like this! Can we call it the Mike spike, or the Hosking curve? Or as one wag on Twitter suggested, it looks like a classic ‘hockey stick’ graph… a hosking stick? As always, the numbers are …
This winter has been extremely wet in Auckland – but the good news is that this hasn’t had much of an impact on the number of people cycling! Despite rain levels in Auckland being 150% (!) above normal, the September numbers on the 27 automatic counters around the city were substantially higher than the same month last year. At 14 regional count sites: 1.764 million cycle trips were recorded for the year of October 2016 to September 2017, an increase of 6.1% on the previous 12 months. 128,665 cycle trips were recorded in September 2017, an increase of 8.0% when compared to September 2016. At 13 city centre count sites: 1.774 million cycle trips were …
Have you been just a bit more likely to take the car, bus or train in recent weeks? No? Good on you. But if you decided that it was just looking a bit more humid than usual out there, you weren’t mistaken. September 2016 wasn’t much colder than usual, but it was wet. How wet? Let’s start with the rainfall statistics from Metservice… A September almost three times as wet as the historical average, and good bit wetter than last year too. You’d expect bike numbers to drop a bit under those circumstances, eh? And yet citywide bike trips are up, as measured by the 14 bike counters spread across the region! Both …
Judging just by the number of riders we’re seeing on these chilly but sunny spring mornings, Aucklanders are flocking to biking more and more. But do the bike counts of the past winter back up that impression? AT computer says: Yes! At 14 regional count sites: 1.66 million cycle trips were recorded for the year of September 2015 to August 2016, an increase of 8.8% on the previous 12 months. 123,388 cycle trips were recorded in August 2016, an increase of 13.9% when compared to August 2015. At 13 city centre count sites (which don’t all yet have 12 months of data to compare to the previous year): 1.74 million cycle trips were …
The 2016 AT Active Modes survey is full of good cycling news, as already noted by Matt. Just to recap: firstly, more people are riding bikes. Apparently we can thank the ‘considerers’ for this: folk who were once merely bike-curious are sliding over comfortably into the category of ‘occasional’ riders. Also, over the last two years, the percentage of people biking once a week or more has doubled, from 6% to 13%. And nearly one in three Aucklanders has jumped on a bike at some point in the past year – compared to one in five in 2014. That’s significant. So what’s going on in people’s minds to make biking more attractive? You might remember that …
(A cross-post from our BFFs at Transportblog, written by Matt Lowrie. We’ll cross-post our take on it tomorrow, by way of Part 2). For a number of years now Auckland Transport have been conducting annual research into the use of active modes to allow them to track behaviour changes over time. This is not just relying on the automated counters, but carrying out a survey to gauge the general population. They’ve now released the 2016 report, which features a lot of positive outcomes and covers 1,178 responses. The headline figure is that 31% of people surveyed had cycled, up from 27%. The researchers say this represents an increase of 45,600 people. These numbers are …
The concept of a ‘bicycle account’ – a regular, holistic review of where a city is, in terms of getting people riding – was created in cities like Copenhagen. The idea is that assessing the health of cycling and cycling conditions goes beyond simple rider numbers, as important as these are (and it’s great to see we are also getting much better at counting those). Beyond bike trip numbers, a bicycle account also branches out into other matters that are quantifiable, provides case studies and examples of improvements, and presents the whole story in a report format easily accessible for all of us (including time-poor decision-makers who need a quick snapshot of …
Things really are on the way up, when it comes to cycling. Not only are there more people on bikes around town – there are more counters to keep track of them. For a long while, Auckland Transport only reported trip data from 9 initial (and somewhat randomly scattered) automatic cycle counters. But over the last 2 years, AT has installed a large number of new sensors. Basically, whenever a new cycle project is opened, it now comes with a new automatic counter to measure how many people ride the new route – the flashiest of which in the future will also include public displays like the excellent ‘totem’ installed on Quay Street, with the shiny new LED display that …
Auckland Transport’s official March 2016 bike count data is up, and it makes a pretty compelling case for the old saying ‘if you build it, they will come.’ And also, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’ Check out these graphs our brothers-in-arms at Transport Blog compiled. The first confirms that if you think the Northwestern Cycleway has been feeling busier than ever lately… you’re absolutely right. Some quick thoughts on this one: we’re seeing >10% growth year on year whereas previous years show a significant drop-off from November to December, in 2015 there’s barely a dip. Is this the magnetic effect of the Pink Path and the new protected lanes on Nelson St drawing people into …
We’ve been waiting literally ages for this: Auckland Transport have finally released the monthly data from ALL their cycle counters, in detail. This is something we, and our friends over at TransportBlog, have been asking about for a long time! Previously, the only data provided publicly was the aggregate count from 9 original counters, with no real breakdown possible. As you can see from the data (available up to December 2015 in CSV or XLS data formats), there are now a whopping 28 (!) automatic cycle counters active across Auckland. The large recent expansion of the cycle counter network was mainly driven by the Urban Cycleways Programme, which means that essentially …
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