DC bike group says fewer now riding bikes to work than in 2012 (?!?!)

[Anonymous]

The ideas of biking to work and urbanism sound really good on their face when planning departments pitch them. Maybe the problem is the planners are incompetent and the advocates are pushing the wrong things. At some point you have to take a step back and wonder why your policies are failing.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Obviously unless you add a denominator of trips to work in the region, this is a pointless stat.

100% this.
A lot of bike commuters are not coming in to office as much now, so fewer trips. Also more telecommuting has resulted in generally less traffic and easier parking, so for some commuters the convenience advantage of biking has decreased.

I agree that if there is big and successful RTO push, we will see more bike commuters.

There is nothing more full of excuses than cycling advocates force to look at data confirming that their hobby is exactly as popular as it appears to be.

And the number of bike commuters started falling a couple years *before* the pandemic.

Other transportation surveys show driving is becoming a lot more popular in DC.

VMT is still down in DC proper since the pandemic. Traffic just seems worse because drivers have gotten worse.

Nothing to do with less road capacity in what is an ongoing failed experiment in online transportation meme turned policy “reduced demand”.

The whole point of DDOT's policy has been a deliberate effort to increase congestion under the miaguided theory that doing so makes roads safer.

Traffic is worse now because DDOT tried to make it worse.

For example, you used to be able to drive on the shoulder to pass slower traffic on 295 and 395. Then D dot installed those bollards last year, which just increased congestion. Maybe you prevented an accident a week or so. Is it wort it?

Did you actually just defend driving on the shoulder of an interstate? OMG. You people.

It was a congestion advocate being sarcastic.

I’m not sure!

PP was correct, but your comment implies I hit the mark.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously unless you add a denominator of trips to work in the region, this is a pointless stat.

100% this.
A lot of bike commuters are not coming in to office as much now, so fewer trips. Also more telecommuting has resulted in generally less traffic and easier parking, so for some commuters the convenience advantage of biking has decreased.

I agree that if there is big and successful RTO push, we will see more bike commuters.

There is nothing more full of excuses than cycling advocates force to look at data confirming that their hobby is exactly as popular as it appears to be.

a numerator without a denominator? lol.

meanwhile CaBi continues to blast through ridership records (actual objective data). https://www.arlnow.com/2024/10/15/e-bikes-fueling-record-setting-local-ridership-numbers-for-capital-bikeshare/

No. Look at the data. It's about three percent. The population of DC doesnt change very much from year to year, so you can just look at the raw numbers. 18,624 bikers in 2017. 13,376 bikers in 2023. That's a 28 percent decline.

omg. the denominator is the number of people commuting to the office, not the number of people. or ideally the number of office commutes but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

meanwhile the best source of data (CaBi usage) just goes up and up and doesn’t seem to have a ceiling.

yes, we should totally take the press releases of a company trying to promote its products over figures from the census bureau and the league of america bicyclists.

their data is free for anyone to download. unless you think they are falsifying their data (which would be the kind of outlandish claim bike NIMBYs do make).

https://capitalbikeshare.com/system-data

Do we really have to point out how meaningless Capital Bikeshare data is? Do you also assume that if Five Guys reports an increase in burger sales then that must mean overall hamburger consumption in Washington DC is also up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The ideas of biking to work and urbanism sound really good on their face when planning departments pitch them. Maybe the problem is the planners are incompetent and the advocates are pushing the wrong things. At some point you have to take a step back and wonder why your policies are failing.

It's striking the number of bike commuters began shrinking a couple years before the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously unless you add a denominator of trips to work in the region, this is a pointless stat.

100% this.
A lot of bike commuters are not coming in to office as much now, so fewer trips. Also more telecommuting has resulted in generally less traffic and easier parking, so for some commuters the convenience advantage of biking has decreased.

I agree that if there is big and successful RTO push, we will see more bike commuters.

There is nothing more full of excuses than cycling advocates force to look at data confirming that their hobby is exactly as popular as it appears to be.

a numerator without a denominator? lol.

meanwhile CaBi continues to blast through ridership records (actual objective data). https://www.arlnow.com/2024/10/15/e-bikes-fueling-record-setting-local-ridership-numbers-for-capital-bikeshare/

No. Look at the data. It's about three percent. The population of DC doesnt change very much from year to year, so you can just look at the raw numbers. 18,624 bikers in 2017. 13,376 bikers in 2023. That's a 28 percent decline.

omg. the denominator is the number of people commuting to the office, not the number of people. or ideally the number of office commutes but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

meanwhile the best source of data (CaBi usage) just goes up and up and doesn’t seem to have a ceiling.

yes, we should totally take the press releases of a company trying to promote its products over figures from the census bureau and the league of america bicyclists.

their data is free for anyone to download. unless you think they are falsifying their data (which would be the kind of outlandish claim bike NIMBYs do make).

https://capitalbikeshare.com/system-data

Do we really have to point out how meaningless Capital Bikeshare data is? Do you also assume that if Five Guys reports an increase in burger sales then that must mean overall hamburger consumption in Washington DC is also up?

lol how did I guess you would claim CaBi falsifies its data. Really, it’s not even worth trying with you guys.

[Anonymous]

Let’s see what happens when Trump forces the federal workforce back into the office 5 days a week.

[Anonymous]

Most people don’t want to live in overcrowded/overpriced apartments when they wfh half the week or more. They would rather have a nicer house in the suburbs and drive to to the office. This is a structural change in the economy. In most areas, Transit ridership and bike commuting will never recover to what they were before Covid.

[Anonymous]

Europe, Europe, Europe. Yawn.

The United States is vastly more wealthy than Europe. Automobiles are a sign of that affluence. In poorer countries people own and use more bicycles, scooters, mopeds and motorbikes because it’s cheaper transportation. In more affluent countries more households own cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ideas of biking to work and urbanism sound really good on their face when planning departments pitch them. Maybe the problem is the planners are incompetent and the advocates are pushing the wrong things. At some point you have to take a step back and wonder why your policies are failing.

It's striking the number of bike commuters began shrinking a couple years before the pandemic.

It’s interesting that as bike lanes increased, bike commuting decreased. Almost like the “build it and they will come” and “people don’t bike because there’s no infrastructure” arguments have been falsified by the data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The ideas of biking to work and urbanism sound really good on their face when planning departments pitch them. Maybe the problem is the planners are incompetent and the advocates are pushing the wrong things. At some point you have to take a step back and wonder why your policies are failing.

They do sound good, but only if you are in your 20s and have abundant free time and limited responsibilities to other people, particularly childcare responsibilities. Then the calculus changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of people are biking in downtown and not always for commuting to work. People bike to get places they want to be. It's not just about 9 to 5 jobs or school. But the bike lanes at rush hour actually have bike traffic now.

“Lots of people biking downtown” = tourists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Europe, Europe, Europe. Yawn.

The United States is vastly more wealthy than Europe. Automobiles are a sign of that affluence. In poorer countries people own and use more bicycles, scooters, mopeds and motorbikes because it’s cheaper transportation. In more affluent countries more households own cars.

You may want to check your assumptions:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_motor_vehicles_per_capita

There are plenty of countries that are more affluent than the US and have much lower levels of car ownership. Singapore is but one case in point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Check out these stats from the League of American Bicyclists. They say 13,276 Washingtonians commuted to work on bike in 2023, which is less than the 13,493 who did in 2012. What's up with that? The number of bike lanes, protected and otherwise, has exploded and the numbers are down? It looks like biking to work peaked in 2017 and began declining even before the pandemic. Any good explanations of what's happening here?

https://data.bikeleague.org/data/cities-rates-of-active-commuting/

Apparently neither you nor the League of American Bicyclists have the slightest understanding of sampling error. You - and them - have demonstrated a complete incompetence in the use of statistics. Please stay away from them lest you embarrass yourselves any more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Europe, Europe, Europe. Yawn.

The United States is vastly more wealthy than Europe. Automobiles are a sign of that affluence. In poorer countries people own and use more bicycles, scooters, mopeds and motorbikes because it’s cheaper transportation. In more affluent countries more households own cars.

You may want to check your assumptions:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_motor_vehicles_per_capita

There are plenty of countries that are more affluent than the US and have much lower levels of car ownership. Singapore is but one case in point.

Singapore has a population density 238x higher than the U.S. People there don’t necessarily want to live like that, there is just no space for a lower density lifestyle. This is a terrible example and it is not remotely comparable to the U.S. this country also charges people a $100k+ fee for the privilege of owning a vehicle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Obviously unless you add a denominator of trips to work in the region, this is a pointless stat.

100% this.
A lot of bike commuters are not coming in to office as much now, so fewer trips. Also more telecommuting has resulted in generally less traffic and easier parking, so for some commuters the convenience advantage of biking has decreased.

I agree that if there is big and successful RTO push, we will see more bike commuters.

There is nothing more full of excuses than cycling advocates force to look at data confirming that their hobby is exactly as popular as it appears to be.

And the number of bike commuters started falling a couple years *before* the pandemic.

Other transportation surveys show driving is becoming a lot more popular in DC.

I think we can all agree that this a problem, for many reasons.

The logical policy response is to make driving less convenient and/or more expensive.

Or would you prefer that we do as they did in the sixties and bulldoze neighborhoods to make way for wider highways?