Comments on: Drawing Conclusions from Narrow Cycling Data Sets

By: Ted Johnson

Ted Johnson — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:56:53 +0000

Was marvelous? Is it gone now?

By: Richard Masoner

Richard Masoner — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:35:21 +0000

That Dutch path predates even the Pasadena Veloway! That was an eight mile, multilane, elevated cyclepath with streetlights and gazebo turnouts! It was marvelous.

By: Amsterdamize

Amsterdamize — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:15:48 +0000

Josh,

The Dutch Center of Expertise on Bicycle Policy ‘Fietsberaad‘ has great data. The English version of the online knowledge bank (see top menu) is a bit limited compared to the Dutch version, but it has plenty to offer. Also, upon request this org will supply you with just about anything.

Cheers,
Marc

By: David Hembrow

David Hembrow — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 10:08:13 +0000

Richard: Not everything was inspired by American work in the 1970s. The first recognized separate cycle path in the Netherlands was built nearly a hundred years earlier, in 1885. There were many other cycle paths in many parts of the country a long time before the 1970s...

By: Kevin Love

Kevin Love — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:35:54 +0000

The City of Toronto conducted two surveys in 1999 and 2009, asking the same questions about cycling. Very interesting. One of the most interesting findings was that for the City as a whole, cycling rates were:

29% Utilitarian Cyclists
25% Recreational Cyclists
46% Non-Cyclists

For the first time, the non-cyclists were in the minority.

Source is page 15 of:

http://www.toronto.ca/cycling/reports/pdf/cycling_study_1999_and_2009.pdf

By: Josh Lipton

Josh Lipton — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:31:38 +0000

@Richard

Thanks so much for filling in this part of the puzzle. The historical perspective on the collection and interpretation of bicycle commuting data should be brought to the forefront in more studies.

Now, I wonder how much data gathering the Low Countries did in developing their bicycle infrastructure. They certainly made some good decision whether it was based on in-depth analysis or just boiled down reasoning.

Thanks for the encouragement of our new ownership here at Commute By Bike. We really appreciate the support and look to your blogging at Cyclelicious as a great resource for cycling and writing inspiration.

By: Richard Masoner

Richard Masoner — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:20:55 +0000

“ I wonder if the Dutch and the Danes would ever consider studying the US as an example of how not to implement transportation infrastructure.”

The answer is “yes.”

Some background: California and New York were doing some of those things with cycletracks and other ideas like parallel parking to the left of bike lanes, advance stop lines and bike boxes back in the early 1970s! The experiments, unfortunately, were a little bit disastrous and increased danger for cyclists. Instead of working to try to fix the shortcomings, however, traffic engineers and cycling advocates abandoned the facilities altogether. This is a lot of the reason you get so much resistance to facilities from many of our more seasoned cyclist advocates — they’ve seen it before and it didn’t work out so well.

When the Low Countries finally jumped into the act a couple of years later, they looked at the US experience. Instead of giving up, however, they looked for ways to improve the American ideas, and they haven’t looked back since.

BTW, I’m am really really really impressed with the new ownership for this site!