[ByeByeBaby]

Does the city have bike counts for some of the more suburban parts of the cycle track? Planning & Development are requiring 1 class 1 bike stall (bike room inside a building) per unit in suburban multi family sites, curious if there's actual demand for them.

I was interested in your question, and googling around found this paper which talks in general about cycling rates. Inspired by it, I grabbed the 2011 Canadian Community Health Survey, which asks three questions about cycling: One thing that the authors of that paper didn't dig into is that the CCHS tracks respondents by health region, which provides a somewhat meaningful sub-provincial geographic breakdown.

• In the last 3 months, did you cycle to commute to work or school?
• In the last 3 months, did you cycle for leisure?
• In the last 12 months, did you cycle?

One thing about the "last 3 months" formulation is that there's a lot of people who if you asked them that today would say "no, I didn't ride in February, March or April", but who will do plenty of riding in the summer. The "last 12 months" question wasn't asked everywhere (it's actually a part of questions about protective equipment usage eg helmets, where the first two were in a section about exercise). But in any case, here's how the population broke down: (I combined Calgary. Winnipeg, Ottawa and Edmonton, which have similar response rates to all the questions, because once you slice the data 16 ways, for just one health region, it gets a little noisy.)

So youinger people - especially kids - cycle more, no surprise. Two other key things to note, though, is that once you get to adults, there's not really much of a drop from 18 to 49, and even into the 50s and 60s there's still a substantial share; about 2/3 as many people cycling in their 50s as in their 20s, and over 50% as many cycling in their 60s as in their 20s. So the top level answer is that yes, there is a substantial chunk - about 40% of the population - who cycle. And while that doesn't split inner city and suburb, it would be impossible to have a rate that high with only inner city residents cycling, given how large a share of these cities live in suburbs. It also shows how small a share of the cycling population ride to commute -- which is all we get from the bike to work data. The paper I linked does show that leisure cyclists averaged 16 trips, commute only cyclists 25 trips and both leisure & commute made 52 trips in the previous 3 months. That means that while leisure-only cyclists are about 85% of all cyclists in Calgary, they only produce around 65% of the trips.

One good thing, as it happens, is that in Ontario and BC, health districts are smaller than in Alberta, so we can look into this in more detail. Toronto and Vancouver (the cities proper) are both individual health regions, and their suburbs (the rest of Metro Vancouver; Durham, Halton, York and Peel) are also individual health regions, so using this as a definition, we can look at city vs suburb a little more.

As it happens, the last 12 months question wasn't asked in BC, so we can only look at Toronto here.

It's a little mixed. Toronto's suburbs have a slightly higher cycling rate than the city. Vancouver has a higher rate than the suburbs, but this is driven mostly by the younger adult bracket. It also seems like it's more a case of Vancouver being particularly good -- note that their suburbs cycle at similar rates to Toronto and Calgary. We're actually ahead a little bit of both cities.

So yeah, there's pretty good demand for bike parking - about 40% of Calgarians cycle, and the evidence suggests it's as high in the suburbs as in more urban areas. (Even higher if you consider that the highest cycling group - kids under 18 - live disproportionately more in the suburbs; although they also live less in multifamily buildings.) And that doesn't count the people who own bikes that they never use.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

I was interested in your question, and googling around found this paper which talks in general about cycling rates. Inspired by it, I grabbed the 2011 Canadian Community Health Survey, which asks three questions about cycling: One thing that the authors of that paper didn't dig into is that the CCHS tracks respondents by health region, which provides a somewhat meaningful sub-provincial geographic breakdown.

• In the last 3 months, did you cycle to commute to work or school?
• In the last 3 months, did you cycle for leisure?
• In the last 12 months, did you cycle?

One thing about the "last 3 months" formulation is that there's a lot of people who if you asked them that today would say "no, I didn't ride in February, March or April", but who will do plenty of riding in the summer. The "last 12 months" question wasn't asked everywhere (it's actually a part of questions about protective equipment usage eg helmets, where the first two were in a section about exercise). But in any case, here's how the population broke down: (I combined Calgary. Winnipeg, Ottawa and Edmonton, which have similar response rates to all the questions, because once you slice the data 16 ways, for just one health region, it gets a little noisy.)

View attachment 561289
So youinger people - especially kids - cycle more, no surprise. Two other key things to note, though, is that once you get to adults, there's not really much of a drop from 18 to 49, and even into the 50s and 60s there's still a substantial share; about 2/3 as many people cycling in their 50s as in their 20s, and over 50% as many cycling in their 60s as in their 20s. So the top level answer is that yes, there is a substantial chunk - about 40% of the population - who cycle. And while that doesn't split inner city and suburb, it would be impossible to have a rate that high with only inner city residents cycling, given how large a share of these cities live in suburbs. It also shows how small a share of the cycling population ride to commute -- which is all we get from the bike to work data. The paper I linked does show that leisure cyclists averaged 16 trips, commute only cyclists 25 trips and both leisure & commute made 52 trips in the previous 3 months. That means that while leisure-only cyclists are about 85% of all cyclists in Calgary, they only produce around 65% of the trips.

One good thing, as it happens, is that in Ontario and BC, health districts are smaller than in Alberta, so we can look into this in more detail. Toronto and Vancouver (the cities proper) are both individual health regions, and their suburbs (the rest of Metro Vancouver; Durham, Halton, York and Peel) are also individual health regions, so using this as a definition, we can look at city vs suburb a little more.

View attachment 561290
As it happens, the last 12 months question wasn't asked in BC, so we can only look at Toronto here.
View attachment 561291

It's a little mixed. Toronto's suburbs have a slightly higher cycling rate than the city. Vancouver has a higher rate than the suburbs, but this is driven mostly by the younger adult bracket. It also seems like it's more a case of Vancouver being particularly good -- note that their suburbs cycle at similar rates to Toronto and Calgary. We're actually ahead a little bit of both cities.

So yeah, there's pretty good demand for bike parking - about 40% of Calgarians cycle, and the evidence suggests it's as high in the suburbs as in more urban areas. (Even higher if you consider that the highest cycling group - kids under 18 - live disproportionately more in the suburbs; although they also live less in multifamily buildings.) And that doesn't count the people who own bikes that they never use.

Cool data and keep in mind it is from 2011 biking infrastructure in Calgary has changed a lot since then.

 

[Woosh]

Cool data and keep in mind it is from 2011 biking infrastructure in Calgary has changed a lot since then.

Yeah, self reported cycling intent should have little to no bearing on funding decisions.

When you build good, suitably connected cycling infrastructure, people will always end up using it, regardless of if their initial stance.

Car dependency has become so ingrained in most North American cities that literally the only way for some people to see the benefits of cycling infrastructure is by building a lot of it.

People like to think we're all rational actors, but really, our modal preferences are usually based on the infrastructure built for us.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Saw something out of Boulder Colorado recently that really intrigued me... Boulder Clean Commute:

Boulder Clean Commute

Commutifi and the City of Boulder have partnered to help local businesses take advantage of matching funds and tax credits to reward sustainable commuting!

www.commutifi.com

If a company is located in Downtown Boulder or Boulder Junction (whatever that is...) the city will match monetary rewards for sustainable commuting. The City of Boulder will match rewards for every employee trip (I assume to and from work), up to $1.25 each way. So you could get $2.50 if you "clean commute" (transit, scootering, biking, walking and carpooling) even one way to work. An extra $100 a month is not nothing.

It isn't straight cash in your pocket but rewards that you can spend on participating retailers, transit and it says "mobility systems" (which I assume are shared bikes or scooters). The participating businesses also get a 50% tax credit in Colorado.

Pretty interesting incentive, maybe you'd be paying people for something they already do but any work place that subsidizes employee parking should also be doing this or should be doing this instead.

 

[Mountain Man]

The City is closing a big stretch of the pathway on the south side of the Bow between 14st & Crowchild. I ride part of this stretch every day and have seen no signage about it, fortunately I was looking at instagram and saw a post from the city about it. Just a heads up for anyone that rides this stretch. Link to website

 

[KrisYYC]

Anyone live in the SW Heritage communities? The city is looking for input from residents in regard to the SW Neighbourhood Bikeway network/plan. I was out of the country when the in person info sessions were held. I wonder more details were shared at those events?

Here's the link if anyone is interested:

SW Neighbourhood Bikeway | Calgary's Pathway and Bikeway Network

engage.calgary.ca

 

[lemongrab]

Anyone live in the SW Heritage communities? The city is looking for input from residents in regard to the SW Neighbourhood Bikeway network/plan. I was out of the country when the in person info sessions were held. I wonder more details were shared at those events?

Here's the link if anyone is interested:

SW Neighbourhood Bikeway | Calgary's Pathway and Bikeway Network

engage.calgary.ca

I'm glad to see they are embracing side roads again. I far prefer a slightly less direct route with fewer cars and fewer stop lights.

I'll have to go through the engagement, but at first glance this plan is missing out on E-W connections, like maybe 50th and 75th (but the map also doesn't show MUPs like north side of Glenmore that might make it look a little better)

 

[Surrealplaces]

Nice change to ride on the Kensington Road bike lane and not have cars parked in the way. The flower baskets are a nice touch.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Also, in other bike path news, I finally rode through the second street pass through area at 19th Ave. NW, after it being under construction for a year or so.

At the moment it’s kind of bare bones, but a lot nicer than it used to be. It’ll be great once those shrubs and trees mature. The little patio area with the chairs is nice, but it definitely needs some mature trees and some shade. It was too hot to sit there.

 

[CBBarnett]

Also, in other bike path news, I finally rode through the second street pass through area at 19th Ave. NW, after it being under construction for a year or so.

At the moment it’s kind of bare bones, but a lot nicer than it used to be. It’ll be great once those shrubs and trees mature. The little patio area with the chairs is nice, but it definitely needs some mature trees and some shade. It was too hot to sit there.

View attachment 578803View attachment 578804View attachment 578805View attachment 578806View attachment 578807

Awesome - I went through there on a weekend morning a few weeks ago before the daytime heat and it was actually quite lively - kids learning to bicycle, people having coffees, dogs etc. Imagine fronting your house onto this your patio onto this park instead of loud intersection. Perfect bones for a great community space, just needs to grow in a bit. I do like the mixture of spaces including a relatively large paved surface to hold small events.

Give it 10 years for some tree height and the place will look really great. The trees stand good chance as they actually have room to grow.

Here's a streetview from before to give some context. Big improvement on what was largely some forgotten lawns, street parking and road. I wish we did this kind of transformation more often.

 

[Col du Edworthy]

Also, in other bike path news, I finally rode through the second street pass through area at 19th Ave. NW, after it being under construction for a year or so.

At the moment it’s kind of bare bones, but a lot nicer than it used to be. It’ll be great once those shrubs and trees mature. The little patio area with the chairs is nice, but it definitely needs some mature trees and some shade. It was too hot to sit there.

I've used this a few times and my one glaring complaint is the ramps you have to use to access the path have a very high lip, high enough that if I hit them with any speed whatever is in my front basket bounces out. That coupled with having to go up them on a 45 degree angle could actually cause you to slip out on your front wheel (not sure how else to describe that).

I've seen the city do much better with ramps where there is almost no lip at all, how do we not get that here?

 

[Surrealplaces]

Yeah, I noticed that high lip also, hopefully it can be fixed, or at least eroded down. One of my intial complaints was that the N-S ingress/egress points didn't have straight access in and out from the road, but after thinking it over, it's probably better that way. I can see people whizzing through at high speeds if the entrance and exist paths were direct, and this is an area kids are using.