BIKE: Percentage of Austin Bike Commuters

[David Foster]

I am enjoying the responses to my post about stats and goals for bike 
commuting in Austin and want to offer few comments.

1) I concur that more needs to be done in the burbs, and more needs to be 
done to overcome barriers that cut them off from the more bikeable central 
city (Barriers like 183, Ben White, I 35, etc). I believe as I have said 
that rails-with-trails can help do this, and bike lanes too, but facilties 
alone will not be enough. As Stuart suggest, the built environment, or land 
use, is also key. As new neighborhoods are added beyond the core, these 
need to be designed with more of a grid pattern rather than the cul-de-sac 
design which now prevails, and with shorter blocks (or more intersections 
per acre) to facilitate easier biking and walking. Also mixed use is 
key--move destinations closer to where people live. Brodie Lane south of 
Slaughter has a fine bike lane but I have seen few people using it, almost 
certainly because the neighborhoods along that part of Brodie are far from 
the nearest shopping centers, especially if you live in the middle of one 
of these neighborhoods.

2). No question that the central city is more bikeable, and it is there 
that we have seen the most growth in the numbers and percent of bike 
commuters. However much remains to be done, even if it 'only' involves 
better signage to raise awareness about where the best routes are. I also 
believe that an extension of the Pfluger Bridge can help overcome the 
barriers of the river, Cesar Chavez and the UP tracks, and encourage more 
cycling. I am open to ideas on how best to do this but feel that Eric 
Anderson is probably on the right track.

3) The stats I have looked at do not get at non-commute trips. Yet most 
vehicle miles of travel are not work-related, and this is bound to be true 
of bike trips as well, so to look only at trips to work is insufficient and 
may result in under-counting bike trips (I am absolutely convinced that 
walk trips are undercounted). I am not sure how to get at a more global 
figure and would love to hear ideas. The bike community might also want to 
consider drafting questions for a more in-depth poll; if we can come up 
with the money, we can make it happen. Any experience in other US cities on 
in-depth surveys?

4). Still, the percent of work trips and how it changes over time can be 
taken as an indicator of progress (or lack of progress) and in spite of the 
progress that has been made, we are far short of the city's stated 4% goal. 
We should take this goal seriously and make it happen. We need to find 
permanent, reliable dedicated source(s) of funding for bike-ped, just as we 
have the transportation fee on our utility bills that goes exclusively to 
roads (which people without cars can opt out of paying). As of now, we come 
up with money for bike facilities mainly ad hoc, via bond elections and 
grants (or trusting CAMPO to continue with its 1.5%).

5) Mike Dahmus is right about the parking issue, and Dick Ryan has posted 
to this list about this in the past. We need to free ourselves of the idea 
that there is such a thing as 'free' parking. The costs of building and 
maintaining parking places are real and need to be made visible to the 
user. Incentives for biking and transit are needed. Zoning needs to be 
overhauled to lower the parking requirements in residential, retail and 
commercial (or for apartments, charge a separate fee for a parking place 
and allow residents who do not want or need one to pay only for rent of the 
actual dwelling unit). The book 'Suburban Nation' makes a convincing case 
that the parking requirements were largely arbitrary when first introduced 
and have been uncritically passed along from city to city and planning 
department to planning department.

And now for a brief rant: I counted 7, yes SEVEN used car lots along S. 
Lamar between Manchaca and a point just north of Oltorf through the bus 
window on my in to work today (yep, it was a bus day for me, not a bike 
day!). How many used car lots does one arterial need? A whole other topic 
is how to make arterials like S. Lamar more bike friendly and more 
pedestrian-oriented, which for me would mean replacing the center chicken 
lane with a median as we did on Barton Springs Road, narrowing the width of 
the travel lanes (space can be taken from the center lane for this if 
needed) to allow space for bike lanes, and creating incentives and/or 
zoning for mixed-use. We ought at least be able to do mixed-use on the east 
side of South Lamar, away from the neighborhoods to the west (on the east 
Lamar backs up to the UP line and West Bouldin Creek, so you get less 
NIMBYism). Maybe someday we can have a rail station where the UP line 
crosses Oltorf, just east of Lamar, with transit oriented developments 
nearby, a greenbelt along Bouldin Creek all the way to Ben White, and a 
trail along the tracks ...

At 02:18 PM 11/30/04, Stuart Werbner wrote:
>I would largely agree with what Lane said.
>
>Also, observe that increasing the bike-to-work commuters from 0.76% to 
>0.96% while still disappointingly small, DOES represent a 25% increase. 
>So, bike/ped infrastructure IS working where it is being built. I also 
>agree with M/D and others that more needs to be done in the burbs, not 
>just in terms of cycling infrastructure, but in terms of the basic layout 
>of the entire built environment.
>
>In addition, the 0.96% number may not take into account "occasional" 
>commuters. and also those who may not be cyling to work, but who may be 
>using it for doing errands. Since these are mostly short trips (which are 
>disproportionately polluting in a motor vehicle), cyling to do errands can 
>make a significant positive impact, and should be more emphasized in the 
>burbs as well as in the center city.
>
>Would anyone be able to shed any light on other cycling measurements, such 
>as for doing errands? And, what exactly are criteria for the the commute 
>to work percentage??
>
>I believe Austin is doing fairly well with what little is being spent on 
>bicycle infrastructure.
>
>   __o
>_`\<,_
>(*)/ (*)
>~~~~~~~~~
>Stuart Werbner
>Annuit Coeptis
>
>"If you were poorand not well connected, you'd be just another butt-head. 
>Instead, you get to be called president."
>
>
>
>>From: "Lane S. Wimberley" <lane>
>>Reply-To: "Lane S.Wimberley" <lane>
>>To: David Foster <david-k1971-foster>
>>CC: forum
>>Subject: Re: BIKE: Percentage of Austin Bike Commuters
>>Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 13:37:00 -0600
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>>
>>Hi David.  Thanks for this interesting info.  My feeling is that you
>>are probably correct in your intuition.  Most of the growth has been
>>in the suburbs.  The upside of this is that it means that, in order
>>for Austin to have maintained (just under) 1% bike commuters, the
>>percentage in the inner city must have increased, perhaps quite a
>>bit.  So, since the majority of the spending on bike infrastructure
>>has been (correct me if I'm wrong here) in the inner city, I see this
>>as confirmation that such spending is effective.
>>
>>On the downside, I think this also confirms what Mike Dahmus has been
>>saying for a long time regarding the need for more spending OUTSIDE
>>the city core.  I feel quite comfortable getting just about anywhere
>>inside Austin, but once I target a destination north of 183, or out
>>west of, say, 360, I'm compelled to leave the bike in the garage and
>>jump in the car.  Ugh.
>>
>>My physical therapist was saying the same thing to me just this
>>morning.  He would happily commute the 17 miles from Leander in to his
>>office -- wishes he could -- but the route is just too hairy.  Ie,
>>there just aren't any reasonably safe routes out in the car-centric
>>design of the 'burbs.  Just makes me angry when a place so obviously
>>displays a car bias in its design, to the utter exclusion of all other
>>forms of transportation.
>>
>>But then, I'm just preaching to the choir, eh?
>>
>>I was in Dallas last weekend.  I grew up in Dallas (I know; save your
>>pity).  It is still a very car-intensive city, but I must say that the
>>light rail is really impressive.  Limited at the moment, but very
>>cool.  It is largely (if not entirely) grade-separated, and still very
>>accessible.  And, I also saw far more cyclists in the lower Greenville,
>>Lakewood, Lake Highlands and other areas than I ever saw twenty five
>>years ago when I used to live there.
>>
>>-Lane
>>
>>David Foster writes:
>> > I have run across a great web page which allows you to query U.S. census
>> > data to create tables of stats for how people get to work in U.S. cities:
>> > http://www.bikesatwork.com/carfree/carfree-census-database.html. This is
>> > not to be confused with bikestowork.com which Michael Bluejay lists on his
>> > web page.
>> >
>> > The bikeatwork web page allows you to create tables which rank cities of
>> > different size or in different states by % of bike commuters, walk
>> > commuters, transit users, non-car users, and households without a car. The
>> > tables list stats for both the 1990 and 2000 census so you can get some
>> > idea of how things have changed.
>> >
>> > Sadly but perhaps not surprisingly, Austin does not rank so well. Among
>> > cities of 250,00 and more we rank 17th in % of bike-to-work commuters at
>> > 0.96%. This is only slightly higher than the
>> > 0.76%  for 1990. Among Texas cities, Austin ranks 4th, behind College
>> > Station, Galveston and Bryan. In College Station and Bryan, the high % of
>> > college students skews the number for the good, no doubt.
>> >
>> > The census numbers for Austin corresponds closely to the numbers CAMPO
>> > produces every three years in its travel survey. The most recent one was
>> > done earlier this year and can be found on the CAMPO web page
>> > www.campotexas.org; the link is on the home page under the title '2004
>> > CAMPO Transportation Issues Survey Executive Summary.' According to this
>> > survey, the % of bike commuters in 2004 remains about where it was 10 
>> years
>> > ago, at 1%. This is distressing since we created a bike program and passed
>> > a two-part bike plan in 1996 and 1997, have approved bond money for bike
>> > projects, etc.  Perhaps the 'good' news is that the number of bike
>> > commuters in absolute terms must have risen since we have gained so much
>> > population since 1990, so our numbers must be keeping pace, roughly, with
>> > this growth.
>> >
>> > My guess is that there are great disparities depending on where you live.
>> > Inside the central city, bounded roughly by Ben White on the south, MOPAC
>> > on the west, and 183 on the north and east, my guess is the % of bike
>> > commuters is significantly higher than 1%, but I have no way at present to
>> > measure or prove this (I do not have the time to dig into census tract 
>> data
>> > that might allow me to answer this question). But we know that most of the
>> > growth Austin experienced since 1994 has been in the form of auto-oriented
>> > sprawl subdivisions outside the central city, which has off-set any gains
>> > made inside the central city, where (at least my intuition tells me) the
>> > numbers have been climbing. And once we finally get around to completing
>> > the Pfluger Bridge and the Lance Armstrong Bikeway, to name just two
>> > obvious improvements, the numbers should climb more.
>> >
>> > There are some encouraging indicators in CAMPO' s survey. Although 
>> over 90%
>> > of commuters drive alone, about 26% of them would be willing to bike 'if
>> > conditions are right for them.'  Of this 26%, 37.5%  said they would be
>> > either willing or very willing to consider biking if they had 'safer bike
>> > paths and lanes', and another 33.7% said they would be willing to do if
>> > they had 'safer conditions.'  About 28% of commuters of all types work
>> > within 5 miles or less of where they live, an easily bikeable distance. So
>> > the potential for increasing the mode share in of biking in Austin is
>> > large, as we have saying for many years now.
>> >
>> > Still, I found it sobering to read how little progress we seem to have 
>> made
>> > over the last 10-15 years. I also ran across an article from the Austin
>> > Chronicle where Rick Waring, the city's Bike Coordinator in the mid 1990s,
>> > said his goal was to increase bike commuting to 8% of work trips by 2015.
>> > We have a lot of work to do. And does any one on this list recall if CAMPO
>> > (known earlier as ATS or Austin Transportation Study) had a specific
>> > numerical goal for bike commuting? I think they did but cannot find  it.
>> >
>> > My hope is that the Envision Central Texas vision takes hold of policy
>> > makers and we do urban infill and mixed-use, transit-oriented development
>> > where we can. Check out the 'resources' link on the
>> > www.envisionsentraltexas.org web page for information about emerging plans
>> > or proposal for transit oriented development.
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Get on or off this list here:  http://BicycleAustin.info/list
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>_______________________________________________________________________
>>Lane Wimberley, Wayport, Inc.,  512.519.6195 (voice)  512.519.6200 (fax)
>>Southpark Commerce Center II, 4509 Freidrich Lane, Austin, TX 78744
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Get on or off this list here:  http://BicycleAustin.info/list
>