Reviving Interest in Bike Counts: At the MPO

The Technical Advisory Committee for our local Metropolitan Planning Organization meets on Tuesday the 14th. There is no great substantive matter on the agenda, but maybe a few things to note in passing.

Are we going to get serious about bike counts?!
(Minutes from the last meeting)

2008 bike count map
(not in meeting packet)

In the heady days of the late aughts and early teens, it seemed like we were in the middle of a fourth bike boom and that this one would have traction, would blossom into broader transportation change, and that bike subcultures would grow into the wider culture. Part of that optimism was an attempt at an annual volunteer bike count project.

(Here are reports on the 2008 and 2011 counts, and all notes on bike counting.)

In the trivial sense that the count project generated data, it was successful. But it was difficult to sustain in an on-going way. The City did not seem very interested in using the information to leverage more bike lanes or inform transportation planning. It remained very fringey. The struggle to adopt the TSP update, "Bike and Walk Salem," was also dispiriting. And of course the City's focus on the SRC revealed their real priorities.

So the count project just seemed like wheel-spinning and something ornamental for "box-checking" purposes. Without progress and real enthusiasm from the City, it was difficult to retain volunteers. Volunteers need to have purpose and to feel useful! Why are they giving their valuable time and effort?

We weren't close in 2010, and still aren't a decade later;
worse, we aren't on track to make the slightest difference
in another ten or fifteen years
(Our Salem, not in meeting packet)

So here we are a decade later, and biking rates have plateaued or even declined. It is still not clear how serious is the City. Oh, they have some projects, but nothing like a clear plan for transforming transportation in the City. The disconnected nature of the Greenways project is a convenient emblem here. The Winter-Maple Greenway is not yet finished, and there are no plans for any other Greenways. Our transportation planning remains dominated by the frame of "congestion relief," and we have not yet abandoned or even modified autoist measures like LOS and V/C ratios.

Measurement is important, and it's more difficult, even accidental, to make enduring changes to things you aren't measuring. So having a bike count program would be useful. That chart from "Our Salem" uses very limited census data that has a fairly large margin of error. It would be very helpful to have data based on actual counts rather than census interviews or questionnaires.

One of several charts in a discussion of safety targets
in the meeting packet

But consider the way we track death.

We have a lot of statistics on traffic violence. But we just sortof accumulate them, comment on them, and shy away from determined action to change them. They are more ornamental than the basis for policy and action.

Look at these charts! We have the very best charts!

So instituting a real bike count program is a good first step, but there also has to be a commitment to do something with that information, to have a real cycle of feedback and action, and not just to check off the box, "now we have bike counts." Current data says we aren't meeting goals - are we actually going to try to meet those goals?

Several of these involve bike facilities

Also on the agenda is a note about slipping construction dates. Because the dates cross the four-year limits of one TIP to another, a full formal amendment process is necessary. This will appear again later in the month at the Policy Committee meeting.

And there is a note about action on greenhouse gas emissions. The MPO has firmly resisted over the last decade also, and probably they will need pressure to act.

An email from DLCD on greenhouse gas (yellow in original)

Look for the historic sign
next to the entry

You can download the agenda and meeting packet here.

SKATS Technical Advisory Committee meets Tuesday the 14th, at 1:30pm. SKATS is at 100 High St. SE, Suite 200, above Table Five 08 and Epilogue Kitchen.

Addendum

Look! Here's a study on a favorite topic. "Traffic Forecasting Accuracy Assessment Research" from the TRB and National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Look at that distribution!

That's a bell-ish looking curve with a bias to the left

So we'll come back to this, as one of the biggest problems with transportation planning is the false certainty of the numbers that planners and electeds use for decision-making. (Updated with link to new post.)