And we did have an unusually dry summer, skewing the ‘good days’ oppportunity.

But who knew that the markets were so bad that fewer people in Point Grey had to drive downtown or had been put on “Gardening Leave”?

No anecdotes of pedestrian flouting the ‘rules’ and walking (happily) on the south (city) side of the Burrard Bridge sidewalks.

http://www.research.utoronto.ca/behind_the_headlines/smart-cycling/

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The most common type of crash in this study involved a motorist entering an intersection and either failing to stop properly or proceeding before it was safe to do so. The second most common crash type involved a motorist overtaking unsafely. The third involved a motorist opening a door onto an oncoming cyclist. The study concluded that cyclists are the cause of less than 10 per cent of bike-car accidents in this study.

The available evidence suggests that collisions have far more to do with aggressive driving than aggressive cycling.
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So now who needs their own space to be safe?

With the limited data in gross there are not many patterns yet. One has to add day of the week to see if there is a work/weekend difference. And the weather has been universally horrible and sunny throughout the trial. It would be useful when the monsoons return, to see how a 6-9 rain affects ridership. Do they start out in any weather or are fair weather cyclists?

Why can’t we have the actual hourly data? I know that the simple Clr. Reimer promoted open data but that turned out to be yet another copycat movement, from the UK, on mapping GIS based piffles.

The City has better previous surveys, though like cars who leave Vancouver, bikes are in a City data void when they cross a bridge or Boundary Road. Get with it people, and ask Burnaby, the North Shores, Richmond, to continue the surveys for some kilometers beyond the boundaries. This a job for MetroMan!!

City cyclists go only short distances. Half only cycle less than 5 km, or less than 15- 20 minutes, 80 percent pedal less than 10 km.

The February 2009 report showed http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20090217/documents/tt1.pdf

“The 2006 Census provides statistics for Mode of Transportation to Work. The City as a whole reports 3.7% of all trips to work as having been made by bicycle; this is a 12% increase over that reported in the 1996 Census. The data has been further broken down, by census tract (sub-neighbourhood), and is shown in Figure 1. This map shows that percentage of cycling mode share varies across the City from 11.9% to 0.2%. Cycling mode share is highest south of downtown, with census tracts in West Point Grey, Kitsilano and South Cambie neighbourhoods having the highest percentage cycling mode share at 11.9% and 11.8% respectively; Grandview-Woodlands also shows cycling mode share exceeding 11%.”

The page three census tract map corresponds with the poverty regions of the
city. The study ignores cyclicts coming from the North Shore, Burnaby and beyond or Richmond

Figure 3 on page 6 showing the summer afternoon peak does not count bridges at all, and shows that few climb the south slope hills, but it is east and west along Adanac or 7th and 10th to the apartment areas, fitting in with the 5 km cycle routes. Again no data is shown for those leaving the city boundaries.

Hourly rates peak at a few hundred an hour. Burrard bridge lead routes show

A automated study from a every 15 minute counter on the abysmal 11th and Ontario routes also made note of rainy days, but not whether it was raining in the morning or afternoon commute. I have found that people overestimate how much rain there is in the Vancouver commute compared to middday or evening when city heat or cooldown promotes rainfall.

City cyclist only short distances. Half only cycle less than 5 km, or less than 20 minutes, 80 percent pedal less than 10 km.

City cycling factsheet
http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/transport/cycling/documents/cycling-factsheet.pdf

How many people injured on the Burrard Bridge, in the study the mayor and these cycling advocates flaunt, were wearing helmets, how many were travelling too fast or over the 15km/hour posted speed limit on the bridge for bikes, etc…etc…?

I’m tired of the hyperbole that it’s always a car drivers fault, and the wonderfully dramatic “being thrown from the bridge into an oncoming car”.

If the mayor is going to spend $1.5million to protect 20 people a year who may or may not get into accidents based on their own actions, I think the public should get to know this.

Let’s not only release the study but also the police reports so we can see where the accidents occurred, and what the circumstances were around them.

Perhaps there are other solutions to solve these problems that do not include the path the city seems intent on following.

What are you all hiding?

Helmets should be as important to a cyclist as a seatbelt is to an occupant of a car.

Anyone who suggests this should be a matter of personal preference rather than a respected law, should be quite ashamed of themselves.

In the 70′s and 80′s when seatbelts were becoming mandatory in most places, it was law-enforcement and ticketing that garnered the most success. Now all but the completely moronic wear their belts even if just to drive a few blocks.

The same will work with cycling and helmets. The more ticketing and enforcement, the more people will come to accept the necessity of wearing one for their own safety, especially children.

Inevitably someone like me, has to clean up a mess by left by someone Richard knows, because they weren’t following laws created for their own safety, all the while blaming it on everyone but themselves.

In the meantime, the lobbyists are busy spreading their nonsense to every blog and news site throughout the city, instead of actually doing something productive.

As for helmets, well, hell; apart from the people I care about, I don’t much care if cyclists wear helmets or not (see my comment about the gene pool); especially if, as you argue, it should be a matter of personal choice. We went through the same debate with motorcyclists many years ago, a debate that ended when the wearing of helmets became mandatory. As I recall, one of the most outspoken opponents of motorcycle helmet laws has been the actor Gary Busey, and I’ve lost count of the number of steel plates he’s had to have put in his head after near-fatal crashes. If someone’s crazy enough to think that their skull is impervious to injury– and I was hardly speaking exclusively of fatal injuries; we can talk about mere skull fractures if you like– then go for it, I say. But if I’m walking across a bridge having a conversation with a friend, and make an expansive gesture just as a helmetless cyclist comes along and I knock him/her off his/her bike and he/she lands on his/her head, I’d very much prefer that that cyclist doesn’t sue me for damages caused to their thick skull because they weren’t wearing a helmet.

And by the way, I suppose those suffering head injuries because they refused to wear a helmet, in defiance of common sense and/or the law, are still going to demand the same level of short- or long-term medical care that’s given to the helmeted ? This is veering close to the ongoing debate over what to do about snowboarders who intentionally go out of bounds and then expect to be rescued. Personally, I think that anyone who intends to ‘board out of bounds should be required to sign a waiver absolving the authorities of any responsibility for their rescue and/or medical treatment– but then, I tend to be kind of a hardnose about this sort of thing.

As for your ostensibly invulnerable Europeans, while I’ve never been to Denmark, I’ve spent enough time walking around central Amsterdam to know that the two biggest hazards to pedestrians in that lovely city are the crazy cyclists and the ubiquitous heaps of dogshit. Invariably a sudden move to avoid one runs the risk of a close encounter with the other. Along many of the canals the sidewalks are so narrow that parked cars render them all but impassable, so that one is forced to walk on the cobblestones, exposing one constantly to said twin hazards. And we’re not talking fancy multispeed bikes here; as often as not it’s one of those big white clunky one-speed machines that will suddenly come barreling around a corner toward you, being ridden by a young Dutch person of either gender who all too obviously believes in slowing down only in extreme emergencies and stopping for absolutely nothing. The safest course for pedestrians in such a situation might be to simply jump into the canal.

Given this, while I don’t dispute your figures, I think they must have been compiled in the Dutch countryside, where some of the pleasantest, most laid-back cycling in Europe is to be found, in the polders and along the dikes. By contrast, I don’t know how those Amsterdam cyclists stay alive, given the way they ride. Frankly, “stupid” seems an inadequate word for their behaviour.
gmgw