This discussion hasn’t been about transportation or cycling, it’s been about competing brands of political correctness.

The only detail your case is now missing is some data that shows those rainfall numbers are correlated to the success or otherwise of measures to increase cycling mode share. Then you’re set. Good luck!

Thank you for that. As I indicated, my statement was based on an inference and, as you suggested, the real explanation was a good deal more benign. I agree that my statement that the data was suppressed was inaccurate and look forward to seeing the data on the web site when it’s updated.

Perhaps you could help me out, though. I’ve taken a look at the linked report, and I think I did read it at the time it was released, and I can’t find the travel time data that was removed from the web site. Am I missing something?

The web page http://vancouver.ca/projects/burrard/statistics-traveltimes.htm is a stale page with information dating from late September 2009. Some of the travel time information on that page is incorrect. Specifically, the southbound AM travel times are based on some incorrect calculations. Subsequent updates of this page excluded travel time info until we sorted out the problem. The source of the error was a flawed formula in a spreadsheet. We were able to correct the mistake and the correct calculations are reflected in our November report to Council http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20091103/documents/ttra1.pdf and the associated presentation which you can watch online http://cityofvan-as1.insinc.com/ibc/mp/md/open/c/317/1199/200911030900wv150en,003 (travel times are discussed starting at 15:40)

We will be updating the Burrard web pages shortly to reflect more recent data and will be once again including information regarding travel time.

Conspiracies exist, but it’s been my experience that benign explanations apply 99 times out of 100. The charge of data suppression didn’t simply call into question the integrity of civic politicians but of the engineers running this project. It’s not an accusation that should be made lightly.

Portland: av hi 17c/ av lo 7c/ precip 950mm
NY: av 12.7/ precip 1080mm

SF has actually had a very hard time putting in new cycling infrastructure due to laws that have allowed pretty much one guy to hold everything up. You could also argue those hills are an impediment to cycling.

San Francisco > ave. annual temperature High 18 C Low 11 C ave. annual precipitation 566mm

Vancouver>ave. annual temperature High 13.7 C Low 6.5 C ave. annual precipitation 1199mm

The other comparative statistics that could potentially be instructive are the population densities and average travel distances/cyclist.

You don’t want ‘weather’ you want climate, or the general long term norms or normals.

How much, how many rainy days, (and my bugbear: how many days is it raining when starting out at 7, 8 AM) . Riders are surprised when I show them that it is not always raining in the early morning, the heat-island effect makes for more noonish rainfall.
And they don’t have rain capes, booties, gloves, hard full 690 kilopascals ( 100 psi for oldies) tires, and properly adjusted brakes and know when to use them.

There are many such climate sites, and I wouldn’t limit myself to English only–some of the best sites on ‘Klima’ are in German.

Samples:
http://www.weatherpost.com/longterm/historical/data/copenhagen_denmark.htm

http://www.worldclimate.com/cgi-bin/data.pl?ref=N49W123+2100+71892W

more at

http://www.wetterklima.de/klima/klima.htm

And you could read (easy executive summaries, or the whole damn thing)
http://www.sternreview.org.uk/

Apparently the data from my grammar checker was suppressed.