We’d like to thank the many readers and commenters on our recent article…and we wanted to share the following with you from Michele Schasberger, the person who requested our help:
“Thanks so much! There’s gold in these comments!
I did find some studies on bike commuter choices, and on trails published by the TRB (Transportation Research Bureau). Its part of the National Research Council, jointly administered by the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, and National Academy of Engineering, and spends a fair amount of public money investigating all aspects of the transportation system.
For example, one study is titled “Commute Rates on Urban Trails: Indicators from the 2000 Census�. It was published in Transportation Research Record No. 1878, “Pedestrians and Bicycles; Developing Countries� (which, I think, shows how central the research is considered to mainstream America). The research abstract shows that for 9 of 13 trails, households that live within .5 miles of the trail have a bike commute rate of 1.5% vs. a local county average of .5% and a national average of .4%. A nice increase of 200%! But of course, if you show it to policy makers, they may very well see the small overall rate, and not be too impressed. Plus there are those other 4 trails, which didn’t show an impact… what is up with them? Based on comments I would say they might a) not go near destinations useful for bike commuters, or b) have safety issues a la our Memphis commenter, d) might be in an area of the country that just has not embraced bike commuting as much as others, or d) all of the above. Finally, also based on comments, a trail can be useful for bike commuters even if they do NOT live in .5 miles of the trail, just as a component of their route.
Statistics are good, but a story from a real live person is worth 100 figures.”
Your comments are really helping figure out the best ways to attack this particular project, and we thank you for your insightful responses! We’ve got the best bicycle-commuting “family” around, and you make it possible! Thanks again for reading and responding for this project.
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