Davis,CA bicycle ridership down 5% over ten years

"Ken Marcet" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Interesting figure, I wonder if this is a national trend or the

people of

Quoted message said:

Davis are just getting lazy?
http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=7881

prof' emeritus John Finley Scott, ex bike shop owner, ex teacher at
Davis of courses in the sociology of transportation, reckons it's
because the town is getting bigger - too far to ride.

Remember most people will only ride about two miles. If we assume
that people will ride about four times as far as they will walk,
that's consistent, so it's not some special factor about the bike.

Jeremy Parker

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 06:10:56 -0500, "Ken Marcet" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Interesting figure, I wonder if this is a national trend or the people of
Davis are just getting lazy?
http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=7881

Looks to me like the town wants to improve on those numbers.

Ken

It'd be interesting to look at the population changes in Davis over
the last fifteen years, and the actual numbers rather than
percentages. Maybe the 22% to 17% drop represents no change in the
number of bicyclists or bicycle trips? Just an increase of non-bike
travel?

In article <[email hidden]>,

Ken Marcet said:

Interesting figure, I wonder if this is a national trend or the people of
Davis are just getting lazy?
http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=7881

Looks to me like the town wants to improve on those numbers.

I'd bet it is some combination of increased sprawl, higher traffic
density on bike route streets, increased number of monster vehicles
driven by increasing number of more distracted drivers.

Here (in the Fox Valley region of Chicagoland) suburban sprawl has
snipped off oh, say, about 100 miles of semi-rural road bike loops.
The roads are still there, but you gotta share them with swerving
Navigators and 65 mile an hour dump trucks. I've been brushed by more
than one mirror -- enuf! -- no more road rides on my favorite loops for
me!

If you ride a bike on any of the main transport streets (vs.
neighborhood streets) here, your probability of being struck by an
inattentive driver is on the order of 1/[couple of months]. Sadly, the
nature of transportation routing here means that the dedicated rider is
pushed onto these main routes for many trips, _especially_ in the
winter, when the fox river trail can be covered w/ snow/ice.

I'd bet good money that Davis' ridership is down because of hostile
cycling environmental developments.

--
<blink>

This is taken from the cited article: "According to 1990 census
information, 22 percent of all trips made in the city were done via a
bicycle. Ten years later, that number dropped to 17 percent." That is a
drop of 5 PERCENTAGE POINTS, but actually a 23% reduction. Since these
figures come from census data, rather than actual traffic counts, I suspect
the figures may have a large subjective content. You must also consider
that Davis is a university town--bicycle ridership among students/faculty is
undoubtedly much higher than in the general population. What has happened
to the permanent population vs. student population in that decade?

max said:

I'd bet it is some combination of increased sprawl, higher traffic
density on bike route streets, increased number of monster vehicles
driven by increasing number of more distracted drivers.

Quoted message said:

I'd bet good money that Davis' ridership is down because of hostile
cycling environmental developments.

Increased non-university population and sprawl may indeed be the issue. But I
don't think traffic density or monster trucks have anything to do with it.
Roads there are very wide and bike friendly, so the amount and nature of the
traffic hardly makes a difference. Plus, Davis is riddled with bike paths.
Many riders wouldn't spend much time on the roads anyway.

Even if the roads are more hostile, or perceived that way, the ridership
decrease is probably due to a general trend. Few students have ridden since
childhood and even then not all of them. They're not about to start while going
to college. We have the same problem here at VA Tech. Besides, only losers
don't have cars, right? ;-)

Matt O.

Ken Marcet said:

Interesting figure, I wonder if this is a national trend or the
people of Davis are just getting lazy?
http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=7881

What struck me was this absurdity: "Yet we have college students waiting for
20 minutes to ride a bus for a half a mile." If that's not lazy, I don't know
what is -- especially for a 20 year old.

Matt O.

"Ken Marcet" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Interesting figure, I wonder if this is a national trend or the

people of

Quoted message said:

Davis are just getting lazy?
http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=7881

Looks to me like the town wants to improve on those numbers.

It may be typical in college towns with a growing amount of off-campus
housing.

I went to college at a large university in Florida, where it was rare
for students not to bicycle around campus, and even into campus from
off-campus housing.. I was back there recently, and was surprised to
find that bicycle use was way down. The student population had gone
from around 27K when I was there, to 48K now, and newer buildings were
necessarily further away from the center of campus, but still within
easy cycling distance.

I think that what happened is that more and more students moved
off-campus to housing that was further away, and they drove to campus
every day, and took the bus within the campus (when it was too far to
walk between buildings). When I was there, even car commuters often
carried a bicycle with them to ride from the distant parking lots to
the center of campus.

The advent of the upright handlebar, mountain and hybrid bicycles,
versus the drop bar "ten speeds" made bicycling a much less attractive
warm-weather option as well, though much safer.

Part of the problem could also be the misperception by student's
parents that cycling is too dangerous. When I was in college, the
biggest problem was pedestrians getting hit by bicyclists.

Matt O'Toole said:

Ken Marcet said:

Interesting figure, I wonder if this is a national trend or the
people of Davis are just getting lazy?
http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=7881

What struck me was this absurdity: "Yet we have college students waiting for
20 minutes to ride a bus for a half a mile." If that's not lazy, I don't know
what is -- especially for a 20 year old.

Matt O.

UCD apparently instituted free busses in the recent past. This would
kill bicycling and walking, much the way an escalator next to steps is
used more. People generally take the physically easier route. Here in
Chapel Hill NC, free busses have also absolutely killed bicycling and
walking.

Wayne

Wayne Pein said:

UCD apparently instituted free busses in the recent past. This would
kill bicycling and walking, much the way an escalator next to steps is
used more. People generally take the physically easier route. Here in
Chapel Hill NC, free busses have also absolutely killed bicycling and
walking.

I don't think it's the free buses that killed walking/biking in college towns --
it's the free cars from parents. Furthermore, well-funded students are the last
ones universities want to scare away, so they tend not to make driving/parking
too inconvenient.

Also, since going to college has become so expensive, no one's in a "pay as you
go" mode anymore. Many students see a car as just a minor addition to the pile
of debt they expect to accumulate anyway.

Matt O.

Matt O'Toole said:

Wayne Pein said:

UCD apparently instituted free busses in the recent past. This would
kill bicycling and walking, much the way an escalator next to steps is
used more. People generally take the physically easier route. Here in
Chapel Hill NC, free busses have also absolutely killed bicycling and
walking.

I don't think it's the free buses that killed walking/biking in college towns --
it's the free cars from parents.

Free cars probably contribute, but a retired professor at UCD reports
that the free busses did indeed kill bicycling and walking there, and it
certainly happened here at UNC too. The plunge was dramatic.

Furthermore, well-funded students are the last

Quoted message said:

ones universities want to scare away, so they tend not to make driving/parking
too inconvenient.

Here, parking has become more and more restricted on campus.

Quoted message said:

Also, since going to college has become so expensive, no one's in a "pay as you
go" mode anymore. Many students see a car as just a minor addition to the pile
of debt they expect to accumulate anyway.

Matt O.

Driving does supplant bicycling when people have the means to have car
and parking access. Cars are status symbols and bikes are low status
symbols.

I believe that the internet has also reduced the need for travel, and
trips to campus are no exception. Text messaging and cell use might also
reduce some trips.

Wayne

"Matt O'Toole" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I don't think it's the free buses that killed walking/biking in college

towns --

Quoted message said:

it's the free cars from parents. Furthermore, well-funded students are

the last

Quoted message said:

ones universities want to scare away, so they tend not to make

driving/parking

Quoted message said:

too inconvenient.

I doubt that any university, even large land-grant universities, makes it
convenient to drive from class to class. At my alma-mater, they made the
buses free, both on and off campus. Parking for commuting students is
usually way out in the boonies.

http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=7881

Quoted message said:

It'd be interesting to look at the population changes in Davis
over the last fifteen years, and the actual numbers rather
than percentages. Maybe the 22% to 17% drop represents no
change in the number of bicyclists or bicycle trips? Just an
increase of non-bike travel?

=v= I had a similar reaction. Every new development I've seen
that's cropped up in Davis is car-oriented sprawl with quick
access to the freeway. This will surely add people but not
necessarily bicycle trips.
<_Jym_>

Quoted message said:

... reckons it's because the town is getting bigger - too far
to ride.

=v= I don't think it's too far so much as too unpleasant. They
plunked in some car-oriented sprawling developments, and the
roads there aren't nearly as nice and bike facilities are less
pleasantly-integrated into the places people live.
<_Jym_>