In-street Bicycle Counters
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Philadelphia, USA
About the city. Cycling in Philadelphia is a great way to explore the city’s many scenic trails and parks, while also serving as an environmentally friendly way to navigate from one neighbourhood to other thanks to an ever-increasing collection of protected bike lanes.
Goal
The main goal is to understand trends in transportation and to plan for future projects. Moreover, it’s important to improve safety.
Implementation period. December 2020
Fact
According to officials, there has been an increase in bike ridership during the coronavirus pandemic because Philadelphians try to find some ways to safely travel and get exercise while socially distancing.
Solutions
In-street permanent bicycle counters have been installed in the bike lanes on Spruce and Pine Streets, near 12th Street.
What are in-street bicycle counters?
Bicycle counters are electronic devices that detect the number of bicycles passing over a specific location during a certain period of time. Gathering data on bicycle numbers helps City staff and planning partners to monitor seasonal and time-of-day trends, particularly on high-use corridors like Spruce and Pine Streets. With those counts on hand, the City can make decisions about traffic flow and infrastructure improvements.
Unlike the other permanent counters on the region’s trails, these in-street counters are the first of their kind in a bike lane on a city street. This is a great new source of data because the city is able to monitor the levels of biking on each street, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.
Why are permanent in-street bicycle counters important?
The data from these counters will help OTIS better understand trends in transportation cycling and also improve the usefulness of the short term counts done by partners at DVRPC. Good data is a necessary condition for both project prioritization and project selection. This is an important milestone for the city’s bike infrastructure. Installing the region’s first in-street bicycle counters is an investment in modernizing the city’s bike lanes and improving safe bicycle mobility.
Team
The City of Philadelphia.
Collaboration with the Office of Transportation, Infrastructure & Sustainability (OTIS), the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) and the Philadelphia Streets Department.
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