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Old September 22nd 17, 12:09 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Jeff Liebermann
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Posts: 4,018
Default Build it and they won't come

On Thu, 21 Sep 2017 13:52:55 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Thursday, September 21, 2017 at 12:35:36 PM UTC-7, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

(Rant, rave, mumble, speculate, etc...)

The idea has worked in cities in The Netherlands and Denmark -- and probably other
flat European cities. It is hard to tell if it has worked in PDX since the
influx of cyclists pre-existed the creation of infrastructure, although the
later-created close-in infrastructure has gotten a lot of use. We get tracked
like park animals in Portland, so with a little effort, one could determine
the effect of additional infrastructure.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/trans...article/545858
-- Jay Beattie.


Nice tangled mess of statistics. In order to preserve my sanity, I'll
refrain from tying to correlate that report with whatever might he
happening in Stevenage UK.

Maybe a back of the envelope sanity check might help.

Stevenage seems to have 13 bicycle shops:
http://www.stevenage.org.uk/bike-shops/
of which only 4 offer repairs:
http://www.stevenage.org.uk/bicycle-repairs/
For a town of 84,000 population, that's one shop for every 6,500
residents.

For a population of 84,000, how many bicycles per year could these
bicycle shops expect to sell? For all of England:
http://www.cyclinguk.org/resources/cycling-uk-cycling-statistics
http://www.cyclinguk.org/resources/cycling-uk-cycling-statistics#How%20many%20cycles%20are%20sold%20in%2 0Great%20Britain?
Not counting e-bikes, that is 3.5 million bicycles sold per year for a
population of 53 million. So, everyone gets a new bicycle every 15
years. Either UK bicycles have a very short half life, a few people
buy hundreds of bicycles, or everyone owns more than one bicycle.
Assuming the same rate of replacement for Stevenage, 1/15th of the
population will be buying a new bicycle every year or:
84,000 / 15 = 5,600 bicycles
sold each year in Stevenage. However, there are 13 bicycle shops,
each of which will sell:
5,600 / 13 = 430 bicycles/year
or
430 / 12 = 36 bicycles/month
Not very good but possibly survivable for a small shop, especially if
they are expensive machines.

So, with 430 new bicycles being added to the Stevenage ridership every
year, where do these bicycles go? I find it difficult to believe that
the trails are empty when there 1.2 new bicycles added to the
ridership every day. Do they only ride at night when nobody will
notice? Or are the bicycles stolen immediately after they're sold?
Or, perhaps something is wrong with the original story?



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
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