Bicycling statistics in Portland

I'm a college student in the process of gathering resources for a
research paper. Because I often commute to my classes via bike, the
choice of bicycle transportation was an obvious topic. To be specific,
the topic is bike usage at my university (Portland State University).
The university is in the middle of downtown Portland, Oregon, so
commuting is very common. However, there's one very, very important
resource that I can't find: statistics for bike use in Portland.

I have found some statistics, but they have all been limited to what
percentage of the general population ride bikes. I'm interested in
more specific statistics, like why people ride and who rides. After
all, paper is focused on bicycle *transportation*. Many sources have
pointed me Bureau of Transportation Statistics, but I have had no lucky
finding anything in there. Do you guys know where these types of
resources are?

Thanks for any help,
Aaron DeVore

P.S. I, of course, have the PSU library and an interlibrary loan system
at my disposal.

On 15 Apr 2006 13:26:38 -0700 in rec.bicycles.misc,
wrote:

I have found some statistics, but they have all been limited to what
percentage of the general population ride bikes. I'm interested in
more specific statistics, like why people ride and who rides. After
all, paper is focused on bicycle *transportation*. Many sources have
pointed me Bureau of Transportation Statistics, but I have had no lucky
finding anything in there. Do you guys know where these types of
resources are?

Sounds like you need to get out on the street and actually do
some research of your own. Why don't you station yourself near
the bike lane at a major intersection and interview cyclists
while they wait for the light to change?

That was one of my thoughts when I first started out looking for this
information, but I quickly realized that doing a survey of that sort
wouldn't be a good idea. The biggest problem from the point of view of
writing a good paper is that the results wouldn't be valid. For
instance, the results would vary with time of day and where I would do
the questioning. Suppose I was doing the survey at 3:30 PM on a Tuesday
in downtown Portland while is was raining. Now suppose that I was
taking a survey on a bike path at 3:30 PM on a nice, sunny Saturday.
The former would probably get a greater-than-usual percentage of
transportation bicyclists, while the latter would probably get a
greater-than-usual amount of recreational bicyclists. Of course, if I
was doing the survey at an intersection in downtown Portland then I
wouldn't be doing the research essay; I'd be in the hospital. :-P

I will be doing some surveying around the PSU campus, though. I just
need to get a real survey from a reasonably official survey to be able
to write the paper.

Shalom,
Aaron

wrote:
I'm a college student in the process of gathering resources for a
research paper. Because I often commute to my classes via bike, the
choice of bicycle transportation was an obvious topic. To be specific,
the topic is bike usage at my university (Portland State University).
The university is in the middle of downtown Portland, Oregon, so
commuting is very common. However, there's one very, very important
resource that I can't find: statistics for bike use in Portland.

I have found some statistics, but they have all been limited to what
percentage of the general population ride bikes. I'm interested in
more specific statistics, like why people ride and who rides. After
all, paper is focused on bicycle *transportation*. Many sources have
pointed me Bureau of Transportation Statistics, but I have had no lucky
finding anything in there. Do you guys know where these types of
resources are?

Have you contacted the Bicycle Transportation Alliance in Portland?
http://www.bta4bikes.org/

- Frank Krygowski

Yeah, I just emailed them yesterday, so it's going to take a couple of
days. I guess I'll just continue on this thread if they don't have any
stats. The wait is excruciating... :-P

Dankon,
Aaron DeVore

On Sat, 15 Apr 2006 13:26:38 -0700, TheVore wrote:

I have found some statistics, but they have all been limited to what
percentage of the general population ride bikes. I'm interested in
more specific statistics, like why people ride and who rides. After
all, paper is focused on bicycle *transportation*. Many sources have
pointed me Bureau of Transportation Statistics, but I have had no lucky
finding anything in there. Do you guys know where these types of
resources are?

I doubt that what you are looking for exists. You might not like it, but
if you want the data, I think you will need to go out and put in the work
(lots of work) to gather it.

Talk to statisticians at your university for help in designing a sampling
protocol that will yield reasonably valid and generalizable results. You
shouldn't expect perfection, and no one else will either.

HTH,

Reid

wrote:
SNIP

Does the City of Portland have a transportation or parking office? It
is possible the agency there that is in charge of the local mass
transit and bus systems may have some statistics. Alternatively, try
the US Bureau of the Census -- they MAY keep that sort of statistic.
Finally, see if there's a local branch of the League of American
Bicyclists -- advocates for cycling LOVE to have numbers at hand when
they make their pitch for funding. Beats being reduced to saying "biek
racks downtown would be SO COOL."

Robert Leone

Ah, excellent ideas. Tri-met, Portland's local public transportation
department, now has an email coming their way. I'll look into the
League of American Bicyclists. I have an interview with a professor in
the College of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University
in the works, so I'll ask her during the interview.

Merci,
Aaron DeVore

Somewhere, somehow, someone must have gathered the information I need.
The Portland Metropolitan area has about 2 million people. Important
urban planning and policies decisions are made that involve huge
amounts of money and lots of concrete. If even one of these decisions
required the statistics that I'm looking for then there would be the
possibility that I could find the results. Besides, I don't have the
time or knowledge to do any sort of a real survey. I'm just a college
freshman; I have other classes to worry about.

Cheers,
Aaron DeVore

wrote:
Somewhere, somehow, someone must have gathered the information I need.
The Portland Metropolitan area has about 2 million people. Important
urban planning and policies decisions are made that involve huge
amounts of money and lots of concrete. If even one of these decisions
required the statistics that I'm looking for then there would be the
possibility that I could find the results. Besides, I don't have the
time or knowledge to do any sort of a real survey. I'm just a college
freshman; I have other classes to worry about.

Cheers,
Aaron DeVore

If I understand correctly your report will be focused at least in part
on bicycle usage on campus. If so, I'd suggest you start with the
campus public safety department, especially if they register bikes on
campus. Look at a single year's total bike registrations (that number
is undoubtedly readily available), the number of bikes impounded as
abandoned or unregistered (also readily available), and statistics on
bicycle related citations issued (that total may or may not be readily
available). That should give you a decent baseline.

Regards,
Bob Hunt