Bicycle Commute Challenge Day 6 - Creating a New Commuter

I noticed this rack on the bike of Kate Petak, PBOT's super Signals & Street Lighting CECOP intern. It was great to see how the building of a bicycle bucket stimulated her to get a rack so she could use it. There's something about the bike economy (bikenomics) that I could share, but hopefully what this ultimately does is make her commute a little more comfortable, especially on these hot days. I forget how many lessons you learn as a bike commuter regarding ways to make the ride better.

I was especially pleased to see that she had prominently added the tail light she won at the BCC Day 1 Celebration and the bike bucket will help add some reflectivity to her as the days get a bit shorter.

Bicycle Commute Challenge Day 5 - Make a Bike Bucket

Today, during lunch there was a Bike Bucket making session. In about 30 minutes I was able to put together a functional bucket pannier for my bike. I am excited about trying this out soon and enjoying a great way to get stuff from Home to Work and back. I was honestly surprised at how quickly it came together and I was told that some of these have been in service for 20 years, much longer than any of my panniers.

All I need is a Stop this War bumper sticker and a Don't Panic, Go Organic sticker and I will be ready to join the Green Party. Seriously, I thought these were kind of corny when I started seeing them around town, but there's a certain allure to these buckets because there's little risk of the bag getting stuck in the spokes.

Bicycle Commute Challenge Day 4 - Remind Yourself to Bike More

The Bicycle Commute Challenge is a nice system to give people reminders about the bicycle commuting and I really like the personal competitive spirit it brings out in people. Reminders to keep biking are key to changing behavior long term. I have found that stickers placed at key locations are helpful reminders as my family makes transportation decisions. The kids love stickers and they are like subliminal messages that make you think twice about how you get to the store to pick up milk or even getting to school or to the soccer games on the weekends (see the old post about our use of bakfiets as the new SUV).

Bicycling will never have the marketing resources that the automobile companies have, so it is the little things that make a difference in our household that are key.

Bicycle Commute Challenge Day 3 - Bike Your Child to Work

Part of the Bicycle Commute Challenge is sharing bicycling with others. Hopefully when one family member is biking, others take note and join in. Our family has gotten the bug and it has been fun to see my daughters grow up thinking of bicycling as a normal activity for transportatin. My daughter was on the KBOO Bike Show last month talking about where she bikes, what she wears, and when she bikes and it was fun to listen to. She described her biking to school as something she does "every single day" and it is sort of a badge of honor to not let the weather bother us. She seems to link the environment ahead of the simple bother of taking her wet clothes off when she gets to school.

Bike Commute Challenge Day 2

As a part of the Bike Commute Challenge, I offered to friends and family the opportunity to have me escort them on a ride to their work or even easier for me.... to join me on mine. This morning, I was joined on the commute by Charles Radosta. I worked with Charles at Kittelson & Associates, Inc. and he's one of the best traffic signal design engineers out there. Charles is an important guy because he's one of the most knowledegable folks I know on the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices serving as the Oregon Section of ITE liason to the Oregon Traffic Control Devices Committee for the past 9 years.

It is great when design engineers are on bikes or walking, or riding transit, because in any of those cases (as an American) they are likely to be experiencing the transportation system differently than they are used to. It's the same as getting in a triple trailer truck and touring the City with a freight hauler.

It's this sort of interest in trying something new that will move us forward as community builders. In doing something new, you learn to appreciate another's perspective. So, Bravo Mr. Radosta and thanks for taking the time this morning.

Bike Commute Challenge Day 1 - Buy Lunch for Coworkers

In honor of the Bike Commute Challenge, I bought pizza for staff that biked to work on the first day. A few of our regular engineers that ride were out today, so when I bought too much pizza we shared with others outside of Signals & Street Lighting. It was a fun start to the BTA's BCC and a great way to motivate friends to try biking for a day, a week, a month.

Everyone likes free stuff, so I also bought a tail light and a CO2 cannister for flats. The tail light was given to our intern, who didn't have one on her bike AND a pump was awarded to our GIS guy who had a flat today.

Hopefully, we'll help PBOT set a new record this year for participation.

Automated Bicycle Counting

The standard for loop detection in the City of Portland is to be inclusive of traffic in the bicycle lane. Detection is used to provide information to the signal controller in advance of the stop bar. The secondary purpose of the inductive loops is data collection if the equipment is set up properly. This is one of our most recent examples that we have put in for this purpose. The detectors must be wired independently to insure counts are applicable and can be measured. This wasn't historically the City's practice, so where we are doing replacements, we're spending a little extra time while there investing in the setup that will provide information that we can use to monitor the system. We've done this now at several locations and are mapping the locations using Google Maps.

UPDATE: I have uploaded the research paper that describes our work as of August 2011 to this. Here is the documentation and some actual measurements based on the research from Portland State University students.