2007 Benchmarking Report - Alliance for Biking & Walking

Bicycling & Walking in the U.S./ Thunderhead Alliance 2007
102
CONCLUSIONS
(cont. from page 99)
Greater Investment Needed
Chapter 7 shows how policies have a direct impact on
levels of cycling and walking. Land use policies (density), infrastructure,
policies to encourage or discourage automobiles
(among others) impact people’s decision to bike or walk. Cities
and states that rank high for bicycle and pedestrian policies and
provisions provide benchmarks for other states and cities to
aspire to. However, the graph on pages 100-101 shows that all
states fall behind in funding bicycling and walking in proportion
to prevalence of these modes. Although bicycling and walking
make up almost 10% of all trips, less than 2% of federal transportation
dollars go to bicycle and pedestrian projects.
Because so many variables likely factor into increased
bicycling and walking levels (i.e. biking and walking facilities,
education, secure bike parking, integration with transit, etc) and
these variables are often dependent on other variables (i.e. funding
and staffing levels, strong advocacy organizations, good policies),
it’s difficult to point to any of these alone as the greatest
need. Rather, looking at the states and cities that rank highest in
some of these areas (Chapter 5) reveals that these places also
rank among the highest for cycling and walking levels (Chapters
3 and 4). These connections prove that investment in bicycle and
pedestrian policies and provisions and biking and walking levels
are linked.
Limitations to this Report
The availability of reliable data, especially for all trips
taken by foot and bicycle, limits what this report can show. The
most reliable source of mode share data is from the 2005 American
Community Survey (ACS). However, since this survey only
looks at trips to work, it does not provide a complete perspective
on all bicycling and walking trips. The National Household
Transportation Survey (NHTS) sponsored by the FHWA, is
updated more frequently (every 5-7 years), and attempts to show
all trips. However, because it is a national survey, all analysis
below the national level have problems with small sample sizes.
It is also difficult to extract data for cities from this source, as it
uses Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) which often stretch
beyond city (and sometimes beyond state) boundaries. Some
cities have done their own trip counts for bicycling and walking
using various methodologies, but too few have been completed
to extract a formula for other states and cities based on available
data from the Census and the NHTS.
Another limitation of this report is lack of data at the
state and city level on bicycle and pedestrian provisions. Many
cities and states have no formal system for tracking miles of
sidewalks or bike lanes, for example. Data on other provisions
such as bicycle racks and parking are often not readily available.
Benchmarking Into the Future
This report has revealed how accessible and reliable various
data indicators for bicycling and walking are. The indicators
chosen for inclusion in this report will continue to be measured
through the Benchmarking Project, and the following additions
will be considered for future reports:
• Neighborhood-level land-use data;
• Data on bicycle and pedestrian education courses;
• Data on car-parking subsidies and requirements;
• Data on cost of school transportation;
• Data on presence of universities and transportation
and parking policies at these universities;
• Data on the promotion of bicycling, walking and transit
through public policies to reduce greenhouse gases;
• Additional data on infrastructure including signs,
conectivity, sidewalks, and bridge access;
• A subjective survey component to measure attitudes
and opinions towards bicycling and walking;
• Several mid-sized cities.
On top of these possible additions, Thunderhead will create
an on-line database that will capture data collected for this project
and make it easily accessible for stakeholders. All of these additions
depend on additional funding for Thunderhead’s Benchmarking
Project. Thunderhead will work with current partners and strive to
create new partnerships as the Benchmarking Project goes forward,
in an effort to make these important additions a reality.