Many media outlets reported anecdotes over the summer about how the soaring price of gasoline was putting more people on their bicycles to commute and run errands.
It's good to finally get some meat on that story.
The city of Portland reports a 28% increase in overall bicycle use for 2008; the biggest increase ever recorded. In fact, bicycling in Portland has increased threefold since 2001.
Investment pays
While the price of gasoline climbing to near $5 a gallon is attributed for a lot of the interest in bicycling, Portland bike coordinator Roger Geller also credits the city's investments in bike infrastructure (bike lanes, paths, sharrows, parking) and encouragements.
Those improvements prompted the League of American Bicyclists to issue its highest Bicycle Friendly Community award — platinum — to Portland in May.
The Oregonian newspaper added another factor to bicycling's increasing popularity:
“As bicycle transportation becomes more and more visible, more and more people begin considering it as a viable option. For Portland, this is a decidedly welcome trend that seems to feed on itself, spreading cultural acceptance almost exponentially.”
Good signs
Some other facts gleaned from the Oregonian:
— Summer bicycle counts were double those in March; the counts in March were equal to the bicycle counts in summer 2002;
— Bicycle traffic on bike-friendly bridges was up 15%;
— 20% of all traffic on Hawthorne Bridge were bicycles.
It will be interesting to see how bicycling fared in other parts of the US this summer. It also will be interesting to see how it fares in the Pacific Northwest as the rain falls along with the gasoline prices.
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