Dunsmuir Street and Hornby Street separated bike lanes statistics
Since the opening of separated bike lanes, detailed cycling data has been collected on Dunsmuir Street and Hornby Street.
In July and August 2010, an average of 1900 cyclists used the Dunsmuir Street separated bike lanes (Richards to Homer) on mid-week days. These numbers dropped to a mid-winter low of 800 per day in December 2010 and peaked in August 2011 at 2600 per day. July through December 2011 saw a total of 286,000 bike trips made on Dunsmuir Street, 36% more than the same period in 2010.
Bike volumes increased steadily on Hornby Street between early December 2010 and August 2011. In January 2011, the mid-week average was 750 bike trips per day (Robson to Georgia). By August 2011 this had grown to 2100 bikes per mid-week day.
Cyclist volumes fluctuate throughout the year depending on many factors, including daylight hours, rainfall, public holidays, special events and temperature. Higher volumes are generally experienced in the summer months with lower volumes in the winter months.
Monthly bike volumes on Dunsmuir and Hornby separated bike lanes are shown below.
Notes:
1. Some daily counts are unavailable due to equipment damage, vandalism or malfunction. In these cases, estimates of missing daily data are used to calculate monthly totals.
2. Bicycle volumes shown for Hornby in January are from a counter north of Nelson, which failed in mid-February. Volumes shown for February and later are from a counter north of Robson which was installed in late January.
Download daily bike volume data from Burrard Bridge, Dunsmuir Viaduct and locations on Hornby and Dunsmuir Streets here.
An analysis of vehicle travel times along Hornby Street found that travel times south of Pender Street are essentially unchanged. The northmost block of Hornby, between Pender and Hastings, has seen increased delays averaging 30 seconds in peak periods.
How do we measure travel times?
Vehicle travel time data collection involves City staff driving a passenger vehicle along a study corridor with the general flow of traffic. Staff record the times when their vhicle enters and exits the study area. Numerous runs are made by staff at different times of day.
How do we measure cyclist volumes?
On Dunsmuir Street and Hornby Street we are using portable bike counters which utilize pneumatic hoses, similar to equipment to count vehicles. These are used on bike routes throughout the city to collect bicycle volumes and have had their accuracy validated using manual counts.
On the Burrard Bridge and Dunsmuir Viaduct, bicycles are counted using wire loops fixed to the bike lanes that detect the metal wheels passing over the loops. They are designed and built to ignore the effects of larger metal objects such as cars and trucks. We have checked and calibrated this equipment using counts done by staff on site.
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