bike ridership

Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.

A new study [PDF] commissioned by the Active Transportation Alliance put forth a "conservative" estimate that Chicagoans make nearly 125,000 bicycle trips each day for transportation, in addition to purely recreational trips. Almost 91,000, or 73 percent, of the trips are utilitarian – for shopping, errands, church, and doctor appointments.

To reach Mayor Rahm Emanuel's goal of having five percent of trips under five miles made by bike, bicycling will have to appeal to a much broader base of people than it does today. CDOT's bikeway projects will only succeed at that goal if new cyclists feel safe and comfortable while riding in these lanes -- which, in turn, largely depends on whether they feel safe from nearby traffic.

In its first weekend of operation, Divvy bike-share saw 4,123 trips. Annual members accounted for 78 percent of the trips from Friday to Sunday, with the rest coming from people who purchased 24-hour passes (which cost $7). The five most popular starting stations were all downtown and near the lakefront and coincided with the five most popular destination stations, just in a different order. They were: