women’s cycling

The monthly count of bike-share trips in Chicago peaked this July at 410,392 trips, according to a new data release from Divvy. Trips then declined by five percent from July to August, which is traditionally a slow month due to vacations. While there's now a full year of trip data on Divvy, the staged rollout last fall (through October) kept ridership relatively low during the first few months.

Yesterday, the Alliance for Biking & Walking released its 2014 Benchmarking Report, which details data and trends about bicycle and walking infrastructure in all U.S. states and in the 52 largest cities. The report enables both public officials and advocates to evaluate how their communities stack up, compared to other communities. It also provides concrete examples of innovative pedestrian and bicycle projects nationwide. How does Chicago compare?

Divvy's data release last month raised as many questions as it answered about bike-share use in Chicago. Chicago Spectrum was the first to point out that there's a large gap between male and female Divvy members. Women make up 31 percent of the membership, but the trip data showed that women made only 21 percent of the trips.

Veteran cyclists Vanessa Buccella and Annie Byrne hope to narrow Chicago’s bicycle commuting gender gap with their new shop BFF Bikes, opening this March at 2113 West Armitage in Bucktown. The city’s first truly woman-centric bike store will feature a largely female staff, a wide selection of women’s apparel, dressing rooms, and other amenities to create an inviting atmosphere for people who might feel less-than-comfortable at a traditional shop.

Steven Vance is the self-described “data geek” at Streetsblog Chicago, but even a right-brained type like myself couldn’t help but be intrigued by some recently revealed stats and charts about Divvy bike-share use patterns. Chicago Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner Scott Kubly shared them during a talk at last week’s Complete Streets Symposium, hosted by CDOT, the CTA and the professional group the Intelligent Transportation Society, which kind of sounds like an '80s synth-pop band.