[Carfreeliving] 1 mile of new bike lane + bike education = 1% increase in bike commuting

[Jeremy Nelson]

See excerpt of study below, which found that building bike lanes increases
bicycling, as expressed by the following formula (which also makes a nice
sound bite):

1 mile of new bike lane + bike education = 1% increase in bike commuting

[Of course, transportation economics suggests that we'd should add a
multiplier to this formula so that increasing the time/money costs of
driving (for example, by charging market rates for all public garages, lots,
and curb parking) would result in an even greater increase in the number of
bike commuters.]

For anyone who wants to increase bicycling in San Francisco, it appear to be
quite simple- "if you build it (and price auto parking), they will come by
bike."

===============

A study by Jennifer Dill and Theresa Carr [at Portland State University],
"Bicycle Commuting and Facilities in Major U.S. Cities: If You Build Them,
Commuters Will Use Them," found that only 0.53 percent of people in Denver
commute by bike.

In comparison, 2.59 percent of people in Sacramento are bike commuters, San
Francisco cites 1.80 percent, Boston 1.48 percent, Washington D.C. 1.42
percent, Los Angeles and Philadelphia 0.63 percent, Chicago 0.51 percent,
and New York 0.42 percent.

They conclude that "the percentage of people commuting by bicycle is
significantly correlated with the bicycle infrastructure," specifically
designated bike lanes. For perspective, Sacramento boasts 1.42 bike lanes
per square mile to Denver's 0.07.

For typical U.S. cities with populations of more than 250,000, each
additional mile of bike lanes per square mile is associated with a roughly
one-percentage point increase in the number of people who commute by bike.

However, Dill and Carr note that "bicycle lanes and paths alone are not
likely to increase bicycle commuting." They cite education about bicycling
as an important component of increasing the numbers of commuters.

http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/handy/ESP178/Dill_bike_facilities.pdf