May bike-traffic survey, part 2
The county's morning/evening rush-hour bike/pedestrian traffic counts were today. The past counts I've done did the weekday count before the weekend count (Thursday/Saturday); this time it was the other way around. Someone had already signed up for my usual spot Thursday afternoon, so I picked a different location.
Nothing unusual in the morning at my weird traffic circle. Increasing traffic 07:00-08:00, and very little 08:00-09:00. 1 cyclist without a helmet.
The afternoon site was very different. Lee Highway (US-29) at North Glebe (VA-120), the intersection of 2 very busy roads, each 2 lanes each way. Commercial traffic, delivery trucks, buses, semis, construction vehicles (monster dump trucks, cement mixers). No shoulders. Not the sort of streets where many people would be comfortable on a bicycle. The sorts of streets experienced cyclists avoid - probably unsafe, definitely unpleasant. The noise at this corner would cause hearing damage, with so many large vehicles and long waits for the signals. I'm glad I carry earplugs with me all the time.
There weren't many cyclists. And most of them rode on the sidewalks. Only 2 used the street. One was a hard-core roadie, going in the non-rush direction on the less-busy street. The other guy arrived by bus (with his bike in the front rack), and he headed off in a different direction, but I had the impression he was probably going to take a side street in a few blocks. (Otherwise he probably would have done a bus transfer.) And he was not wearing a helmet.
During a 2-hour count, only 7 cyclists (only 1 female), and 4 of those without helmets. Most of them were on the sidewalk, so they probably felt they didn't need helmets. (Misinformed there, since most cycling injuries are from falls, or collisions with stationary objects, not other vehicles, and there's a lot more obstacles on the sidewalks.) Drizzly weather in the morning might have discouraged bike commuters and lowered today's counts, but as a cyclist, I wouldn't want either of these roads on my regular commute, and if I couldn't find a nicer route, I wouldn't want to take this one during rush hour. (I do take the less-busy road to get home from blood donations a couple of times a year, but it's after the traffic slacks off. And I did bike to/from the corner, but that was before/after the peak traffic.)
At this location I was also counting pedestrians, and there were plenty. About 1/4 of them were getting on or off buses - some transferring between bus routes. (I've sometimes counted pedestrians at my usual site, but the county isn't interested in them there.)