Biking capital of the nation is down nearly 40% in their biking

Heh.

For a number of years, I served on our neighborhood association.  We had a keen enthusiast for bike lanes who lobbied for some years for the creation of bike lanes in the neighborhood.  There was no significant faction wanting this, just the single persistent enthusiast willing to put in the time on the board to bring her vision to fruition.  Which, in conjunction with City Department of Works, she finally did.  

And promptly then took another job in a different in a different state.  We are left with lanes allocated to bikes which are always empty.  Virtually no one uses them.  But they take up room and block parking.  The neighborhood never wanted them.  Many quietly objected.  And yet here we are with scarce road space allocated and unused.

From Bike riding is falling in Portland by Tyler Cowen 

Overall, Portland bicycle traffic in 2022 dropped more than a third compared to 2019, to levels not seen since approximately 2005-2006 (Table 1). This is based on a comparison of people counted at the 184 locations that were counted in both 2022 and 2019. Volunteers recorded 17,579 people biking at those 184 locations in 2022, a 37% drop from the 27,782 counted at the same locations in 2019.  This reversion to earlier and lower volumes is also reflected in bicycle commute data, as well as for driving, walking, and using transit to commute. (Tables 5-6)  Looking at data from 2013-2019 we see that bicycling remained relatively flat between 2013 and 2016. However, bicycle counts dropped significantly between 2016 and 2019. This drop is also reflected in census commute data.

And it wasn’t all Covid:

While 2022 data is anomalously low, it is also a continuation of a trend of declining bicycle use in Portland. Both annual count data and Census data demonstrates that bicycle use in Portland peaked in the 2013-2015 period and has been declining since.

For stating facts, his comments are filled up with enthusiasts outraged that he is pointing out that a cherished shibboleth is unpopular.  There are some good points made and conversations developed but an awful lot of spluttering and posturing as well.

He repeats his request in a later post:

Many people are upset at my rather anodyne remarks from earlier in the week.  Thus I have a simple question: what are the best cost-benefit studies of urban investments in bicycle lanes and other bicycle-friendly policies?  They have to take into account the opportunity cost of the land for bike lanes, the cost of cycling deaths and injuries, and the costs of slower vehicular traffic.  Counting those variables in addition to the rather considerable benefits of cycling is hardly a genius-level move, right?

Funny that, I can’t seem to find such a study!  But I am not an expert.  I am sure there are many such studies, so I am opening comments to all of you, so that I may pull in the appropriate references.  I will then read the best study or studies, and report back.

And if by some freak chance of nature no such studies can be found, what should we infer from that?

Addendum: And people (commentators), I don’t need the blah blah blah.  Don’t need the mood affiliation.  Don’t need the abstract citation of individual gross benefits.  Just the cost-benefit studies, please.  I am sure you will oblige.

Bike Lanes, Mass Transit, Vision Zero - all intuitively appealing.  In practice almost all of them are dramatic failures and/or misallocations of limited public capital.  The fact that the whiff of totalitarian hangs heavy around these advocates does not help the cause.

But all that is needed are robust and solid studies to at least to begin consideration of the proposals.  And after fifty years, these are still in short supply.