If you already know me, then you already know I’ve a ardour for saving lives on our roadways and constructing robust, resilient infrastructure that may serve the wants of all residents, which is why my curiosity was piqued after I heard about Bicyclist & Pedestrian Counts, which is a component of a bigger program, proper right here in my hometown of Columbia, S.C.
To begin, let me share with you just a little little bit of background about this program. The town of Columbia had an goal to check and plan for the motion of bicyclists and pedestrians as a part of the Stroll Bike Columbia Pedestrian and Bicycle Grasp Plan planning course of. Beginning in 2014, a complete research of present metropolis applications and multimodal infrastructure, visitors security knowledge, and demographic knowledge was performed to develop the suggestions set forth within the plan.
To collect this knowledge, the Planning Division routinely conducts pedestrian and bicyclist counts all through Columbia, with the assistance of workers and volunteers. This in the end helps drive decisionmaking for the DOT (division of transportation) and town. The knowledge helps town of Columbia to grow to be conscious of security issues that exist already and infrastructure adjustments that should be made. With the info, town is moreover in a position to do studies yearly and use these studies when having conversations with the DOT.
Whereas vehicular visitors counts are usually performed at routine intervals by transportation businesses (each native and state), these standardized counts don’t present knowledge associated to the habits and modal decisions of probably the most weak customers—pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders, and individuals with disabilities. As roadway design is commonly data-driven, the shortage of the sort of knowledge can result in the design of insufficient or contextually inappropriate infrastructure.
Leigh DeForth, complete planner, Metropolis of Columbia, S.C., says “If you happen to had been simply wanting on the vehicular knowledge, you may say ‘nicely we have to change the sunshine timing,’ however if you’re there and viewing the pedestrians and see that want, then you could have a extra full image.”
It’s greater than seeing, it’s believing. It’s about understanding the tempo at which even probably the most weak are crossing the intersection and even contemplating different varieties of info that may result in a distraction at a given intersection.
The town has focused areas that it is aware of are both security issues, are about to alter, or have excessive volumes. The counts occur in 34 completely different areas.
“We depend on weekdays, Tuesday via Thursday morning, from 7:30-9:30 am, after which we depend on Saturdays from 10-12,” says DeForth. “The rationale we do that two-hour window is we will use these two-hour home windows to make approximations for the day by day use. And we additionally know on Saturdays, or weekends basically, persons are going to be extra recreation-driven so 10-12 makes extra sense whereas once we depend from 7:30-9:30 we’re actually wanting on the commuter mode so people who’re strolling or biking to work or using transit to work that we’re accounting for these.”
The counts usually occur within the spring and the autumn. The counts are presently going down this spring—having began this previous Saturday, March 25, and they’re going to proceed via April 8. If you want to volunteer to depend, go to the web site.
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