Keeping Count

The Bicycle Coalition released a new report yesterday on the latest cycling trends in Philly. The news and radio programs have been covering it, as there's some pretty shocking stuff in there. For example, did you know that a lot more people are biking these days? It's true! The report also found that if a bike lane exists, cyclists will tend to ride in it instead of on the sidewalk! And, wonder of wonders: cyclists will actually choose bike-friendly streets over others that aren't. 

Advocacy speaks in the language of hard numbers, so I suppose I'm glad someone is counting bikes, crunching the data, and writing sentences in bold fonts for city bureaucrats to read.

Personally, my favorite parts are the graphs and charts and the stories they tell. Plus I like the pretty colors.

• In 2010, they counted 241 bikes per peak hour at the Walnut St bridge. That's 4 bikes a minute! Not too shabby.
• There's a large rebel army of bike commuters tucked away in Mount Airy. Look for it on the map.
• What the hell is going on in Chester County?!

Since I started bike commuting, I've actually met several co-workers who ride in to South Philly from Mount Airy, so reading about them in the report didn't surprise me. The Commuter Challenge website has finally gone up, by the way. The mountain rebels at my company are logging ridiculous numbers of miles.

My own commute, I've discovered to my great dismay, is only 3 miles, and not 4, as I'd originally thought. 

6 miles is average length. IT IS.

Mileage envy aside, all that really matters is that my team beats the Quaker Commuters.

Suck it, Quakers.

Finally, here are two items well worth your goofing-off-at-work time:

The Lovely Bicycle! blog had an interesting post last week about visiting a Central Pennsylvania town that should have been a great place for bicycles. Yet there were none around. Read "Why Not Here? Pondering the Ingredients of a Cycling Town."

And last but not least, check out Rides a Bike, a blog featuring photographs of movie stars on bikes, such as this one:

I've known about the blog for a while, but didn't realize it it was run by Philly's own Steven Rea, a columnist for the Inquirer, until he emailed recently and told us about it. He's found and posted 117 photos so far since kicking off the website in November, an impressive feat of archival research. But really, who's counting?