Comment 119786

By KevinLove (registered) | Posted August 11, 2016 at 08:44:00

Ryan,

Thank you for a fantastic report. I would like to suggest that SoBi bike share trips are actually longer on average than trips on private bicycles. This would further reduce the percentage of trips captured on Cannon by the counters.

Why do I assert that SoBi bike trips are longer than average? For example, consider where I live, on Park Street just south of Herkimer. If I want to take a SoBi bike, I have to either walk west all the way across Durand Park to the SoBi station on the west side of Durand Park. Or I have to walk east all the way over to James Street to the SoBi station there.

The same is true of most of the destinations to which I am going. There is rarely a SoBi station right outside my destination. I have to walk to/from the SoBi station.

For most destinations in downtown Hamilton, I would spend as much or more time walking to and from the SoBi stations as I would actually riding the SoBi bike to get to where I am going. But I can get on my private bike right at home and go straight to my destination.

So for shorter trips I walk instead of taking SoBi bike, because walking is faster than SoBi. I suspect that most private bike owners take those short trips on their private bikes, and most SoBi users walk for those short trips.

So I conclude that the mode share for private bikes vs. SoBi for short trips is much higher than for long trips. And in turn, that means that the counters on Cannon Street are missing even more bike trips than estimated by Ryan in his article.

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