Bicycle Access to Metrorail On the Rise
The number of Metrorail customers riding their bike to the train station increased by 50% over the last 5 years, as Metro makes progress towards its 2020 goal to attract more bicyclists.
More cyclists are accessing Metrorail by bike than ever before. According to results from the 2012 Metrorail Passenger Survey, the number of riders bicycling to Metrorail in the morning rush hour increased from around 1,550 to over 2,380 per day between 2007 and 2012. Bike access to Metrorail now accounts for 1% of entries each morning, which moves us closer to our Board-adopted goal of over 2% (over 7,000 bicycles!) by 2020.
In this survey, riders who access rail by bicycle in the morning peak could be taking Capital Bikeshare to the station, riding and parking their own bike at the station, or bringing a folding bike on-board. The Passenger Survey is one way we measure bicycle access. We see a similar pattern in our annual count of bike racks at stations each spring (currently nearing completion for 2013, stay tuned).
The growth in bike access has happened at the same time as bicycling is increasing generally in the region, and as Metro has added more bike racks at stations to accommodate and encourage bicycling, including a secure Bike & Ride parking prototype facility at College Park station.
Do you have data on where the increases have chiefly been from 2007-2012? Are they more at urban stations with bike share or more at suburban stations with bike and auto facilities? Or are the increases balanced across the system?
@jnb Yes, we do! But generally we’re finding our counts of bike racks to be a bit more reliable for measuring bike access at the station level, since the rail survey gives small sample sizes at some stations. We’ll be publishing the 2013 rack count data right here after Labor Day.