Recent Bicycle Counts
Boulder County has bike counts for many county roads. View the interactive map for recent and historical information.
Background
For many decades, the Transportation Department (now called Public Works) had dedicated staff and budget to obtain 24-hour vehicle counts at close to 300 locations throughout the county. In 2013, Transportation staff researched how to accurately collect bicycle data using the existing vehicle counting equipment. Staff quickly realized that the vehicle counters – those black tubes you may see laying over the paved roadways – were in fact counting some bikes, but the software was incorrectly categorizing them as trucks and/or motorcycles. Through additional research and experimentation, staff was able to make small tweaks to the traditional tubes to obtain statistically reliable bike count data.
Details on Counting Technology
This new bicycle counting technique has gained national attention. County staff has presented their findings at national conferences and the research was published in the Institute of Transportation Engineers Journal. A poster was developed for the Bicycle Urbanism Symposium in Seattle depicting the research process.
And if you are feeling really wonky you can learn more in-depth background information on bicycle counting.