How many cyclists are there?

You know we love our stats here on the Aire Valley Bike Bus, but I've often wondered how many cyclists there are commuting in Bradford. The Council does regular traffic monitoring, and thanks to Neil Moore, they have passed on this information to me. Neil writes:

"In the Bradford district we have 3 main ways of collecting information about the number of cyclists.

1. On behalf of the Department of Transport we undertake 12 hour counts (between 7.00am and 7.00pm) at various sites (determined by the DfT) on all traffic using the roads. We extract the number of cyclists at 25 of these sites (data in the document below under ltp2 monitoring) to get an idea of cycling trends.
2. Each spring we count the number of people travelling inbound in the morning and outbound in the evening peak periods across a virtual cordon around the Bradford city centre. Again this gives us an idea of cycling trends and allows us to compare cycling with other modes of transport (in the document below).
3. Every year we count the number of people using the Leeds / Bradford canal towpath (counts alternate between March and July - information in the document below).

In addition we count traffic at various junctions (including cyclists) when requested to do so.

We do monitor traffic on a 24 hour basis using automatic counters - unfortunately the equipment is not sensitive enough to register the number of cyclists. We are going to trial an automatic cycle counter on Manchester Road once the new SUSTRANS / National Lottery funded bridge is constructed.

The document below contains a summary of cycling in Bradford (it's a little out of date in areas). I am quite happy to provide information at site specific locations - should you require it.

Let me know if you need anymore information."

The monitoring is all done Monday to Friday, except the specific cycle monitoring on the canal towpath which is monitored on a Wednesday and a Sunday. In addition, this year they are also monitoring the number of cyclists / pedestrians on Croscombe Walk (the living street in Little Horton) and Manchester Road (footbridge area) on behalf of SUSTRANS - these are being undertaken on a Thursday and a Saturday.

Download the document below.