The Super Tuesday Bike Count in 2019 for the Inner West shows a 42% increase in morning commuter cycling over figures for 2018.
Bike Leichhardt, Bike Marrickville and Ashfield Bicycle Group all volunteer to do the counts, along with other community groups keen to get some funds from the Council. The count is organised by Bicycle Network and paid for by participating councils.
The counts have been done for a number of years and show a steady increase in number of cyclists. Unfortunately to our mind Council has decided not to continue for 2020, citing budgetary constraints and the counts “not being useful”. With a good news story of increasing cycling this is hard to understand.
It is not clear if they will resume in 2021, or if a different system will be instituted, maybe based on mobile phone tracking as has been done with dockless bikes or “heatmaps” like Strava users can generate. Perhaps a more targetted approach would be better, counting children riding to school, or residents riding to shops.