June 1-6, 2021 is the week when volunteers throughout Canada are counting cyclist volumes of roads and paths as part of a program developed by the Velo Canada Bikes Corporation. Gorski Consulting has volunteered its services and two cycling counts were made on June 2nd in east London. Results are now available from one of those counts, from Hale Street near Heather Crescent.
For 3 hours, commencing at 1130 hours, a video camera was operated on Hale Street between the two legs of Heather Crescent. Unlike the Velo Canada program which asks volunteers to use a cellphone App to conduct the counts, Gorski Consulting has used multiple video cameras for that documentation. This process has been in use since 2004 and has been a part of regular documentations of various traffic situations as part of our collision reconstructions for civil and criminal litigation. While the Velo program relies on the sincerity and accuracy of its volunteers, the Gorski Consulting methods provide permanent video records of what has been observed and therefore those observations can be re-examined by independent entities for their accuracy.
During the 3-hour session only 6 cyclists were observed. Four cyclists were southbound and 2 were northbound. Five of the cyclists were male and one was female. Because of the small sample size we are able to display frames of the cyclists taken from our video project. The six cyclists are shown below.
Northbound, white, adult, male, cyclist, age range unknown, riding on northbound lane of Hale Street.
Northbound, middle-aged, white, male riding on the northbound lane of Hale Street.
Southbound, middle-aged, white, male riding on west sidewalk of Hale Street
Southbound, white, male, age-unknown but not elderly and not a child, riding on E sidewalk.
Southbound, middle-aged, white, male riding on west sidewalk.
Southbound, frail, possibly elderly, white, female, riding on east sidewalk.
Note that four of the six cyclists were observed riding on a sidewalk and their ages are likely above 18 years. Thus according to London’s laws they could be ticketed by police as they are not supposed to be riding on a sidewalk. Yet given the traffic volumes and the lack of a cycling lane on Hale Street it would be more safe ride on the sidewalk.
As observed in previous testing, the numbers of males (5) versus females (1) continues the trend that males generally outnumber females by a wide margin. If we are to increase cycling volumes we need to understand by this low volume of female cyclists exists and what we can do to improve those numbers.
The results from this session demonstrate that cyclist volumes differ greatly depending on what site is being examined. During an afternoon session during a weekday (Tuesday), cycling volumes appear to be very low on Hale Street. It has also been found in previous studies that seasons (summer versus winter) and time of day are also major factors in the observed variance in cyclist volumes.
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