The Newton Serves bike count (thanks, Steve Heinrichs!) project has already put data on a google map.
Surprise! Lots of bikes on Chestnut St.
Interesting: Beacon and Comm. Ave. are confirmed as the major east-west routes, though the lower counts on Beacon west of Newton Center suggest that people use Beacon to get to Newton Center and Highlands, but not to go further west. Also, the numbers using Washington-Waltham and Grove-Lexington mean that bikes must be incorporated into any changes to those areas. (That stretch of Washington St. is close to being rehabilitated. DPW plans are here in a power-point file.)
No surprise: no bikes on Route 9, and bikes cross it only on two streets: Parker and Chestnut. Route 9 is the major impediment to biking we always thought it was. Few bikes on Needham St. Center and Walnut are confirmed as major North-South routes; oddly, those stretches that are most congested with cars (between Newton Highlands and Beacon St.) also show the highest bike counts.
We’ll need to do some more counts on weekdays to pick up patterns of people running errands and commuting.
nice!!!
And that was on a cloudy day with predictions of scattered showers… my prediction for this summer is record-breaking #'s of bikers. We'll certainly see #'s go up on Beacon soon. Unanimous vote in favor of striping from the Boston border to Hammond St.
a Bike Newton question for you… Is bike newton officially doing school bike safety trainings? CAbot school ( I'm the new safe routes person Hee!) is ready and willing to have something going. The PE teacher would love to set a date in stone ASAP. I know NPD is waiting to get trained ( new person doing it…) and because it is so late in the year we need to move fast to make spring work. CAbot has a new ( as of Nov) bike rack and since they built it the kids have come- the racks are filled, but the kids haven't had bike training in three years so we want to make sure all those kids biking in are safe to keep up the mometum.
so email me if you guys can do this officlally etc. And let's see if we can get this going!
V