A lot of you biked to a Super Bowl party Sunday, and the Fremont Bridge bike counter captured the data to prove it. It also looks like a bunch of you hung around for a little post-game partying and high-fiving, too.
SDOT posted the graph above on their blog, which shows above-average bike trip rates in the hours before and after the game, but a big lull during it. I suppose there are no surprises here, but if there was any doubt that the 12th Man rides a bike, the answer is yes.
And the city is going to need a whole lot of you to do it again Wednesday. King County anticipates some seriously packed buses as fans swarm downtown for the victory parade. And obviously, driving to the parade will be hell.
Be aware: 4th Ave will be closed starting at 10:30 a.m. for the parade, which starts at Seattle Center and ends at Century Link Field. So if you’re traveling through the area, I’d make sure to do it before 10:30 or be prepared for a long detour.
Or you can just join the crowd.
If you can’t find a place to lock your bike, here’s a pro tip: A lot of office buildings have bike racks in their underground parking garages. And since they are hidden from view, they usually have space open.
On the topic of data captured by the Fremont Bike Counter, bike trips over the Fremont Bridge were way up last month compared to the same month in 2013. In fact, there 15,000 more trips in January 2014 than in 2013, representing a 33 percent increase in just one year.
This continues a trend we noted in November. At first I thoughts a lot of the increase was just due to weather, and maybe that’s still part of it. But as the trend continues to repeat itself month after month, it’s starting to look pretty solid.
Comments
16 responses to “A lot of you biked to a Super Bowl party, and there’s data to prove it”
You can always check out our Bike Parking map at commuteseattle.com The default map shows indoor bike parking at Downtown buildings, with some open to the public and some not. But on the same map you can overlay all the public bike parking too. Between the two tools you can usually find a good spot to lock up your bike!
According to the AP reported on pg 2 of the Seattle Times this morning, the number of people who left the Superbowl game by train was more than double the highest pre-game projections: 33,000 riders. Estimates were between 8,000 ad 15,000. No mention of bikes – or cars for that matter – but this might suggest that droves of sports fans (and people in general) are leaving cars at home. I’d like to see complete mode split numbers: walk, bike, bus, train, car, limousine, helicopter.
People weren’t allowed to walk to the game. http://grist.org/list/youre-not-allowed-to-walk-to-the-super-bowl/
I don’t know about biking.
Based on my Twitter feed that is full of #bikenyc who are also sports fans, there was no biking (not including biking to the train). They made it impossible to do anything but take transit. Which is better than making it impossible to do anything but drive, but . . .
I read that the security rules specifically disallowed taxis/limousines/etc. Unless you have special privileges, you could drive and pay $150 to park your car, or you could ride some form of mass transit (bus or train) – those were the only options.
Looking at the map, I can see what the event security did not allow walking – there is virtually nothing within walking distance of the stadium, except some warehouses. Practically speaking, virtually everyone walking across the security perimeter would have driven or been dropped off right outside the perimeter, thereby causing traffic jams, delaying all the event buses in the process.
If there existed some clump of homes or hotels within walking distance, that would be one thing, but there simply isn’t.
When are we going to see data from other counters other than the Fremont bridge?
It will be available here: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/bikecounter.htm
And at at data.seattle.gov
We have discussed the West Seattle counter having some trouble making accurate counts, so I have been reluctant so far to put too much weight behind its numbers. But I think it is better now than it was shortly after it launched.
The ones recently installed around town have not yet had a data dump, but that should be coming sometime in the next month.
I focus on Fremont mainly because A: It’s counts are very consistent (you can watch, it rarely makes a mistake) and B: It’s the only one that has been active for more than a year, so it’s the only source for year-over-year data.
The WS counter was fixed last month – the counter mechanism was moved ~8 – 10 feet east and viola! Looks like it’s working fine at this point. thank goodness.
Thanks for the update! Maybe the city should reset it. otherwise it’s going to look like a HUGE spike in West Seattle biking later this year…
I got counted as two bikes by the west seattle bridge counter about a week ago.
I admit to being one of the few who biked across the Fremont Bridge during the game. Biking on Dexter with only a few cars was *soo* nice!
Biking back during the celebration was a tad more.. interesting.
I briefly considered biking downtown, then I considered the likely post-game DUI-rate (win or lose), and decided that the relative indestructibility of a Metro bus would be the better option…
I wonder if SDOT corrected for the 100+ people who went across the bridge on the Cascade advocacy ride at 2pm the previous Sunday? I’d be willing to bet that’s what caused the green spike in the middle.
Not sure why the counter would need to be corrected. A bunch of people rode their bikes across the bridge for that ride.
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I biked to my friend’s place in Pioneer Square but there was no way I was going to bike back home!