Bike Pedestrian Counts

Granting Agency: Wisconsin Department of Transportation

Researchers: Madhav Chitturi

Primary Project Objectives

Over one-third of U.S. adults are obese (1). 55% of U.S. population falls short of activity guidelines. One of the main reasons is the lack of infrastructure to support safe walking and biking. Better Pedestrian/Bike accommodations are also necessary for fostering transportation equity, better transportation economics, environment, efficiency and quality of life. They also provide benefits to motorized traffic. Wisconsin has been at the forefront of encouraging biking and walking and has been consistently voted as one of the top Bicycle Friendly State. However, WisDOT has not conducted systematic counts of bicyclists and pedestrians (bike-ped) on public transportation facilities. WisDOT recognizes that a more systematic counting program is necessary in order to better understand transportation mode choice in Wisconsin and allocate resources appropriately. WisDOT is now ready to establish a more systematic counting program with pre-determined count locations that will be surveyed repeatedly over a number of years. The goal of this project is to pilot a program in parts of southern Wisconsin in collecting bike-ped count data at multiple locations and provide the summary analysis of counts as well as feedback to WisDOT on the challenges faced and any -recommendations for future counts.