Shasta College Bikeability Study

Study Background: Bikeability workshop

•October 8th, 2013•Sponsored by Healthy Shasta (Public Health)•Held on the Shasta College campus •Focus: development of a bicycling plan for Shasta College• Outcome: three proposed bike routes for the Shasta College campus

Focus of the present study

Investigating the bikeability of two of the proposed routes.

Bikeability: beauty (trees make a more beautiful route than buildings), traffic (pedestrian and vehicular), and convenience (proximity to destination).

Hypothesis

There are important differences in the Bikeability between bike routes one and two

Methodology

• Route one – 21 waypoints• Route two – 15 waypoints• GPS - Garmin Etrex GPS unit (An error

range of 1-15 ft.) • The Garmin map datum - WGS 84 • Position format in degrees, minutes, and

seconds• Elevation was recorded in feet.

Data Collected at each waypoint

• Number of trees within 50ft.•Number of people within 50ft. in a two minute period. •Number of buildings within 50 ft.•Number of buildings in sight•Number of vehicles within 50 ft. in a two minute period.

Results – bike route two

Focus on the Traffic Map and Quantitative data

Waypoints collected: Dec. 6th, 2:30 – 4:00 P.M.

Results – bike route two

Focus on the treesMap and Quantitative data

Waypoints collected: Dec. 5th, 2:30 – 4:00 P.M.

Results – bike route one

Focus on the traffic and treesMap and Quantitative data

Waypoints collected: Nov. 25th, 10:00 – 11:30

Discussion: Findings

Beauty

• Both routes had trees along the entire path

Traffic

• Both routes encountered vehicular traffic at Shasta College Dr.• Route two had vehicular traffic over a longer stretch than route one• Route one had more pedestrian traffic , especially in front of two buildings

Convenience

• Route one - more convenient for: Humanities• Route two - more convenient for: Learning Resource Center, student/staff parking• Both routes protect from the elements but route one provides more tree canopy than

route two

Methodology Issues

• Problems with the GPS on route 2•Differences in traffic – due to different days and time of day.•Differences in tree count – different researcher estimates of 50 ft.

Recommendations for future work

• Include path three in the study•Standardize procedure for measuring distance•Take the waypoints at the same time, day and time of day (i.e.) employ multiple teams.

Questions

Thanks