Necessity for Bike Lanes

Abstract

With time, more and more people are trying to ditch their cars and buses and ride to their work. Others ride simply for the love of biking. Irrespective of who the person is and for what purpose he/she is riding, having dedicated bike lanes or bike routes could be effective in motivating people to a healthier lifestyle. In this report, I have tried to highlight the areas where we need more bike routes and the reason behind it.

Datasets used

For this analysis, I have used the HealthyRide rentals dataset for the fourth quarter of 2015. Along with this, the existing bike lanes and bike racks data was also used to mark the existing network of bike tracks.

https://data.wprdc.org/dataset/88550525-db51-4fa2-9418-b23c1329d6e6/resource/ca2cdcbb-2619-4f9c-a808-c31117aea315/download/trails-20

https://data.wprdc.org/dataset/88550525-db51-4fa2-9418-b23c1329d6e6/resource/61ff26e4-fc66-41c4-b156-6658bb216186/download/o 

Analysis

I started by trying to find the existing bike routes and the bike transit network and found that most of the bike routes are on the periphery of the city and do not cross through the center. It was strange to note that even bike racks were not available in the center of the city. Then I used two different datasets – one of them was the bike rented over two consecutive weekdays (Oct’29 and Oct’30, 2015) and weekends (Oct’10 and Oct’11, 2015). I chose the dates such that there was no rain or any major event on that day which could skew the data.    

The objective was to find out the bike routes of people on a traditional weekday and a weekend. The result was quite interesting. During the weekdays, there were lesser bike riders as compared to that on weekend which can be attributed to the fact that people generally use bikes more for recreational purpose rather than as a form of commute. Another important finding was that most of these routes were directed towards (assumption) the Downtown area, a commercial district, on a weekday. However, on a weekend a significant amount of rush can be witnessed in areas like Mount Washington which is more of a recreational site.

Another important finding was the lack of any transit network line between the two extreme ends of the city. There seems to be no or little routing via the center of the city. Another important finding was very few bike racks in these neighborhoods which could also have affected the routes. This could be the reason of dense bike routing on the periphery of the city. It is also safe to assume that due to the unavailability of bike racks in such neighborhoods, people generally prefer other transit options over bike.    

Conclusion

The unavailability of significant bike racks has a major role in very little biking via the center of the Pittsburgh city. A dedicated bike lane and a few bike racks would certainly help in densifying the network over there.