More commuters are arrivinzg at work on two wheels, the city Dept. of Transportation announced this week.
A D.O.T. survey found 26 percent more bicycle commuters this year compared to last year, and 66 percent more than there were two years ago. The D.O.T. attributed the increase to the new bike lanes rolled out over the same period
While the D.O.T. does not count every cyclist in the city, they use a handful of locations as a measuring stick for citywide trends: the four East River bridges, the Staten Island Ferry’s Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan and cyclists crossing 50th St. at the Hudson River Greenway. The D.O.T. first measured bicycle volumes at many of these locations in 1980 and has measured all of them since 2001.
This year, the D.O.T. counted an average of 15,495 cyclists at those locations on weekdays between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Last year, the D.O.T. counted 12,328 cyclists using the same method. This year the highest count came from the Hudson River Greenway, with an average of 4,289 cyclists a day. The Brooklyn Bridge saw an average of 2,294 cyclists a day.
