Comment by SeanLuke | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SeanLuke | Hacker News Reader

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This was a case study with no control group. Case studies are, IMHO, close to useless.

Having read the study, I'm not impressed. No attempt was made to compare Minneapolis with peer cities as controls, that is, ones which did not increase bike infrastructure. A limited model was attempted regarding climate impacts, but beyond this little was done to control for external factors. Thus we have no idea if the change in bike usage was due to the bike lanes or if it was due to some other factor, such as societal, environmental, or other changes in Minnesota, or the US, which increased ridership over the 7-year inclusive (!!!) time period of the study.

Additionally, this study was essentially a before-and-after for the US's $25 million Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program (NTPP). The study is based on data gathered by parties highly invested in the program's success, such as Transit for Livable Communities (a nonprofit paid by Minnesota to manage the program), rather than disinterested parties.

Do I want to see cycling successful? You bet I do. Does this paper tell us anything much? No, it does not.

I'm a cyclist in Minneapolis, and I'd love to see even more dedicated bike and multiuse trails everywhere. I think it's critical for all sorts of reasons, and have personal investments in it at some level.

I had a sort of similar reaction as you to the study though. It's better than nothing, it provides some numbers that are consistent with one interpretation, and I believe that interpretation, but there are other interpretations.

One issue is that dedicated bike paths in the Twin Cities don't get put in random places. The money and municipal planning involved in them is focused on pathways that are of critical infrastructural importance, or where studies have already shown that they're likely to see a lot of use. They get put in places where the city and county wants to increase nonvehicular transportation as much as possible, to increase access to something (e.g., light rail, some kind of hub) or to connect two or more places.

So showing that bike use is higher in places that a lot of city, county, park, and DoT planners have decided there's a demand for, based on years of study, isn't entirely surprising. It would be like if five companies did a multiyear study of demand for product X versus Y, concluded people would prefer X, made product X, and showed that it sold better than Y.

On the other hand, you could go full circle and interpret this as just meaning the municipal planning studies are usually right, and people do like dedicated bike lanes, especially in the places their studies suggest.

You're right in your criticism of the study. Luckily the Netherlands has already proven that for bike infrastructure, if you build it they will come.

According to Figure 6 from the study linked below, the trend in cycling levels in the Netherlands was essentially flat from the mid-80s to the mid-2000s. I recall (but cannot find) a source with statistics that suggest a minor increase since then, but much of the current infrastructure was in place 15 years ago.

http://web.archive.org/web/20150211090849/http://www.policy....

Speaking as someone living in the NLs, I don't see any reason for cycle use/ownership to change much. Folks who can cycle likely already do, and those who can't/don't want to are unlikely to start (with the exception of e bikes making it easier).

because the netherlands already have a very good biking infrastructure for decades. i have been biking there in the 80s and 90s. neighboring germany was no comparison. obviously if you already have good infrastructure, further improvements won't be very noticeable or motivate many more people to bike.

but in cities that previously didn't have good infrastructure, the massive improvements really did attract new riders that would not have considered riding a bike before.

They built their cycle infrastructure through the 60s and 70s tho so that would make sense

Yep, they started doing the same dumb car-centric infrastructure as the US around the 50s but unlike us they stopped when they saw how it was negatively affecting life for their people.

Is it not a wee bit short-sighted to label everything car-centric undertaken in the 50s and 60s 'dumb' when the planners and engineers of the day were learning just as they are today?

I agree, the ‘dumb’ in my comment comes from an anger i feel toward these planners. They engineered the life around us, but instead of doing it in an intelligent way, they allowed car companies and dictate our lives for decades to come. Now the younger generations are stuck in concrete and asphalt worlds confused why they can’t walk to the grocery store without crossing a 6-lane stroad.

It's quite generalized. If you're looking for more focused data and conclusions, public projects like these infrastructure improvements that are to some degree novel or pioneering (for the USA at least) are subject to a high level of attention and data collection over time. The city's website presents a lot of those results:

https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/government/departments/public...

Minneapolis in particular has been remarkable in the USA bikey world for their investment in multimodal infrastructure over the last 15 years. In this regard they've long been widely regarded as a success and discussed in detail in blogs, magazines, etc.

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