Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Transportation Mode Data topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Local survey shows higher bike use than expected; staff outline steps to improve travel-count methods
Summary
Commissioners discussed differences between American Community Survey commuting figures and a local Iowa City community survey that reported about 10% bike use. Staff proposed before-and-after counts tied to a new bollarded bike lane and follow-up with the MPO to refine measures toward the climate plan target.
Commissioners and staff discussed a transportation-mode memo comparing the U.S. Census American Community Survey (ACS) commute data with a recent Iowa City community survey. Staff said the local survey asked respondents how often they used different modes across the year, while the ACS captures a snapshot and can undercount seasonal or multi-mode behavior.
Commissioner Smith called the 10% local estimate for people biking “shocking” and “pleasantly surprised,” saying the figure moved Iowa City closer to higher-performing U.S. bike cities. Staff cautioned the city cannot yet treat the two surveys as directly comparable because of differences in survey wording and sampling.
Staff described short-term steps to improve measurement. Daniel Bizzle, climate action staff, told the commission the city will coordinate with the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) to ask whether travel diaries or other travel-survey methods are feasible to better approximate the climate plan metric that aims for 55% of trips on sustainable modes. Bizzle also outlined a planned before-and-after data collection tied to the installation of the city’s first bollarded bike lane: volunteers will count cyclists on the street before the bollards are installed and repeat counts afterward, with an initial collection event expected in May and integrated with Bike to Work Week outreach.
Commissioners raised implementation questions, including whether the local survey included trips across multiple transit systems (Iowa City Transit, CAMBUS and Coralville transit) and how university and student travel patterns affect neighborhood-level metrics. Staff said agency ridership data for the local transit systems are publicly available and that the city will follow up with the MPO about travel-diary methods and other longer-term approaches to measure the 55% goal.
The discussion highlighted both the potential and the limits of local survey data: it can reveal patterns and candidates for targeted interventions (for example, turning recreational cyclists into regular commuters), but staff said more methodologically consistent measurements will be needed to report progress toward the climate plan’s target.
