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City staff brief committee on bike‑pedestrian counters; long‑term funding and maintenance gaps highlighted
Summary
Transportation staff described existing trail and in‑street bicycle and pedestrian counters, how they work and the program’s maintenance and recurring costs. Council members asked for cost estimates for permanent counters on protected lanes and who will fund batteries and cell connectivity.
City transportation staff briefed the Urban Experience Committee on the city’s bicycle and pedestrian counting network and flagged recurring maintenance and subscription costs as a constraint to program expansion.
Colin Quinnhurst summarized the network of in‑pavement loops, urban multi‑posts and mobile counters that provide counts for trails and protected bike lanes. He explained technical differences: in‑pavement inductive loops ("Zelt") detect bicycles by metal, urban multi posts use beams to count pedestrians and bikes separately, and mobile counters provide short‑term counts in temporary locations.
Quinnhurst noted anomalies can cause spikes — for example, a waving patch of grass or a bee nest produced outsized counts at one site — but that staff maintain a dashboard enabling ad‑hoc reports. He said the city acquired counters with some capital projects (University District Gateway Bridge and Don Kardong Bridge) and uses mobile boxes to collect week‑long counts for before/after comparisons.
Program funding and maintenance: Quinnhurst said recurring fees include cellular connectivity for live updates, battery replacement every few years and ongoing maintenance after vandalism or damage. "As we continue adding counters, that annual overhead goes up," he said, and council members asked staff to prepare cost estimates and identify funding sources for permanent counters in protected bike lanes. Quinnhurst said streets traffic calming dollars paid for the Illinois permanent installation and that mobile counters were used initially on Illinois and Riverside.
Committee requests: Council members asked for a cost breakdown of who currently pays for counters and what a year‑round permanent counter would cost, especially to document usage in winter months. Staff agreed to return with estimates and a clearer accounting of participating departments’ contributions.
