2019 BOSTON BIKE COUNTS
Measuring how many people are riding bikes in the City. By 2030, our goal is to increase bicycling fourfold.
We count how many people are riding bikes at locations across the City. By 2030, our goal is to increase the number of people biking fourfold. Counting helps us measure our progress.
We collect data at different times during the year. In 2019, we took counts in June and September.
We also review the number of people riding Bluebikes, the Boston Metro's regional bike share system, through daily trip data.
How we count
We use automatic counting devices that collect the number of passing bicyclists throughout the day. The devices also count the number of vehicles, and in a few locations, pedestrians too. We typically collect data over 72 hours during mid-week days (Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday
Bluebikes ridership in 2019
Beginning in Summer 2018, we added 70 new Bluebikes stations in Boston.
As a result, Bluebikes ridership grew system-wide.
Riders with annual membership passes are the most frequent riders of our system. From 2018 to 2019, the number of trips taken by members with annual passes grew from 1.2 million to 1.6 million - a 30% increase!
We also saw a notable growth in trips taken by casual and monthly pass holders from 2018 to 2019. The number of trips taken through casual (single-trip) and monthly (30-day) passes swells in the warmer months. The total number of single-trips grew by 50% from 330,000 to 500,000 trips, and monthly-pass trips nearly doubled from 207,000 to 401,000.
The graph below shows the growth of total trips by month from 2018 to 2019, by the type of pass. In September, the system hit many records - including the 10 millionth ride since 2016 and a record of 14,000 trips on September 20.
Many of the most popular stations were near transit stations.
Here is a list of the top 20 locations in the City of Boston by start and end trip.
EXPLORE THE BIKE COUNT DATABASE
View the database for bike count data from 2016 and download hour by hour summaries.