I BikePHL 2023

47% bicycle users on the Market St bridge were riding on the sidewalk. This represents a rate that is about 10 times more frequent than on the Chestnut St Bridge. Demonstrating the need to extend the Market St Protected Bike Lane over the bridge.

Since our first comprehensive count in 2007 we have compared the US Census American Community Survey data, which is a supplement to the Decennial Census with our Bridge Counts. Rush hour bike traffic over the Schuylkill River bridges reflects the transportation trends during the height of the Pandemic. 2022 has seen a partial recovery in bike traffic with the return of University Students and office workers.

Teal Bars: BCGP Bridge Counts Orange Line: US Census Table S0801 Percentage of bike commuters

Click on the icons to see bike count trends from 2019-2022. We measure bicycle traffic in bikes per hour. The larger markers represent the higher counts.

Click on the points for historic bike count data.

 DVRPC's cyclical pedestrian and bicycle programs  conduct automated bike counts at the same location at regular 3-year intervals. DVRPC's cyclical bicycle count program has about 90 locations in PA and about 60 in New Jersey

In 2023 Indego stations are being to the northwest into Manayunk and closing gaps in North, West and South Philadelphia.

In 2022, Philadelphians and visitors took nearly 906,000 bike share trips an increase of 6% from 2021. If Indego was classified as a public transportation system it would be the  9th largest in Pennsylvania . This strengthens the argument that public bike share programs should be eligible for federal transit dollars.

In 2022 41% of all Indego trips were on e-bikes. This is up from 34% in 2021. In the first quarter of 2023 the percentage of e-bike trips reached 51%. This growth is expected to continue as more e-bikes are deployed and stations expand farther out into the neighborhoods.

If there is a growth ceiling for e-bikes it would be the relatively steep 20¢ per minute price, which reduces affordability for riders. Indego offers a special rate plan for PA ACCESS cardholders of $5 a month and just 7¢ per minute.

According to its  5 year Equity Plan , Indego will always include a core fleet of classic bikes which do not incur any additional fees for the first 60 minutes.

Since 2019 we have been adding supplemental counts for e-scooters.

Pennsylvania and Delaware are the only two states that do not recognize e-scooters as street-legal vehicles. A  bill being considered by the PA Senate  will allow e-scooter share programs to operate in some municipalities, but not in Philadelphia.





Each year e-scooter use has grown substantially. Our bike counts indicate that e-scooters are taking a larger share of micro-mobility traffic. Our 2022 bridge counts Scooters are 9.7 of bike plus scooter.

Drilling down to the Census Tract level you can see that some neighborhoods within a couple of miles of Central Philadelphia have a very high bicycle commute mode share.

The two dark purple tracts in South Philadelphia each reported a 21% bike commute mode share.

Among the ten largest cities in the United States, Philadelphia has the highest bicycle mode share.

1. Philadelphia - 2.0
2. Chicago - 1.5%
3. New York – 1.4%
4. San Diego - 0.7
5. Los Angeles - 0.7%
6. San Jose - 0.6
7. Houston - 0.4%
8. Phoenix - 0.5%
9. San Antonio - 0.2%
10. Dallas - 0.2%

 _{* 2017 to 2021 ACS Table S0801}   

We know that bike commuting varies by neighborhood. For cities with more than 300,000 residents,  Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs)  can give us a neighborhood level of bicycle commuter data.

There are more than 2300 PUMAs in the US. Locally Central and South Philadelphia are among bike commute mode share leaders in the country with South Philadelphia in the top 10. 6.2% of all commuters in the Southeast Philadelphia PUMA travel to work by bike.