Valencia Street cyclist-counting machine, counting cyclists on Valencia Street:https://t.co/G0XTgJeofX pic.twitter.com/gPmoNs670O
— Mission Mission (@missionmission) May 3, 2016
With the 22nd annual Bike to Work Day coming up on May 12th, how many of us will zip by Market Street's "bicycle barometer," pedaling forward to be counted?
Last year, despite some rain, the turnout was 60,000 according to the San Francisco Bike Coalition. And this year, Mission Mission writes, you'll be counted as you cycle down Valencia — that street has installed a "bike barometer," just like the one on Market Street, between 16th and 17th Streets.
For some environmental heroes, every day is bike to work day. As per the US Census Bureau, that number nationally was tiny, at 0.6 percent back in 2014. The good news: San Francisco easily topped the list that year.
2015 was even bigger for cycling in Frisco according to 15 automated SFMTA bike counters. Those concluded that weekday bike trips went up by 8.5 percent, or 200,000 rides, since 2014.
There are, however, some question about the accuracy of the "barometer," with its visible count on Market Street. According to a 2013 Examiner article, it may have been missing as many as 1,000 riders a day.
Nonetheless, Streetsblog wrote last year that the city had bought two more barometers, though at the time it wasn't clear where they would be installed, and we still seemingly don't know where the third one will go. Each barometer costs about $62,000, covered by SFMTA operating funds and Prop K sales tax funds. The first barometer was partially funded by a one-time, $20,000 grant.
