Screen Shot 2013-10-03 at 8.29.16 PMPima Association of Governments is looking for volunteers for the 2013 regional bike count late this month.

This year marks the sixth bicycle count conducted in the region to gauge the level of ridership. Counters are currently needed at more than 15 locations throughout the region.

According to PAG, the main reason for the count is:

This regional effort helps transportation planners gauge bicycle and pedestrian activity in many parts of the community and also helps to inform priorities for safety and capacity improvements.

Here are the instructions for signing up (You can also download the PDF here):

Since there is a specific way in which we need the data collected, we ask all new counters to please take part in a brief training session (also mentioned in the flyer, along with training times and locations). For those of you who have conducted counts before and are willing to help this year, please consider signing-up right away. The sooner we fill our priority locations, the sooner we can open up more locations for counting.

Once you’ve read the flyer and have attended a training (this year or in previous years) please sign-up through the web map application, which is hyperlinked below. On the web map application, you’ll see that only some of the count locations will be available for sign-up initially. This is because we want to make sure that our priority locations have volunteers before we open additional locations. So, if there is a location that you would like to count that is not currently open, please check back later.

In addition to the attached flyer, a PDF of the count sheet is attached. More information can also be found through the following hyperlinks.

The count web page is at: http://www.pagnet.org/bikecount

The web map volunteer sign-up application can be found at: http://gismaps.pagnet.org/BikeCountSignup

The 2012 count report can be found at:http://www.pagnet.org/documents/bicycle/2012RegionalBicycleCountReport.pdf

In addition to being attached, the count sheet can be found at:http://www.pagnet.org/documents/transportation/PAGBicylePedCountSheet2013.pdf

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact either of us at via e-mail at gthum@pagnet.org orjbrown@pagnet.org. We can also be reached via phone at 792-1093.

7 thoughts on “Bike count organizers looking for volunteers”
  1. No doubt PAG means well, and yet:

    Why Scientific Studies Are So Often Wrong: The Streetlight Effect

    at:

    http://discovermagazine.com/2010/jul-aug/29-why-scientific-studies-often-wrong-streetlight-effect#.Uk8u-BAsAsx

    NB the classic, many-versioned: “Late at night, a police officer finds a drunk man crawling around on his hands and knees under a streetlight. The drunk man tells the officer he’s looking for his wallet. When the officer asks if he’s sure this is where he dropped the wallet, the man replies that he thinks he more likely dropped it across the street. Then why are you looking over here? the befuddled officer asks. Because the light’s better here, explains the drunk man.

  2. Red Star I’m not understanding what you are implying through this comment.  Are you saying that PAG is doing the count wrong or that it shouldn’t do it all?
    I have had the chance to use this data to assess facilities and have to say that the data collection effort is much more intensive than other jurisdictions.  In fact, I would say it is one of the better collection efforts out there.

  3. Sorry Mike. What Red Star
    meant to say is as follows:
    At the risk of lobbing grenades from afar, without really knowing
    much about the methodology of this data-gathering effort, I wonder if
    PAG is mindful of the need to ensure their count accurately captures the
    data they seek.  I’m reminded of the old joke about the drunk who
    searches for his keys under the streetlamp, not because that is where he
    lost them but because that is where the light is best.  Is PAG placing
    its counters “where the light is best” rather than where an accurate
    count is really necessary?  Will the placement of the counters result in
    money spent on infrastructure in the wrong places — that is to say,
    where the counters were instead of where the bicyclists are?  
    Again, I haven’t spent the time to actually look into how PAG is structuring its bike count, it’s just a concern I have.

    This has been a public
    service announcement from the Red Star Comment Interpreter. 
    Thank you for your understanding.

  4. Red Star InterpreterAside from being childishly clever and crypto-presumptuous (in service of whatever agenda), your interpretation/translation is inaccurate with its “…I haven’t spent the time to actually look into how PAG is structuring its bike count.”

    But how could you know that?

  5. Red Star Red Star Interpreter

    Sorry. What Red Star
    meant to say is as follows:
    Hey Red Star Interpreter–
    Actually, you are incorrect when you say that I have not spent the time to look into how PAG has structured its bike count–I have.  But I can see why you thought I hadn’t done so, as I challenged the methodology of the count without giving any examples of its shortcomings or specifying in what ways I find it wanting.  Admittedly this was probably the source of Mike’s confusion, and yours.  However, I left the details out of my critique not because I don’t know them, but because I don’t wish to elucidate them.

    This has been a public
    service announcement from the Red Star Comment Interpreter. 
    Thank you for your understanding.

  6. Red Star Interpreter why is this (your Red Star-centric missives) so important to you? What’s really upsetting you?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.