People want to be close to stuff, and they want to be able to get to that stuff easily. More often, in the City of Charlottesville and more urban parts of Albemarle, “getting to that stuff” includes bicycles. Now the Charlottesville MPO is seeking to capture data that will show how many are biking to places.
Walkability matters ; so does bikeability.
For the next month or so I’m going to be using the Cville Bike mApp to track my bicycle rides around Charlottesville and Crozet instead of MapmyRide.
On April 14th the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) will release the Cville Bike mApp, a free, bike route mapping application for iPhone and Android phones. The App allows cyclists to record their trips and send the trip information to the MPO for transportation planning purposes. With an expected decrease in federal transportation funding, this data will help elected officials better determine where to target limited available funds for future cycling enhancements and improvements. This data input effort will also position the region to be more competitive for transportation grant funding. More specifically, the App will allow transportation planners to map cycling patterns, determine cycling corridors, identify cycling barriers and find appropriate locations for cycling facilities.
The MPO will be collecting cycling data over an approximately one month period – from April 14th to May 18th. Help local planners and elected officials improve cycling in Charlottesville and Albemarle by recording your bike trips using the Cville Bike mApp. Remember, mApp it for Better Biking!
I have no doubt that I could find significant and substantial data to support the opposite perspective, but in my practice, I have found that my clients value bicycle and walking paths and accessibility. Can I place a quantitative value on that? No; sometimes it’s a matter of “will they buy it?” Yes or No.
The League of American Bicyclists noted in 2010:
As we pointed out in our report, The Economic Benefits of Bicycle Infrastructure Investments, studies have shown that real estate property values increase with proximity to bicycle paths. People enjoy living close to bike paths and are willing to pay more for an otherwise comparable house to be closer to one.
