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Premier bike study starts in San Antonio
An out-of-state research firm launched a study of the riding habits of bicyclists in San Antonio by inviting them to one of the most dangerous places in the city to ride: Loop 410 near U.S. 281.
On Tuesday, ETC Institute started to hand out GPS units to more than 100 local cyclists from a ballroom at the Holiday Inn near the San Antonio International Airport. The GPS devices will track the bicyclists' movements for a week.
But getting to the hotel parking lot was a risky venture for even the most experienced cyclist.
When this was pointed out to the firm's staff, they responded: drive.
The hotel lot is off the north access road of Loop 410. So cyclists had to choose between competing for space with highway-speed traffic on the one-way road or jumping over a three-foot-high security gate and landscaped median dividing the back of the hotel's parking lot from an adjacent alley.
According to Chris Tatham, vice president of ETC, based in Olathe, Kansas, the hotel was selected precisely because it is an awful place to ride a bike.
“If we were to meet at a park or something, people might say, ‘Hey, this is pretty good place,' and then when we look at our data we would say, ‘Wow, this is the bicycling hot spot of the city,'” he said.
An attractive place would have changed bicyclists' riding patterns because they would be tempted to return there and skew the results, he said.
The firm has conducted dozens of vehicle studies for the Texas Department of Transportation, Tatham said, but a bicycle use study “is kind of new.”
Several people who volunteered for the study rode their bikes to the GPS pick-up point regardless of the danger because they do not have cars or simply choose to travel by bike.
Tatham said those riders would not affect the results because the data collection will officially start the day after they picked up the device, housed inside an empty water bottle that can be attached to a bike.
“I just don't like driving,” said Suzanne Daube, who ended up driving to the hotel because she and her boyfriend couldn't figure out a safe way to ride there on their bikes.
Jari O'Connor, a recreational bicyclist who also came by car, said she's nervous even driving to the location, let alone riding there.
The point of the study, which also involves phone and online surveys, is to make a statistically valid estimate of how many people ride in San Antonio and what obstacles prevent them from riding more or riding at all.
“This will provide us a benchmark from which to plan future bike projects and a baseline to measure future successes,” said Scott Ericksen, spokesman for the Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is sponsoring the $80,000 study, due in October. When told about the GPS distribution point, Ericksen laughed.
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