Survey on the Bike Commute Environment among Seattle Area Bike Planners and Advocates

Bike facilities like bike lanes, bike trails, and neighborhood greenways have been the backbone of Seattle’s bike planning policy with the goal of promoting active transportation, reducing car dependence, improving social equity, and eliminating bike accidents. While the equitable implementation of all of these facilities are still a priority for the Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development to increase viable commute mobility options, bike planning investments may not reflect the priorities shared by those in the bike community. Other factors in the bike commute environment were not present in Seattle’s Bike Master Plan, such as bike storage and shower facilities. There is also a lack of knowledge on whether there were priorities that people of color might have that are different. To better understand those priorities, this study sent out an online survey to 14 bike facility planning groups and bike community organizations around Seattle on the importance of nineteen different factors in the bike commute environment. For each factor, there were a range of values gauging the degree of importance of a bike commute factor to the bike commute environment, as well as a free response to allow respondents to elaborate on their answers. In total, 71 survey responses were received. The factor that placed the highest importance on the bike commute environment was bike racks and storage, higher than even bike facilities such as bike lanes. There were also not many differences in the priorities expressed by people of color, with the only significant difference being the weighting of sharrows, which had received significantly more support from people of color. Using the results of the survey, we recommend that the City of Seattle develop a bike commute environment index with a weighting scheme that is reflective of the priorities expressed in the survey, in addition to informing the City what are the community priorities in the bike commute environment.