MPR News reporter Jon Collins covers our recent bike study: New analysis shows far more Twin Cities residents walking, biking to work. My quotes below, though most of  the work is due to PhD Candidate Jessica Schoner and Prof. Greg Lindsey. The full report will be published within a week.

Minneapolis’ recent investments in bicycling and walking infrastructure, such as trails and bike boulevards, may be one reason that rates in the city appear to have been increasing at such a rate, said David Levinson, a University of Minnesota professor of transportation and principal investigator of the study.

“If you want to attract people who want to bicycle, putting the facilities in will attract them,” Levinson said. “People who know they want to bicycle are more likely to live in Minneapolis than to move to the suburbs.”

Although women who bicycle took as many trips as men who bicycle, the proportion of women who bicycle even in Minneapolis is about one-and-a-half times smaller than men. Even though Minneapolis leads the region in bicycle-friendly development, Levinson said the gender gap may be due to the fact that the infrastructure still isn’t developed to the point where many people feel safe bicycling.

“Right now we allocate road space for moving cars, we allocate road space for storing cars, but very few places are reallocating road space for moving bicycles,” Levinson said. “Is moving bicycles more important than storing cars?