Winter Cycling in North American Cities: Climate and Roadway Surface Conditions

Winter and adverse weather are mentioned as part of the main deterrence of cycling. However, very little is known about winter cycling practice and its link to both weather and road surface conditions. Despite that cycling research has attracted a lot of attention in the last year, very little empirical evidences have been documented on winter cycling in North American cities. This paper investigates the cycling winter ridership patterns in a set of cycling facilities in three North American cities – Montreal, Vancouver and Portland. For this purpose, a winter cycling retention index is developed and compared across bike facilities in the three different cities, over various winter seasons. Moreover, a winter modeling approach is implemented to empirically quantify the effect of adverse weather conditions on cyclist activity during the winter months in these three cities. Finally, this paper explores the potential effect of winter surface conditions on bicycle ridership in Montreal, Canada. A simple cross sectional analysis in a set of facilities is carried on for this purpose. Among other things, it is found that winter cycling in North American cities like Montreal, Vancouver and Portland is an alternative mode of transportation for an important segment of the population. Among the important weather factors negatively affecting cycling are: high relative humidity with low temperatures, wind speed and precipitation (rain or snow) intensity. The lagged effect of precipitation is also observed in some cases. Sensitivity to weather conditions also varies across cities. Surface conditions also seem to be correlated to cycling retention – higher percentages of cyclists are retained when surface conditions are either “clean and dry” or “bare and wet” compared to snow covered, slushy or icy surface conditions.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Miranda-Moreno, Luis
  • Kho, Christopher
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
• Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 25p
• Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bicycling; Climate; Cross sectional studies; Cyclists; Surface course (Pavements); Winter
• Geographic Terms: Montreal (Canada); Portland (Oregon); Vancouver (Canada)
• Subject Areas: Environment; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Safety and Human Factors; I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01365402
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 12-4110
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 20 2012 12:16PM