Bay State Bike Week got rained out this year, which may show up as fewer commuter cyclists in statistics. You see, bicycle traffic counts are normally conducted in May and September. Interestingly, this corresponds to Massachusetts Bike Week/ National Bike Month in May, and the return of college students in September. For about a decade, biking promotional activities have taken place in May at the same time as traffic counts, including the Mass Commuter Challenge. If bike ridership, seems smaller to you than statistics indicate, this is why. The numbers are rigged. We also can guess why no Minuteman Bike Trail traffic studies have been released in a decade or more – cyclists are in the minority of users, an undesired finding.
Mother Nature has confronted progressive public policy with reality twice this year, first with more snow since 2005 and simulated road narrowing. Now, with the reality of liquid precipitation during bike counting period. Note many of these traffic studies are intensionally vague on what dates in May counts were taken – all to conceal them being during bicycling promotion week.