A person on an e-bike rolls on SE 148th on February 6th, 2024. (Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Biking was up in Portland in 2023 about 17% of riders were on e-bikes. Those are two findings of the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s latest bicycle counts.
PBOT has conducted manual counts of bicycle riders since at least 2000. The annual exercise has become an important and reliable bellwether of cycling’s overall health in the city. The 2022 counts, released last March, revealed a precipitous drop that led to countless headlines and soul-searching among many local policymakers and bike advocates. Last year’s numbers were expected but were nevertheless a difficult pill to swallow.
The 2023 counts were tallied during peak commute times for two-hour intervals at 272 locations citywide. 114 volunteers took part in the process between June and the end of September.
Slides from a presentation at the PBOT Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting.According to a preview of the report that will be made public for the first time at the PBOT Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting tonight, the number of people bicycling in Portland in 2023 was up 5% over last year. That’s still down 32% relative to 2019, but it’s still a notch in the right direction. The Northwest district saw an increase of 15% over 2022 and East Portland was up 12%.
“Biking probably bottomed-out about 2021,” said PBOT Planner Sean Doyle at the BAC meeting tonight. “And then increases to 2022. And now our counts are showing us that it continued to increase into 2023. And I’d expect that the Census data that comes out later this year will will reinforce that.”
The report also tallied electric bike and other micromobility vehicle riders for the first time ever. Counters tallied an average of nearly 17% of all riders on e-bikes last year. Skateboard and electric scooters made up significant portions of the traffic in the East, Northwest, and Central City districts.
PBOT says a full report should be completed by early March. Check out the preview report for yourself here, and refresh this page for updates from the BAC meeting that I’ll make between now and 7:30 pm Tuesday (2/13).
