Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments (PPACG) is putting on a Regional Bicycle/Pedestrian Traffic Counting Program and needs your help!

See below this message for the full press release and note from Brian Vitulli, Senior Transportation Planner for PPACG.

http://ppacg.org/component/content/article/763-ppacg-seeks-voluntee...

PPACG will use this information moving forward to help plan, improve and better meet the needs of our local trail-loving public.

I volunteered for a day last year and it was a lot of fun being a part of the solution and it gave me a much better insight into how many people use our trails and the various patterns throughout the day.

I know that many of the wonderful outdoor loving running/hiking/cycling folks that use Pikes Peak Sports would love to help out and make our community even better in the ways that matter to us and an increased quality of life is always a good thing.

If you can help out PPACG during this period, it would benefit the community and I personally say Thank You ahead of time!

Regards,

Allen Beauchamp

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Good morning:

The Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments (PPACG) is again seeking volunteers to collect bicycle and pedestrian usage data on area trails and bicycle lanes in mid-May.  This is a follow-up effort to the count we performed last September.  Below is a press release we just issued regarding this volunteer-based bike / pedestrian traffic counting program that PPACG, in cooperation with the City of Colorado Springs, has recently developed.

Volunteers are needed for two-hour data collection shifts at 14 locations around the region on:

• ·         Wednesday, May 11^th from 7–9 a.m.; 11 a.m. –1 p.m.; and 5–7 p.m.
• ·         Saturday, May 14^th from 9 –11 a.m.

Please visit PPACG’s Regional Bicycle / Pedestrian Traffic Count Program web page at http://www.ppacg.org/component/content/article/756-bicyclepedestria... to sign up online for a volunteer shift or for more information on the project.

This will be sent to various organizations and stakeholder groups to solicit as many volunteers as possible to help with this program.  Since some of you may be on multiple distribution lists, I apologize if you receive it numerous times.  Please share this volunteer opportunity with family, friends, colleagues, other groups, clubs, and organizations.

Thank you for your help!

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release                                                                              Contact:
April 26, 2011                                                                                               Jason Wilkinson

                                                                                                                        (719) 471-7080 x139

                                                                                                                        jwilkinson@ppacg.org

PPACG Seeks Volunteers for Regional Bicycle / Pedestrian Traffic Counting Program

Colorado Springs, CO– The Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments (PPACG) is seeking volunteers to collect bicycle and pedestrian traffic data on area trails and bicycle lanes in mid-May. This effort will add to the information that was collected during last September’s count.

PPACG, in cooperation with the City of Colorado Springs, has developed a volunteer-based data collection program to record bicycle and pedestrian traffic on trails and bicycle lanes around the region. This count program collects valuable data to help quantify the usage level of the region’s bicycle and pedestrian transportation networks. These data can be used to determine existing use and estimate future demand as well as help identify and prioritize project needs and limited resources to fund bicycle and pedestrian projects. 

Volunteers are needed for two-hour data collection shifts at 14 locations around the region on:

• Wednesday, May 11^th from 7–9 a.m.; 11 a.m. –1 p.m.; and 5–7 p.m.
• Saturday, May 14^th from 9 –11 a.m.

Please visit PPACG’s Regional Bicycle/Pedestrian Traffic Count Program web page at http://www.ppacg.org/component/content/article/756-bicyclepedestria... to sign up online for a volunteer shift, view maps of count locations, and obtain more information about the project.

PPACG is a voluntary association of 16 municipal and county governments serving a regional community. Since 1967, PPACG has worked to ensure that local governments have a forum to discuss issues that cross their political boundaries, identify shared opportunities and challenges, and develop collaborative strategies for action. For more information, visit www.ppacg.org

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Additional Project Information:

During the development of the Pikes Peak Area Council of Government’s 2035 Regional Long Range Transportation Plan in 2007, an extensive public involvement process was conducted. The feedback received during that process clearly showed that residents throughout the Pikes Peak region are looking for alternatives to driving, especially bicycling and walking options. The current lack of choices to driving was identified as one of the top three transportation issues in the region. 

High-quality bicycling and walking transportation networks have the potential to provide more options for those who choose to leave their car at home or cannot operate a motorized vehicle. Additional trails, bicycle lanes and sidewalks; improved facility connectivity; and end-of-trip facilities could make it more realistic for people to bicycle and walk, which can lead to other benefits like improved environmental quality, public health, and reduced congestion.

As more of bicycle and pedestrian transportation improvement projects compete for limited funding resources, documentation of the usage of the region’s bicycling and walking networks is more and more important. Communities need to be able to identify the tangible benefits of proposed improvements (for example, what daily pollution emissions can be expected) when applying for project funding. Yet it is hard to quantify the benefits of a new trails, bicycle lanes or sidewalks without knowing the current traffic on the facilities we already have. This volunteer-driven project will help provide needed travel data to answer some of those questions.

These data will also be shared with the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project, which is sponsored by Alta Planning + Design and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Pedestrian and Bicycle Council. This nationwide effort provides a consistent model of data collection and ongoing data for use by planners, governments, and bicycle and pedestrian professionals. For information on the National Documentation Project, please visit their web site at http://bikepeddocumentation.org.