Linking Cycling and Public Transit – 2014 Survey Results

In the summer of 2014, over 100 cycle-transit users in select Greater Toronto Area (GTA) communities were invited to complete an online survey.

The Bike to Transit 2014 Program, aimed at reducing local gridlock in the GTA by promoting a different way to commute to work, encouraged residents living within a three-kilometre radius of Pickering, Burlington and Toronto, to cycle to local light rail and subway stations across the GTA.

Key findings revealed:

• The number of people cycling to GTA transit stations has almost doubled each year, over the past three years. With 46% reporting 2014 as their 1st year, 77% starting biking to transit in their 1st to 5th year.
• 70% of cyclists surveyed bike 1 to 3 kilometres to get to and from transit. 91% bike 5 kilometres or less.
• 62% listed saving money as the reason they bike to transit.  59% also said it’s very convenient. 56% answered one reason they do it is to save time.
• 23% want safer, sheltered bike parking to thwart bike thefts. 7% think security cameras are needed.
• 15% of respondents believe incentives, like transit fare or pass discounts, would encourage new cycle-transit users.
• 57% surveyed listed improved driving by motorists around cyclists on their way to the station would help grow the number of local Cycle-Transit Users.
• 49% of respondents want more bike lanes to train and subway stations.
• 42% of cycle-transit users walk to transit when they’re not riding their bike. 42% go by transit. 37% use their car/truck, and only 11% carpool.

Bicycles accommodated on rush-hour trains is the ultimate ‘want’ of survey respondents, with 11% listing bike train cars (designated bike spaces on trains and subways, or one bikes-only train car) as a viable answer to helping stem the GTA’s growing gridlock problems.

Background

In 2008, Metrolinx launched a $5 million initiative under The Big Move project, a regional transportation plan aimed at enhancing prosperity, sustainability and quality of life. Metrolinx, an agency of the Government of Ontario, was created to improve the coordination and integration of all modes of transportation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).

From 2008-2012, the BikeLinx Program helped residents in the GTHA and surrounding communities to combine cycling with transit. Through this program, Metrolinx provided funding to GTHA municipalities to equip every bus in their transit fleets with an external bicycle rack and to install permanent, secure and sheltered bicycle parking facilities at major transit stops.

In the GTHA, it is estimated that 17 per cent of all trips are walkable (less than two kilometres in length) and 40 per cent are bikeable (less than five kilometres in length); however, walking and cycling currently account for just five per cent of all work trips and 32 per cent of all school trips in the region.