Los Angeles County's Bicycle and Pedestrian Count Program: Advocating to Support Investments in Walking and Bicycling

According to the National Household Travel Survey, 19% of all trips in Los Angeles County are completed by walking or bicycling; however, 39% of roadway fatalities are people walking and bicycling. In addition, evidence shows that low-income people walk and bicycle for more trips than high-income people. Local jurisdictions often lack granular data to support increased investment in bicycling and walking facilities and many grants require jurisdictions to conduct before and after bicycle and pedestrian counts to garner funding for implementation.

The Department of Public Health (DPH) purchased automated equipment for counting bicyclists and pedestrians and developed a lending program to support low-income jurisdictions in developing active transportation plans and applying for grants to implementation of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. DPH provided training to jurisdictions on how to conduct automated and manual counts. The program encourages monitoring of active transportation and adds to local and national datasets to support increased investment in active transportation.

Since the fall 2013, seven jurisdictions have conducted bicycle and pedestrian counts at 45 locations. The counts demonstrated higher levels of walking and bicycling than expected by local jurisdictions and the data is contributing to a regional data collection effort to inform the regional transportation plan, helping address transportation equity. 

The counts established baseline data for walking and bicycling, better positioning the participating jurisdictions to apply for and receive active transportation grants.  Counts will be conducted after implementation of infrastructure improvements, adding to the literature about the impact of infrastructure on levels of walking and bicycling.