FABB Blog

Fairfax County Bicycle Program staff are looking for volunteers to help count bicyclists in locations around the county on Sept. 15 & 17. Please consider helping out on one or both of those days for 2 hours.

The county plans to install a number of automated bike counters similar to counters installed in Arlington County. Thanks to Reston Bicycle Club and FABB the county now has a moveable bicycle and pedestrian counter. But until there is a network of counters in place the county wants to collect some baseline manual counts. FABB has done volunteer counts in the past and the county will use that data to supplement their counts. 

As the saying goes, "If you don't count bikes, bikes don't count." VDOT conducts regular motor vehicle counts, and they have estimates for the average daily traffic on most Fairfax Roads but they have almost no bicycle or pedestrian counts. It's very encouraging that the county is undertaking this project.

From Fairfax County:

Fairfax County is participating in the annual National Bicycling and Pedestrian Documentation Project and is looking for volunteers to help out with counting bicycles and pedestrians on Thursday, September 15 from 5-7pm and on Saturday, September 17 from 12-2pm.

The intent of the count is to gather information about bicycle and pedestrian traffic in Fairfax County to better measure the positive benefits of investments in sidewalks, trails, on-street bicycle facilities and Capital Bikeshare.

Volunteers that have not previously participated in bicycle and pedestrian counts are strongly encouraged to attend a training session on September 8 at 6.30pm. Counting and training locations will be announced shortly. Training materials are also available online.

To volunteer, please sign up here.