Using a bicycle-pedestrian count to assess active living in downtown Wilkes-Barre

Background: Downtown Wilkes-Barre, a town of 40,000 residents in Northeast Pennsylvania, and the hub of a planned urban, suburban, and rural trail network, was the site of a number of changes to improve walkability during the Active Living by Design (ALbD) grant period. Purpose: The Wyoming Valley Wellness Trails Partnership and Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry initiated the Wilkes-Barre Downtown Bicycle and Pedestrian Count (Bike-Ped Count) in order to pilot bicycle and pedestrian counting methods and to evaluate downtown built environment and policy changes. Methods: The Bike-Ped Count was conducted during nine 2-hour counting periods over 4 days in September using screen-line count methods at seven locations downtown and at River Common Park. Results: During 18 hours of counting, staff noted 15,347 pedestrians and 773 bicyclists. The largest average number of pedestrians (512) was observed during lunch hours, whereas the largest numbers of bicyclists were observed during evening and weekend hours. Conclusions: The Bike-Ped Count illustrates patterns of bicycling and walking downtown and allows comparisons of bicycling and walking among locations, including different cities. In the future, counts will help show how ongoing changes to the downtown environment affect walking and bicycling.