Two bike counters installed, one promptly vandalized

July 23, 2012 • Posted by: Michael McKisson

Pima Association of Governments installed portable bicycle counters in two locations last week. Unfortunately one was vandalized just days after being installed.

One counter was installed near Mountain Avenue and Helen Street, while the other was installed on the north end of the Mountain Avenue bridge crossing the Rillito River.

The counter near Helen was sliced just a few days after PAG crews installed it.

PAG’s bicycle planner Ann Chanecka said she rode by the counter — which is made up of two tubes that send a message to an attached box when a cyclist rides over them — and noticed the damage.

She took the important pieces that weren’t locked down and is working to get it set back up before the school year starts.

The two counters were purchased in conjunction with the permanent counter located at Third Street and Country Club Road.

The price of the entire counting setup was about $2,000, although fixing the unit will not cost that much.

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6 comments

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franktellez

Oops, sorry for calling someone a moron then. lol.

Red Star

Perhaps someday thermal imaging cameras can be applied that will discern the difference between a bike and its rider on the one hand, and a car by heat emission. The cameras could be mounted way up on existing signal poles and wirelessly transmit observations to a pc where they can be viewed in real time and/or stored, and sorted and counted using software.

Martha Retallick

That would be a good way to show the amount of heat that motor vehicles put out vs. humans on bikes. And tell me that all the vehicular mileage doesn't add to our urban heat island effect.

Red Star

Red Star merely wanted to present an alternative way to sort cars from cyclists for the purpose of urban transpo planning...

Ann C.

Hey there, the damage may very well not have been done on purpose. It might have been a vehicle unknowingly hitting the clamps in such a way that sliced the tubes. I'm not sure either way but prefer to believe in the good of mankind! It probably won't cost us a thing to re-install them.