LexRides

[jkizzle]

i think i rode by the checkpoint on rose about 8 times

[jkizzle]

so was this just a study done by a student, or was this set up by the university to analyze needs?

the bike racks are definitely full this year... sometimes its hard to find an open or accessible spot to lock up.

[roller]

[taylor]

we're not actually controlling for volunteers - like you said it would be nearly impossible for counters to know who volunteers were - I'd say I've still never seen or met about half of the people who helped us yesterday, so even fewer of the actually volunteers would have known each other. potential reasons why controlling for volunteers doesn't matter:

-at least for Tedder and I, who made all of our supervising trips by bike, I'm fairly certain that most counters didn't count us each time we passed because they knew us. even if they did, the number of trips counted from the two of us probably wouldn't have been that far off - most volunteers would have been in a similar situation.
-some volunteers didn't even ride their bikes to the count, even if they usually do ride to campus. so assuming that all volunteers triggered counts would potentially be fallacious to the point it could hurt the data from our perspective.

essentially, I just don't see the data as being corrupted. there are enough possible scenarios that would mean that any potential skewing of numbers would have happened anyways - on a given Tuesday I would probably have registered about 10 counts at various checkpoints because I make so many trips to and from campus. that's all anecdotal and far from scientific - it's just my impression that correcting for counting volunteers would probably end up being a whole lot less scientific than just saying everyone who rode by was counted.

[roller]

[taylor]

no offense taken, Boyd. I was just trying to justify the reality of our current situation, which is that we have no controls for volunteers. I understand your point that not controlling does get a bit unscientific from a methodology standpoint, but I also think that controlling for the decisions of counters as to whether or not they counted other volunteers or supervisors, as well as for the potential decrease in bike trips made (although this may be negligible) due to the large number of avid cyclists who decided to sit still for a significant portion of the day by volunteering, may be equally unscientific. my point was simply that as much scientific validity that could be gained by controlling for our own presence would probably be just as quickly lost because we a) didn't have consistency with volunteers on the matter and b) would just as quickly have to control for our own absences from the count numbers.

regardless, I appreciate everyone's help with the count - a sizable bunch of you helped out with the study, even in multiple shifts and backups (which became increasingly important by the end of the day) for unconfirmed shifts, which wasn't a convenient undertaking. I'm not sure if our raw data will be public - we actually just got our hands on the raw data from 1998 today. I'm sure that anyone who wants to see it can probably get their hands on it when the time comes, although that may not be for awhile.

[roller]

Hey Taylor,

Kudos on the "Easy Being Green" article in the fall 08 UK arts & sciences magazine, ampersand&.

You're doing some impressive work on campus environmental issues. Green it up!

[mattypichu]

If a trip was made by a volunteer by bike shouldn't it have been counted? It was, after all, a bike trip on campus that could have been walked or driven...

ps I know I'm late on this but...