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Bike riding by the graph

Bike trip count by hour of the day and day of the week (screenshot)

Bike trip count by hour of the day and day of the week (screenshot)

We received requests to show hourly data from the Fremont Bridge Bike Counter correlated with dates and weather conditions.  Sometimes a graph can tell the story much better than a column of figures, and now, courtesy of Tableau Software, we’ve got color charts with this information on our website.

The first Tableau charts on the web page (see the screenshot, above) correlate the bike counts by dates. On the website the charts are interactive—you can choose the month and week (date range), or select one or more days of the week, and the graph will change to show your selection. You can see at a glance how sharply ridership increases during the peak commute periods, and how different the curve is for weekends—fewer bike trips and a single, midday peak.

At the top of the Tableau charts you will see a tab for the weather graphs. Click on the tab to see the charts that show how bike counts correlate with sun, rain, air temperature and several other variables.  (See the screenshot below.) The weather data comes from the University of Washington. In addition to the weather conditions, you can also select the day of the week, the week, and the month. There is a line graph and a scatter diagram, which includes a trend line.

rain_graph

Effect of rain on bicycle counts (screenshot)

Whether you want to know more about ridership or you just enjoy playing with graphs and numbers, jump in and explore the website. The charts will continue to capture data from the Fremont counter that was installed in October, so it will be interesting to see the curves once we have a full 12 months of data.