Counting Bikes at the Manhattan Bridge With DOT’s New Totem (and Streetfilms)

Earlier this month, NYC DOT installed the city’s first bike counter at Forsyth Plaza by the foot of the Manhattan Bridge bike path. Ride by this totem at the end of the day, and you’ll see the tally of thousands of other people who also passed through on a bicycle since midnight.

New Yorkers make an estimated 460,000 bike trips on a typical day, but bikes are small enough that you can blink and miss a pulse of bike traffic. The bike counter makes the volume of cycling tangible to people in a new way.

Clarence Eckerson went out to celebrate the totem with Bahij Chancey, who demonstrated the potential for a bike counter with a bravura volunteer effort two years ago, and other bike tabulating enthusiasts. Where would you like to see a bike counter along your route?