Twenty thousand cycle journeys across the River Cam each week-day

From Newsletter 55 (August/September 2004)

Every year the County Council records the flow of motor vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians on all the bridges over the river Cam in Cambridge. These counts are usually carried out during April in school term but out of University term. We've sometimes reproduced some figures from the County Council's 'Traffic Monitoring' report but, given the changes currently taking place, we thought it would be interesting to produce some more detailed figures from the counts conducted last year before the closure of Pye's bridge (often known as Cutter Ferry bridge).

Data for Cycles Crossing the Cam from April 2003
Hour	Totals	CF	FC	MLW	SS	GHL	BS	JLW	VA	FSG	P	EW	GD
07:00	805	41	60	16	47	34	163	115	82	50	55	142	145
08:00	2352	150	202	65	122	172	516	289	155	241	144	296	339
09:00	1944	65	185	102	161	199	398	210	146	172	96	210	178
10:00	1234	36	114	45	140	131	233	132	90	125	75	113	90
11:00	1073	22	77	45	147	103	206	133	98	86	64	92	90
12:00	1300	30	92	89	227	170	218	141	81	71	65	116	98
13:00	1493	37	123	86	212	211	250	165	104	127	51	127	135
14:00	1372	49	105	83	209	157	242	159	108	102	45	113	138
15:00	1529	46	125	95	183	177	228	198	131	142	77	127	125
16:00	1945	110	163	100	248	221	324	195	161	153	95	175	208
17:00	2385	83	194	125	195	202	510	299	194	230	93	260	310
18:00	1710	27	147	42	157	184	385	201	155	142	87	183	197
Totals	19142	696	1587	893	2048	1961	3673	2237	1505	1641	947	1954	2053

Chart showing cycle flows over the river Cam by hour of day

Chart showing 12-hour cycle flow results of flow counts

Mill Lane weir is one of the screen line counting locations

Thanks are due to the County Council, and to Graham Amis in particular, for supplying the data from which these tables and graphs were produced.

The original data also record whether cycles were being pushed or ridden.

Some 7,000 cyclists were using bridges where 'no cycling' notices were displayed, and some 4,000 cycles were being pushed. With changes now implemented at Fort St George and improvements proposed at other bridges, perhaps we can hope that fewer cyclists will need to have their trips disrupted by the need to dismount and push their bikes.

And yes, I know my headline says 20,000 and the total in the table is only 19,142, but as the counts only covered the hours between 7am and 7pm, I'm sure there would have been at least another 858 in the remaining 12 hours.

Jim Chisholm