Straight from the fingers of the KC Media [Picture a smoke enveloped room, filled with the sounds of typewriters and lots of horn-rimmed glasses, but with none of that].
Electronic trip counter coming to Sammamish River Trail part of statewide mobility study
Transportation planners will soon have new data available to them with the installation of a new automated trip counter that is being installed this week along a stretch of King County Parks’ popular Sammamish River Trail.
The Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is installing an automated trip counter on the trail, just north of Northeast 85th Street in Redmond.
Workers are scheduled to install the counter during the morning of Tuesday, June 23. From approximately 9 a.m. to noon, trail width will be restricted during while workers put the counter equipment in place.
Trail users are asked to use caution while going through the short work zone while crews set up the counter. Trail use should not be impacted by the electronic counter once it is installed.
The counters are able to track hour-by-hour usage, and they can differentiate between bicyclists and pedestrians on the trail. This represents a vast improvement to the current method of estimating trail usage on King County trails, which is based on two-hour manual counts taken yearly.
WSDOT has coordinated with other jurisdictions to install several of these counters in strategic locations across Washington state, including two in Bellevue, to gain a better understanding of non-motorized activity. King County trail planners will have access to the data collected by the Sammamish River Trail counter.
King County Parks’ Regional Trail System extends for 175 miles throughout the county and is used by thousands of people daily for commuting, recreation and other uses.