City of San José needs commuter data

A request from San José's Department of Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services:

With completion of the Lower Guadalupe River Trail paving project, City staff seeks to document travel time improvements for regular or new commuters along the 6.7-mile paved trail extension to the Guadalupe River Park. The data collected will be kept confidential. We seek to represent the overall travel benefits to support future grant applications, lobbying and community education about the value and multiple purposes of trails.

Please contact Sarah Fleming (sarah.fleming@sanjoseca.gov) with the Trail Team if you have data from commutes on the gravel trail and recent commutes on the newly paved trail. Smart Phone data or highly accurate time data is preferred as we are trying to carefully document the time savings and other benefits. We are interested in both your overall and segment-based commute times (from home to trail, travel along the trail, and from trail to your work site).

Please send Sarah an email with the following information:

1) How many days per week do you commute on the Guadalupe River Trail?
2) How many miles do you travel along the trail?
3) For your regular commute route:

• How long did it take to ride from home to work on the gravel trail? Over what distance?
• How long does it take from home to work on the newly paved trail?

4) Did you previously bike on the on-street bike routes of the gravel surface?

• If so, how much time are you saving on your overall commute?

5) Do you feel that your bike commute reduces stress, reduces time spent at gym, speeds your commute, and/or offer any other benefits? How do you document those benefits?
6) Does your employer support and encourage your bike commute? How?
7) What else would you like for us to know about your commute on the newly paved trail?

Please expect a follow up email as we pull together available data and determine how to best represent it in the most accurate and consolidated manner.

Once you provided data to Sarah, please expect a follow up email from her within the next 30 days for further questions or clarifications.

Thank you very much – this data helps us develop more trails!