Biking Walnut Creek, By the Numbers

The city's new bike plan has a lot of numbers to chew on.

 lays out a vision for improvements to bike lanes and paths on various Walnut Creek thoroughfares.

The plan also delves into the statistics.

According to Table 5.1, Walnut Creek has 14.2 miles of bike path, with new stretches proposed in the bicycle plan adding 4.8 miles to that. The plan is more ambitious in Class II bike improvements (bike lanes), doubling them to 16.9 miles if the proposals are carried out.

Table 4.1 crunches 2000 census data to tell us that Walnut Creek commuters constitute 69.4 percent who drive alone, 13.8 percent who use public transit, 7.7 percent who carpool, 2.0 percent who walk and 0.6 percent who bike to work.

Reported bicycle crashes increased from 15 in 2006 to 33 in 2010. See the chart at upper right.

Table 3.4 details the severity of crashes. There were no fatalities reported from 2006 to 2010. Severe injuries were noted: One in 2008, four in 2009 and one in 2010.