Historic levels of bicycle use in Dublin ?

monument

Beyond old photographs showing a high level of bicycle use in the city centre, does anybody have any firm idea of the historic levels of bicycle use in Dublin? Or any pointers of where to start looking?

Any time in the last 100 years or more.

Beasty

Have you tried the CSO/Census data? Not sure how much would have been recorded going back so far though.

Jawgap

monument wrote: »

Beyond old photographs showing a high level of bicycle use in the city centre, does anybody have any firm idea of the historic levels of bicycle use in Dublin? Or any pointers of where to start looking?

Any time in the last 100 years or more.

Raleigh had a factory in Dublin - maybe their company archives could provide a good proxy for bike usage.

Of course back then you didn't just use a bike for cycling - you could run a war, finance a country and organise a government on one........



.....just remember to stay out of Cork:D

monument

Forget Raleigh! The Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company was set up on Westland Row in Dublin. Sure Dunlop moved to the then mainland after a while, but it was a Dublin company that gave the world the modern tire. Designed for racing bicycles, it was a hugely important element in giving bicycles mass appeal as a mode of transport. I don't think the the 'safety bicycle' would have been the same without them.

Re the Census - I'll be contacting the CSO to see what they have readably accessible / willing to give me access to if needed.

Jawgap

monument wrote: »

Forget Raleigh! The Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company was set up on Westland Row in Dublin. Sure Dunlop moved to the then mainland after a while, but it was a Dublin company that gave the world the modern tire. Designed for racing bicycles, it was a hugely important element in giving bicycles mass appeal as a mode of transport. I don't think the the 'safety bicycle' would have been the same without them.

Re the Census - I'll be contacting the CSO to see what they have readably accessible / willing to give me access to if needed.

You might not get later than 1911 if you want access to the returns themselves - later than that you'll be relying on whatever work the CSO has done. Are you working through a third level institution?

What about crime data? More bikes = more stolen

galwaycyclist

I just had a quick scan through a 1975 Foras Forbartha report on cycling. I didn't see any reference to census data and the author was using prosecutions for not having bicycle lights as an indicator of trends in cycle use.

Looking at another 1979 report that makes reference to means of travel data being collected in the 1971 census. That may have been the first year they gathered that info. I think I only have numbers back to 1986.

Beasty

It may well be that the best way to work out cycling trends is to look at how many cars were around over the years as well as public transport usage. Of course people didn't travel so far before cars became widely available, and I'm sure there was a heavy reliance on bikes I would guess up to the 1960s.

Looking at old photos will also help (I appreciate you indicated you were looking beyond these monument) - I am sure you will be able to establish trends within cities based on street photos (assuming not specifically cycling related photos)

monument

galwaycyclist wrote: »

I just had a quick scan through a 1975 Foras Forbartha report on cycling. I didn't see any reference to census data and the author was using prosecutions for not having bicycle lights as an indicator of trends in cycle use.

Looking at another 1979 report that makes reference to means of travel data being collected in the 1971 census. That may have been the first year they gathered that info. I think I only have numbers back to 1986.

Prosecutions for lack of lights seems like a rather flawed way of figuring out usage given the many factors involved in it.

Do you have the Census numbers back to 1986?

Jawgap wrote: »

You might not get later than 1911 if you want access to the returns themselves - later than that you'll be relying on whatever work the CSO has done. Are you working through a third level institution?

No, finished up at DCU last year and have no plans to go back to college. It's more of a general interest.

Jawgap wrote: »

What about crime data? More bikes = more stolen

That's an interesting angle, but given the amount of factors it might be as flawed as prosecutions for lack of lights.

Bunnyhopper

Cycling in Victorian Ireland by Brian Griffin might get you started on some of the early years (mainly 1880s to the early 1900s). It's not limited to Dublin, but it lists a lot of the early clubs and does give some membership numbers for them. It's also good on how the profile of cycling changed as the bikes changed, as it became more affordable, and as women got involved. He does cite a few periodicals, most of them in the National Library (particularly Irish Cyclist and Irish Wheelman).

Do the older Dublin clubs have their own archives? That book mentions Dublin University Bicycle Club, for example, so there might be something surviving there. Cycling Ireland might have some older records or know where you'd find them. The problem with club records would be that they wouldn't really capture casual or commuter cycling. I'd imagine it'll be very hard to get absolute numbers, but you might at least get a sense of how things changed over time.

There's a plaque commemorating Dunlop and the first pneumatic tyre factory on Stephen Street Upper.

monument

Edit: Yeah, I think club figures, at least on their own, won't give me that much of an insight to cycling as transport... Or maybe I'm wrong?

Run_to_da_hills

As soon as Israel / US start war in Iran we can expect massive increases in oil prices if not rationing at the pumps and long queues if supplies are curtailed.

This will probably draw more bicycles than ever out of the closets including all those cycle to work scheme bikes that have been gathering dust.

rflynnr

I'm thinking census of industrial production returns. Now, this may be a something I just made up but I have a dim memory of such a document existing which may give some basis for a calculation.

manwithaplan

The Dublin City cordon counts go back to 1980 but I imagine you are looking much further back than that. An Foras Forbartha used produce various traffic analysis publications but I doubt of there was anything specific to Dublin. An example is linked below - it gives traffic counts on the primary road network in 1969. I have no idea if it includes bikes.

http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000069458/Holdings#tabnav

A long time ago, I used collate Ireland's return to the International Road Federation who publish World Road Statistics. I used get the traffic data (million vehicle kilometres travelled etc) from some series entitled 'Traffic Station Counts and Road Travel' (example below) but I can't recall the level of detail and I don't know how far back the series extends.

http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000055091