Earlier, I wrote about the general experience of cycling in Waterloo in terms of infrastructure and in terms of interesting destinations. This time, moving to my next postdoc position in a different city, let’s look back at some statistics.
When I first arrived in Waterloo in February 2023, I didn’t have a bike. February is not the most rewarding time for biking in Waterloo anyways. There are buses and the ION train, but I decided to walk to the campus, to grocery stores, and also sometimes larger distances. The longest was to Elmira, which took several hours. I recorded gps tracks whenever I walked more than just to the next building, after 5 months, I had walked around 1500km:
At that point, I was tired of walking and bought a bike. I obviously used it for commuting, but additionally, I was now able to reach more distant places without spending a whole day walking. Once I had the bike, I hardly ever walked long distances again, except for days with too much snow.
In total, in 15 months in Waterloo (conferences and vacation travel subtracted), I walked 1695km (615 individual trips), and biked 2735km (630 trips). Having recorded gps tracks of all these trips, I can examine not only where I went, but also how fast. My walking speed is typically between 5 and 6 km/h. Apparently, I have an “eigen” speed, the upper limit of the continuum, at 5.9 km/h, which is my typical walking speed on free paths. The lower speeds arise e.g. from being blocked by other people, carrying something, being tired, etc. Only rarely did I walk faster than 5.9 km/h, probably these were downhill segments or me running to catch a train.
The analogous histogram for cycling looks much more smooth. This is because of inertia: When you walk through a crowded street, you can change speed and direction instantaneously, but a bike can’t do that. Instead, when cycling you typically adjust your speed gently, long before you run into an obstacle. Indeed, the histogram for cycling consists of two peaks: Around 18 km/h is my cycling “eigen” speed, the typical speed on flat trails. Compared to the walking histogram, a larger proportion of the cycling histogram is at higher speeds, because a cyclist can profit from downhill slopes or tailwind more than a walker.
Secondly, there is a peak around 4 km/h. This one arises from cycling behind walkers or leading the bike in crowded places. Overall, the histogram is surprisingly broad, a notable proportion is below 18 km/h. I think that is because my daily commute through Waterloo consisted of several rather short segments with traffic lights in between, so that I didn’t have extended periods of uninterrupted riding. Another factor might have been that Waterloo in fact has a non-zero number of snow days, where biking is often still possible, but much slower than usual. I made a similar Histogram when I lived in Berlin, and it is more peaked:
Finally, here is a video of all walking and cycling I did in Waterloo. The colors coincide with the ones in the velocity histograms. Clearly, most tracks are just commuting to work or grocery stores, but I tried to visit all parts of Waterloo at least once, and also many of the surrounding villages.