Welcome to the website for my master's project, Bike Parking Equity. My name is Steven Vance and I'm a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Read why I decided to publish my project online.

If this is your first time here, read through the rest of this page, or start here: Introduction, Background, and History.

In a nutshell, this project, “Bike Parking Equity,” is about how I identified inequity in bike parking distribution in Chicago, Illinois. That meant that, for whatever reasons, some areas in the City would get more bike racks than others. After describing how I came to identify this issue, I look into how it might have happened, and how other agencies can identify it, correct it, and prevent it.

See main articles, Background and Conclusions.

Bike Parking Equity is a project that researched the issue of equity in the geographic distribution of bicycle parking in the City of Chicago. The CDOT Bicycle Parking Program identified a potential equity issue when it consolidated historical and current data about bicycle parking installations.

The CDOT Bicycle Parking Program developed internally a method to identify an “underserved” threshold based on the number of existing installations and the number of requests for bike parking. The Program targeted these areas for an increased number of bicycle parking installations (compared to historical installations and its position compared to all areas). Additionally, the project introduces a Bike Parking Demand Model as a tool for predicting the demand for a location as well as prioritizing bicycle parking installations.

The CDOT Bicycle Parking Program's request-based operations may not be setup well to handle bicycle parking installations that have not been requested. Furthermore, Chicago residents and workers may not know the benefits of bicycle parking, or how to request it.

Please use the following short description when sharing this project and website.

“The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) Bicycle Parking Program's request-based distribution method may not be sufficient to equitably satisfy manifested and suppressed demand. A project was initiated that identified where the disproportion was highest and attempted to reduce the impact of this issue.”

Bicycle parking, demand analysis, trip generation, non-motorized transportation, equity.

See the full Table of Contents.

The project and this website is organized into four sections:

	Name	Summary
One	Introduction, Background, and History	This section introduces the website, the project, and the problem. Includes: how the equity issue came to light, how the Bike Parking Program operates, and how equity issues were mitigated.
Two	Equity	This section discusses equity, or the concept of fairness in distribution of benefits and investments. Includes: defining equity, identify inequity, and discussion of the equity components of this project.
Three	Screening Methods, Predictions, and Modeling	This section describes how inequity was identified in order that it could be mitigated. Includes: importance of data, how the CDOT Bicycle Parking Program manages data, how the Underserved Wards were selected to be part of the project (Screening Methods), alternative ways that underserved areas can be identified (using GIS), and an introduction to the Bike Parking Demand Prediction Model.
Four	Conclusion and Evaluation	This section summarizes the project, makes some concluding remarks, describes opportunity for improvement, and acknowledges the many project shortcomings.

• Glossary
• Appendices
• Media - Lists all project media.
• References - References database. All references are cited inline and displayed in the footer of the page.

This project was designed to be read in a web browser. The printed version will not appear as it does online, and links to articles or sections within the PDF will open your web browser.

See also and See main article.
These links have different meanings. See also is a suggestion to look at another section or article in the project. See main article stresses the suggestion and is required reading.