From left, Hans Coleman, his dog Cleopatra, Christian Embrey and Nathaniel Spencer walk between holes during a Wednesday game of frisbee golf in Centennial Park.

In September, a few dozen volunteers counted bicyclists and pedestrians at 22 locations across Lawrence, hoping to discover more about how many people walk and bike, and where they’re doing it.

Now, data from the count are ready to be used to inform the city’s decisions on infrastructure projects, said Jessica Mortinger, a senior transportation planner with the city. Because of the upcoming reconstruction of Kasold Drive, locations on that street were included in the 2015 count.

“We hear often from the community this desire for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure,” Mortinger said. “So documenting how that’s being used, our existing infrastructure, is important to show what the value is.”

Lawrence’s data is submitted to the National Bicycle & Pedestrian Documentation Project, which created a national database of bike and pedestrian activity. This was the seventh year Lawrence has participated in the project.

Following the project’s methodology for counting, volunteers in September established a screen line at the 22 locations and counted bicyclists and pedestrians when they passed the line. The counts took place over three two-hour periods.

The numbers were submitted to organizers of the national project, and the organizers responded with projections for how many trips bicyclists and pedestrians make at those locations on a daily, monthly and yearly basis. Those numbers were released this week.

Mortinger said major destinations such as downtown and Kansas University had the highest number of pedestrians and bicyclists, as expected.

This map shows projected averages of daily trips pedestrians and bicyclists take in different areas of the city.

A depiction of what modes of transportation people use in different areas of Lawrence on a daily basis. The map was assembled using projections of averages based off Lawrence's 2015 pedestrian and bicycle count.

According to the 2015 data, streets on or near the KU campus — Jayhawk Boulevard, West Campus Road and Crescent Road — had the highest number of daily pedestrians and bicyclists, with 12,261 all together.

“We look at those projections and think, ‘Wow, look at the motion in this corridor,'” Mortinger said. “We know people are walking and biking, it just really puts it in perspective of how important those facilities are to university students.”

The intersection of Kasold Drive and 14th Street saw the least amount of bicycle and pedestrian traffic of the 22 locations counted. It was projected to have 51 bicyclists and pedestrians come through daily.

This was the first year counts were conducted on Kasold Drive. The city is currently planning a reconstruction of the thoroughfare from Eighth Street to 14th Street. City engineers, which have offered two options for the reconstruction, have said they would recommend the City Commission go with a lane reduction because it would require fewer resources and qualify for several federal safety grants. Both options include bike lanes, but the option recommended by city engineers also calls for a buffer between the traffic and bike lanes.

The 2015 count also tracked pedestrians and bicyclists at the Kasold Drive and Harvard Road intersection — the future site of either a traffic light or roundabout, depending on which reconstruction option the City Commission votes to approve. The option that includes the roundabout is the same one that recommends a lane reduction and buffer.

According to the data, the intersection is projected to have 101 pedestrians and bicyclists daily. A count at Harvard Road projected it saw 125 daily.

Through the years, the annual counts have shown how introducing bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure have drawn more users, Mortinger said.

She gave the example of the lighted pathway created in 2012 between downtown and 12th and Louisiana streets in the Oread neighborhood. The pathway more than tripled nighttime pedestrian and bicycle use in that area, Mortinger said.

“Before, maybe it was not really desirable for the type of trips people wanted to take, or maybe people didn’t feel safe on it,” Mortinger said. “We really saw the increase in the number of people using the corridor. It goes back to the ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy of infrastructure and safety improvements.”

The data will now be available to city engineers and the public works department when it’s planning projects, Mortinger said.

Just last week, the city’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Task Force submitted a 37-page draft of its recommendations for improvements to bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. It outlined problems for pedestrians and bicyclists in Lawrence, including gaps in sidewalks, broken sidewalks, unconnected bicycle paths and a fragmented network of organizations that advise the city on pedestrian and bicycle issues.

The City Commission will discuss those recommendations with the task force Tuesday.

Another survey Lawrence might consider doing in the future to better inform planners could focus on the motives of pedestrians and bicyclists, Mortinger said. That would include stopping bicyclists and pedestrians and asking where they’re going and why they’re walking or biking.

“It would give us a better idea if they’re commuting or if it’s about destination or recreation,” Mortinger said. “Right now, we just have the numbers.”