Delayed a week due to a technical issue, the Fremont Bridge bike counter is scheduled to start tallying people on bikes Thursday. Cascade Bicycle Club and the city will debut the counter during an 11 a.m. press event.

People who want to be among the first to be counted will line up on the west sidewalk, waiting for the official launch.

The counter, announced during Bike to Work Week, was funded by Cascade with a donation from the Mark & Susan Torrance Foundation. It aims not only to collect valuable 24/7 bike count data on one of the city’s most-used bike routes, but seeing the numbers tick away demonstrates that bikes are a serious mode of transportation.

More details on Thursday’s event:

The Cascade Bicycle Club and the Seattle Department of Transportation will unveil a newly installed bike counter totem at the north end of the Fremont Bridge, one of the locations with the highest bicycle counts in the city. Bicyclists will ride across the bridge to be the first counted by the new device. The column will have a digital display of the number of bicyclists that have passed during the day and will also indicate the yearly total with a vertical bar of light along an incremental scale. Data from the counter will be transmitted electronically and will be available on a Web site.

What:     Unveiling of the new bike counter and bicycle ride across the bridge

When:    11 a.m., Thursday, October 11

Where:   Northwest sidewalk of the Fremont Bridge off of North 34th Street and Fremont Avenue North.

Speakers will include representatives from Cascade Bicycle Club, the City of Seattle, and the Mark and Susan Torrance Foundation.

The sidewalk on the west side of the bridge will be closed for the event, so cyclists coming from the south should use the east sidewalk (or the general travel lane) and then circle around to the northwest end of the bridge. Participants will be directed to a position where they will not prematurely activate the counter.