| STURGIS
— To most of the folks attending Sturgis Bike Week, attendance at the
2007 event seemed a little down, but the state Department of
Transportation’s highway traffic counters tell a different story. The
eight traffic counters positioned at all the main roads into Sturgis
showed a slight rise, about 3 percent, in the number of motorcycles,
cars and trucks at Sturgis this year. A local traffic engineer who
gathers the data each year, was a little surprised. Before filing his
report, he double checked all the numbers. There wasn’t the
congestion that we may have seen in past years, and indeed during the
first part of the week the numbers were down. The final weekend was very
strong, and made up for the slow start. … There might have been lot of
local people in Sturgis shopping for cheap T-shirts. “Each year the
temporary vendors slash prices on the final weekend of the rally as they
don’t want to pack up the merchandise and take it home with them.
There were a lot of cars and trucks with Pennington and Meade county
license plates entering Sturgis on the final weekend. For the
entire week, 461,507 vehicles entered Sturgis, according to the traffic
figures.
Last year’s rally brought in 449,527 vehicles, the lowest traffic
count since 1996. The highest mark for rally traffic remains 2004, when
almost 550,000 vehicles entered Sturgis. This year, traffic into
Sturgis was up almost 11 percent on Monday, Aug. 6, the official start
of the Sturgis rally. But Tuesday and Wednesday were down, Thursday was
about even with last year, and Friday was up just 4 percent. But
Saturday, 50,561 people streamed into Sturgis, a 15 percent increase
over Saturday traffic in 2006. That was enough to bring the total ahead
of last year. It’s important to note that the traffic counters
don’t distinguish between semi trucks, cars or motorcycles. Because
bikers tend to ride in and out of Sturgis several times during the week,
it would be a mistake to say that 461,507 bikes or bikers attended
the Sturgis rally this year. But the traffic counters are a good
indication of year-to-year trends in traffic during the annual rally. Four
of the eight traffic counters are located at Interstate 90’s off-ramps
at exits 30 and 32. Counters are also on the Vanocker Canyon Road,
S.D.Highway 34 east of the Buffalo Chip Campground, S.D. Highway 79 near
Bear Butte, and the Boulder Canyon Road west of Sturgis.
There are some back roads into town, but for the most part, counters
are placed at all the entrances into Sturgis.The most popular route into
Sturgis remains the Boulder Canyon Road from Deadwood. Almost 30 percent
of all vehicles entering Sturgis come that way. Although the Vanocker
Canyon Road has the least traffic, its numbers jumped 17 percent
from the 2006 count. The Exit 32 reconstruction and the paving of
Vanocker Canyon Road made access to the Canyon and the Black Hills much
easier, and bikers see it as a scenic ride.
Another reliable measure of Sturgis rallies, sales tax collections
from temporary vendors, runs contrary to the traffic numbers. Both gross
sales and sales-tax receipts from temporary vendors were down about 15
percent, according to the state Department of Revenue and Regulation. That
could mean there were more bikers, who were spending less. But it could
also mean that the rally has spread out to Hill City, Custer and other
towns. Riders might venture into Sturgis once or twice, but spend the
bulk of their time in Hill City or Rapid City or riding the roads of the
Black Hills. In fact, Southern Hills sales-tax receipts were up 2
percent over last year. Pepper Massey, interim director of the
Sturgis Rally, said some vendors told her they had a very good year.
Some of them said the smaller crowds and leisurely pace put people in
more of a shopping mood. Some of the temporary vendors were down from
past years, proving again that the Sturgis motorcycle rally is an animal
that is very hard to measure. “That’s the number one question
— people want to know how many, how many. It’s probably the
hardest question to answer,” Massey said. “And I’m not
certain if it tells us what we want to know, anyway. Did people come to
the Hills and have a good time?
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