The local authority intends to use external grant funding to pay for automatic cycle and pedestrian counters annually until October 2028.
Glasgow City Council has already installed 115 counters.
A total of £10,000 is also to be potentially spent on cycle racks and £280,000 on cycle shelters for schools every year it is predicted.
It amounts to an estimated £2.27million on cycle infrastructure over the next four years. That amount is subject to demand and funding, a meeting heard.
Speaking at a recent contracts and property committee, Labour councillor Philip Braat said: “I have no objection to the cycle racks or cycle shelters, which are necessary.”
He added: “We are already putting various improvements to cycle infrastructure in the city without counters. Is that the best use of money – to spend £175,000 on counters when the council’s coffers as we all know and will know to our detriment over the next few weeks and months are pretty bleak.
“Could that money not be spent on other frontline services that potentially may be cut over the next few months?”
A council official pointed out the money came from Transport Scotland’s budget – not the local authority.
She added: “We already have 115 counters in the city. When we invest in cycle infrastructure we are very frequently asked or challenged on do people use this. We need to prove that cyclists are using the infrastructure. The only way we can do that is to provide data from cycle counters. “
Explaining more about the information gathered, she said: “The data is collected for cycle and pedestrian movement across the city. We are looking for trends of an uptake in cycling or pedestrian movement. We also do pre-construction data – that informs us how many people cycled on a route before we put infrastructure in place. We compare that with post-construction data to ensure the route is being used.”
Councillors agreed to the award of a framework agreement for the supply and delivery of cycle infrastructure to two suppliers.
Broxap Limited is to supply cycle racks and shelters while Q-Free (Bristol) UK Limited is to provide the counters.
A council report presented to the committee said: “The estimated annual spend via the framework, based on historical demands and price increases, is £568,376, totalling £2,273,502 over the four-year duration of the framework.”
