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Bicycle Commuting Trends, 2000 to 2008
As we reported earlier, according to the US Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey (ACS), released on September 22, 2009, 0.55 percent of Americans use a bicycle as the primary means of getting to work. This is up 14 percent since 2007, 36 percent from the first ACS in 2005, and 43 percent since the 2000 Census. (Note that the ACS methodology under-counts cycling by not counting bicycle commuters who biked just once or twice the week they were surveyed or most cyclists who bike and use public transportation for their trip to work.)
Click here to view the ACS journey to work results for the 70 largest US cities, including the 27 largest Bicycle Friendly Communities (BFCs), since 2000. Scroll right (or click on the following links) to find the share of American workers who bicycle, walk, use public transportation and drive alone. The tables show the share of commuters for 2000, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and their percent change over time. (UPDATE: the “largest BFC average” was updated on October 22 to include the four newest BFCs that are among the 70 largest US cities.)
Click here to view the ACS journey to work results for the 50 US states (and Puerto Rico). Use the tabs at the bottom for bicycle commuters and walking commuters. The sheets also include the amount of federal dollars spent on bicycle and pedestrian project between 2000 and 2008.
Here is a summary of bicycle commuting levels in the US over the past eight years.
On average, the 70 largest cities in the US, from New York City (population eight million) to Plano, Texas (population 259,000), had higher bicycle commuter levels and larger increases than the national average. The average bicycle commuter share for the largest 70 US cities in 2008 was 0.93 percent, having grown by nearly 50 percent since 2000.
Among the 70 largest cities, the 27 that have been designated by the League of American Bicyclists as Bicycle Friendly Communities (BFCs) for their pro-bicycling policies saw even higher levels of bicycle commuting and greater increases over the past eight years. In 2008, the average BFC bicycle commuter share was 1.5 percent, nearly three times the national average. BFCs also grew 60 percent more than the national average and 40 percent more than the 70 largest city average.
Bicycle Friendly Communities far outpaced the 43 largest non-BFCs, whose average bicycle commuter share is growing slower than even the national average. Between 2000 and 2008, the bicycle commuter share in the 27 largest BFCs increased by nearly 70 percent. In contrast, the share in the non-BFC cities increased only 23 percent, to 0.57 percent. This strongly suggests that the efforts of the BFCs to improve bicycling conditions by investing in engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation and planning are paying off with larger increases in bicycle commuters.
Some of the fastest growing communities were those that started with relatively low bicycle commuter shares in 2000. Nashville and Cleveland tripled their share, and Cincinnati doubled its, but all three still have not reached three-quarters of a percent. On the other hand, some the cities with the highest bicycle commuter levels in 2000 also saw some of the largest increases. Platinum BFC Portland, OR saw the largest growth among all 70 large cities, more than tripling their bike share, to nearly 6 percent. See complete summary for more.
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October 13th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Why not hold the National Bike Summit in any community that gets to 10% bike mode share?
Davis, CA is the only place in the U.S. with a 10% bike share. But it looks like Boulder will pass 10% in the next ACS survey. I think LAB should make a big deal about that, and about any other community that makes it to 10%.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
I agree with James, make a big deal about passing the 10% bikenshare. If you make it worth the cities time and energy. Some cities find the work required too much for the level of payback. I don’t like it but money drives the motivation of most government and so does publicity. My city does little to help cyclist and cycling, much less pedestrians and disabled people. Bad publicity that gets nationwide attention makes the city/state governments get on the ball and make changes.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
If it were just all about numbers, then Portland wins along with some of the other larger producers. However, accident rates never really factor into these numbers like they should. Safety needs to be part of the LAB BFC rating system.
October 15th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
The experience of places with high mode share numbers (>10%) is that bike per mile accident rates have a NEGATIVE correlation with bike mode share. No doubt some of that is due to other factors like traffic calming, better infrastructure, changes in the legal rules for drivers on streets and roads, education, etc. My view, however, is that the correlation would hold even in the absence of any other factor whatsoever because the single greatest factor improving the safety of a bicyclist is the presence of lots of other cyclists. And the reason for that, in turn, is that the presence of lots of cyclists is a constant visual cue to drivers of the presence of cyclists and the need to drive carefully, slowly and defensively in a cyclist-rich environment.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:52 am
What do “n/a” cells mean in the spreadsheets?
Also, it looks like you’ve got a pretty big “oops” on Louisville. Either we had much higher walk/bike/transit mode share in 2000, or the data sources didn’t account for the fact that we had city-county merger right afterwards, thrusting all those motorist suburbanites into our numbers. It would be more accurate to use Jefferson County numbers for all the cells, because Jefferson County has remained the same size.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Dave,
The ACS does not provide estimates for some cities for some years. The N/A indicates that the estimates are not available. You are correct, as noted in the analysis (PDF,) the geographic unit for Louisville changes from city in 2000 to city/county in 2008. The same is true for Lexington, KY. Good suggestion. Thank you.
October 25th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
[...] U.S. Census reports bicycle commuting is up 14 percent since 2007, 36 percent since 2005, and 43 percent since the 2000 Census. So get on your [...]
October 26th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
[...] more information please visit the League of American Bicyclist’s blog here [...]
October 31st, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Dear Darren,
I checked the National Census stats for my home cities of Sarasota and Bradenton and found that they do not provide specific bicycle commuting percentages in their summaries. They lump bicycle commuting under “other means.” Thus, I was happy to see the LAB site which appears to have access to census data specifically on bicycling to work. Can you direct me to a site that shows bicycle commuting rates in my city, Sarasota, Florida and Sarasota County, Florida?
Also, I must offer some skepticism on the census of state bicycle commuting data. It shows Oregon at #1 with a rate of 1.88%. That sounds OK but Idaho is #2 with a rate of 1.52%, beating out states such as Colorado and California. Is Idaho really a big biking state?
Mike Lasche
Bicycle/Pedestrian Advocates
October 31st, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Where do the increasing number of unemployed fit into all this. In Sarasota, Florida 1 out of 8 are now unemployed. They are of course not commuting to work since they don’t work, but I would guess that non recreational bicycle use has increased more than these weird statistics indicate and the increase is simply because more and more people find car useage beyond their means. If .55% of the population in Sarasota is commuting by bike, that works out to about 2,000 people more or less (if you count the whole population) and I think that number is low but we only have anecdotal evidence about our local numbers.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 am
Billy,
The ACS counts as workers only people who worked the week before the survey. People without jobs and even people on vacation or home sick are not counted.
How this impacts the bike commute number depends on whether you think the recently unemployed were more or less likely to have been regular bicycle commuters than the remaining workers.
As we discussed in the written analysis, bicycle commuters are only a fraction of all cyclists. The bike commuter number should not be considered equivalent to the share of cyclists making all types of trips. It is useful, however, to show the upward trend of cycling levels.
Even the commuter numbers are conservative because they count only people who use the bike as the “primary” means of transportation, meaning the mode used most frequently the week before and for the longest part of the journey if multiple modes were used. If the number of these “hardcore” bike commuters is increasing as it is, then the number of occasional bike commuters is likely to be quite significant.
Sarasota County has a bicycle commuter share of 1%.
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-qr_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_S0801&-geo_id=05000US12115&-context=st&-ds_name=ACS_2008_3YR_G00_&-tree_id=3308&-_lang=en&-format=&-CONTEXT=st