Comments on: Bicycle Commuting Trends, 2000 to 2008

By: LookStat – Official Blog » Blog Archive » Cycling – Interesting Industry Stats

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:51:45 +0000

[...] to the League of Amercian Bicyclists analysis of 2008 Census data, 0.55% of Americans use a bicycle as their primary means of getting to work. Although this [...]

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:31:20 +0000

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

By: Billy Wetherington

Billy Wetherington — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:18:06 +0000

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.

By: Mike Lasche

Mike Lasche — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:36:22 +0000

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

By: BikeDenver.org » League of American Bicyclists reporting details US Census stats show .55% of Americans bike to work, up 14% since 2007. 1.6% of Denver commuters regularly bike (almost 1 in 75):

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:22:07 +0000

[...] more information please visit the League of American Bicyclist’s blog here [...]

By: The Savannah Bicycle Campaign » Blog Archive » Ride your bike to work on Nov. 2

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:09:42 +0000

[...] 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 [...]

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:43:55 +0000

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.

By: Dave Morse

Dave Morse — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:52:44 +0000

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.

By: James

James — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:15:38 +0000

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.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:41:09 +0000

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.