Commuting - Commuting statistics?

Interestingly enough, the Green Bay Press Gazette recently did a story showing a pie chart of how people commute in Brown County, WI. They found it worth focussing the article on the fact that, in spite of attempts to create bike paths and lanes, bicycling commuting went from 5% to 2.8%. (IMO, a result of frighteningly less courteous and more abundant car traffic, and bike lanes which are used as car parking lanes.)

Anyone got any local stats from your area on what percentage of the population commutes by bike?

Im really dubious of the cycling stats collected by general transport surveys. Where do they sample the cyclists, on the main car routes? Cyclists generally avoid those.

Originally posted by Inkwolf
Interestingly enough, the Green Bay Press Gazette recently did a story showing a pie chart of how people commute in Brown County, WI. They found it worth focussing the article on the fact that, in spite of attempts to create bike paths and lanes, bicycling commuting went from 5% to 2.8%.

It could be a lot of things, depending on the place. Here in Silicon Valley, I would expect to see a decrease in bicycle commuting over the last few years. I would also expect to see a decrease in commuting via walking or short-haul bus lines.

Like in a lot of urban areas, people more and more can find affordable housing they can buy only further and further out in the suburbs. That means they'll be less likely to commute by anything other than car, carpool, or long-haul transit.

I bet if you look at the development of that community, you'll see at least that being at least a partial explanation. When live five or fewer miles from work and you live in the city itself, common sense would tell you that you're much more likely to cycle to work than if you live 5+ miles from work and you have to traverse suburban streets (which often have poor or no urban planning to them) and then also city streets.

I read in a London newspaper (The Metro) a couple of weeks ago that 650,000 people commute into London daily. That figure surprised me!

Originally posted by maraxis
I read in a London newspaper (The Metro) a couple of weeks ago that 650,000 people commute into London daily. That figure surprised me!

That number is too low for sure. It would depend on where you define as into London. But the number of people that take the train,tube or bus into London has to be in the millions, like Manhattan/

Originally posted by MichaelW
Im really dubious of the cycling stats collected by general transport surveys. Where do they sample the cyclists, on the main car routes? Cyclists generally avoid those.

My employer recently required us to complete a survey about our commuting methods. Evidently, this survey was created and reviewed by our local transit authority.

Originally posted by Spire
That number is too low for sure.

I would tend to agree. San Francisco has a resident population of about 3/4 of a million but swells to about 1.5 million on a work day. I would suspect London would be at least that many people, but almost certainly more.

Originally posted by ChezJfrey
My employer recently required us to complete a survey about our commuting methods. Evidently, this survey was created and reviewed by our local transit authority.

.... and probably immediately shelved by that authority.

I'm kidding of course. But I tend to view with suspicion any request for input from the public by out local transit agencies here in Silicon Valley. They truly don't care, it's a charade. The truth is whatever the mayor of San Jose (at this time it's the very slick Ron Gonzales) wants, that's the direction transit heads. Right now, that's right into the toilet....

>>>>Anyone got any local stats from your area on what percentage of the population commutes by bike?<<<<

I have some stats. In my neighborhood, I have only seen three bike commuters in the past 3 years out of a population that in 2000 was estimated 61,842

So doing the math total bike commuters in my town is a whopping

.0048% percent!!!

I have no idea. I do know for a fact that the number is very, very small. There seems to be a perception around here (even among recreational or racing cyclists) that commuting by bike is "dangerous". This is quite obviously not true, as is evidenced by the fact that I'm here posting this right now.

Originally posted by Chris L
There seems to be a perception around here (even among recreational or racing cyclists) that commuting by bike is "dangerous".

I think that at least here in Silicon Valley it is true that commuting by cycle is very dangerous for most people who do. Motorists are looking to get to/from work quickly and just the piloting a vehicle is a very stressful experience for many of them. Looking out for cyclists and pedestrians or any other commuters who aren't also in cars isn't very high on their list for many of those cyclists.

The fact that commuting by cycling is dangerous isn't the same as saying that cyclists generally or are all to blame for that danger... although the way I see some cyclists go about their business they certainly aren't helping the odds of getting plowed.

Originally posted by jatkins679
.... and probably immediately shelved by that authority.

I'm kidding of course. But I tend to view with suspicion any request for input from the public by out local transit agencies here in Silicon Valley. They truly don't care, it's a charade. The truth is whatever the mayor of San Jose (at this time it's the very slick Ron Gonzales) wants, that's the direction transit heads. Right now, that's right into the toilet....

One thing we ar lucky for here is a bike friendly transit system the bike racks are so popular they are looking to design ones that hol d three bikes. Even the other day I looked up at a bus there was an ad from one of the transit agency it went something like this "Hey you on the bike, thank you"

As for stats I don't have any I will see if I can find any I can tell you from what I have seen that cycle commuting in this area has increased in the last 12 years. But we do have a very large and active cycling community out here and until recently the powers in charge where very bike freindly we even had a couple of top elected officials that rode to work. That all has changed the Seattle city council is not as freindly torwards us as they used to be.

Originally posted by jatkins679
I think that at least here in Silicon Valley it is true that commuting by cycle is very dangerous for most people who do. Motorists are looking to get to/from work quickly and just the piloting a vehicle is a very stressful experience for many of them. Looking out for cyclists and pedestrians or any other commuters who aren't also in cars isn't very high on their list for many of those cyclists.

The fact that commuting by cycling is dangerous isn't the same as saying that cyclists generally or are all to blame for that danger... although the way I see some cyclists go about their business they certainly aren't helping the odds of getting plowed.

In all honesty, I don't believe commuting by bicycle is particularly dangerous, in fact, I believe it's actually safer than commuting by car. I know there is this perception that bikes should not be on the road 'because cars will run them over'. Fact is, cyclist injury and death rates are significantly lower than motoring deaths (even when brought back to a constant such as ratio per hour of the activity).

Addionally, most cycling injuries and deaths don't even involve cars at all. Literally all of the scars I have picked up over the years have been the result of simply falling off, mostly due to my own stupidity in situations that would have been avoided if I'd just used a little common sense. I'm not saying there's no room for improvement in cyclist safety issues, merely that the whole "you're gonna die! you're gonna die!" argument that comes up everytime cycling in traffic/cycling to work is mentioned is just counterproductive and doesn't solve anything.

Originally posted by Chris L
I'm not saying there's no room for improvement in cyclist safety issues, merely that the whole "you're gonna die! you're gonna die!" argument that comes up everytime cycling in traffic/cycling to work is mentioned is just counterproductive and doesn't solve anything.

I think that also really depends on where you're commuting. Here it's relatively safe. But I've also lived in Indianapolis and that would be a very, very risky activity: no bike lanes, very narrow bridges, many neighborhoods with no sidewalks and narrow streets, little tolerance for cyclists.

But generally I ignore people who get hysterical about the dangers of cycling. It certainly has potential to be dangerous since you are a moving vehicle and unprotected among other much larger moving vehicles. But then again people who talk about things like that are a lot more likely than me to be overweight, sedentary, and putting their own lives in clear peril with such a lifestyle yet see no problem with it.

Originally posted by jatkins679
I think that also really depends on where you're commuting. Here it's relatively safe. But I've also lived in Indianapolis and that would be a very, very risky activity: no bike lanes, very narrow bridges, many neighborhoods with no sidewalks and narrow streets, little tolerance for cyclists.

But you might be surprised. I'll give you an example of what I mean. When I was touring in Victoria, people were surprised that anyone would cycle on the Gold Coast because of the notoriously incompetent drivers we have here. Most of them considered that this place would be too dangerous for cycling.

Yet people here think some of the places I visited in Victoria (particularly the Great Ocean Road) are too dangerous for cycling. It's not simply a matter of bike lanes, sidewalks or anything else (and I'm yet to be conviced those things help our cause anyway). The fact is, listening to people who don't ride tell us it's 'dangerous' is not going to help at all.

Inkwolf, I think I posted a Star-Tribune article on the Twin Cities cycling poluation and the use of bike paths and "Greenways." I'll search some, I just don't remember where I posted it, or how.

Oh man you guys have it easy.... Bike lanes... cool.
Most of my road riding is on the shoulder of a state highway with ignorant @#$*&! passing within a couple feet of you at speeds of 100km/h plus.

It is fun though trying to get up enough speed to catch the draft from the trucks.:D

You know I thought the same thing when I got to Paris and saw the "bike" lanes. I nearly got nailed, not by cars, but by frogs on Vespas. Jack your blue.

Here's the thread, but the link to the article is dead. http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17966

Originally posted by Terry Mitchell
Oh man you guys have it easy.... Bike lanes... cool.
Most of my road riding is on the shoulder of a state highway with ignorant @#$*&! passing within a couple feet of you at speeds of 100km/h plus.

It is fun though trying to get up enough speed to catch the draft from the trucks.:D
I call it truck surfing , if you get 4 + in a row you can pick up a good speed , tho it gets pretty hairy when the shoulder narrows down :lol:

Originally posted by naisme

Jack your blue

Sorry dude I dont Get it:confused:

I think that the proportion of cycle commuters is so low that you need a very large sample size to get any reliable estimate of the proportion of people cycling to work. Thus, any change on the proportion could just be a sampling artifact, rather than the result of a trend. Nevertheless, it seems that the perception (by the general population) that cycling is a dangerous activity is on the rise.

Actually, the bike lanes are only in Green Bay, and I'd much rather ride my highway shoulders and unmarked Main Street in Seymour than try to drive over all Green Bay's parked cars and cope with the traffic there.....

i just read an aricle in "oregon cycling" regarding commuting stats. Researchers at portland state university ranked portland third out of 42 major cities across the country in terms of the percentage of workers who commute to work by bicycle, with 2.55%. this doesn't seem very high to me, but probably is higher than most major cities.
some excerpts from the article:

"The study looked at cities with populations of 250,000 or more- deliberately avoiding small college towns."
"The authors surveyed people throughout the year and didn't rely strictly on U.S. census data. The Census Bureau questions people in early spring, when they are less likely in most of the country to cycle to work than later in the year."
"The biggest factor that accounted for high bike commuting according to compiled statistics: bike lanes per square mile. Bike lanes on roads encouraged commuting much more than separate bike paths, which usually ran through parks, designed more for recreation than commuting and generally don't lead to employment centers."
"Portland ranked third in the study with 1.05 lanes per square mile"
"Portland tied for third with Minneapolis for the most bike lanes and bike paths per square mile (1.44)."
"Amazingly, Minneapolis - one of the coldest and snowiest cities in the country, finished first on the bike commuting list, thanks largely to local bike advocacy efforts."
"Portland ranked third despite averaging more rainy days per year (153) than any other city." (side note: i thought seattle had more rainy days??)
"Other rainy cities also ranked high in the number of bike commuters, 'lending some doubt that rain is a significant deterrent to bicycle commuting' ". (side note: rain never stops me!!!)
"Other than Minneapolis, Sacramento, CA also beat out Portland in percentage of bike commuters."
-the study may not be a completely accurate portrayal of the statistics, because: "Investigators also need to capture people who bike to work regularly but not every day. If you bike twice a week and drive three days, biking would bot come off as your primary commute."

anyways, i have enjoyed commuting to work in portland, and think it is a pretty bike-friendly city.