Originally Posted by
CrankyOne
I don't think you'll see 15% of 18-60-year-olds for the same reason you won't see 8-year-olds—doing battle with 4000 pound cars operated by humans who are very prone to error and distraction is not appealing. I think that the facilities that will allow 8-year-olds to ride a few miles to school by themselves are the exact same as the ones that will get everyday moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas to ride to the store or cafe.
You don't get it. Riding to the store or cafe or school doesn't count. At all. Just riding to work. And better not ride to a bus or a train to work, because more likely than not, that doesn't count either.
Add in noisy numbers (+/- 15% for Portland, +/- 30% and higher for Boston), and you can make whatever meaning you'd like from the numbers. The numbers are barely statistically meaningful, so make up a fact, whatever you'd like. That's the brilliance of some of the ACS numbers, like bike mode share.
-mr. bill