I got a call from the USDOT asking if I'd participate in a survey. It was all about my commuting and the price of gas and something about airport security. So, in their survey their is at least one data point - walks or bikes to work, hasn't changed commuting habits due to gas prices, etc.. The statisticians at BTS might toss my datapoint as an "outlier" or "obvious input error" but I hope not.

Some interesting points: They wanted to know about using water ferries ( we have one in the DC area actually) and flying but not AmTrak. When it came to the point about how many "vehicles" I own, USDOT only counts things powered by internal combustion engines to be vehicles. They wanted to know about my responses to traffic congestion and if I had switched commuting modes in the past year. I had! I had taken up walking to work instead of biking, but I don't think that the questionaire considered walking and biking as two different modes. They guy asking the questions seemed to choke on my response and other questions seemed to lump walking and biking together. I like both but they're really different experiences. I hope the transportation planners aren't treating them as the same mode.