The Human Car

Something interesting came up in discussing stats, Baltimore's bike mode share is lower then the states average bike mode share and I am curious how other cities fair so here is the challenge look up your city and state post your findings and answer the poll.

You can find the data by fiddling with the box in the upper left on this page: https://factfinder.census.gov/servlet...-redoLog=false
(Using the 2006 survey)

Place: Maryland
Population: 2,813,342
Bicycle: 0.3%

Place: Baltimore city, Maryland
Population: 258,373
Bicycle: 0.2%

My city's bike mode share is
Lower
then the state average.

By population I mean workers 16 and over (the data that is on the form)
(To help in formating copy and past the following in your reply)

Place:
Population:
Bicycle:

Place:
Population:
Bicycle:

My city's bike mode share is

then the state average.

Tom Stormcrowe

Tippecanoe County, Indiana S0801. Commuting Characteristics by Sex
Data Set: 2006 American Community Survey
Survey: 2006 American Community Survey

NOTE. For information on confidentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and definitions, see Survey Methodology.

genec

San Diego

Bicycle 0.8%

California 0.8%

City is same as state. Still less then 1%... dismal, considering the generally good cycling weather here.

mev

Colorado is 1.1%
Fort Collins, Colorado is 5.4%

Would like to see both be higher...

closetbiker

Vancouver, 3.3%

British Columbia, 2%

noisebeam

Tempe, AZ: 4.0% bicycle (72% motor alone)
AZ: 0.7% bicycle (75% motor alone)

JRA

It should surprise no one that St. Louis has some dismal numbers.

The highest mode share is a 0.7 for the City of St. Louis (combined, I suspect, with a high percentage of sidewalk riding).

Also note the spectacular 0.0% mode share for St. Charles County (which has more workers than the City of St. Louis, BTW), not surprising considering the location of the Missouri River as well as other factors.

__________________bicycle to work / # of workers
United States_______ 0.5% +/-0.1 of 138,265,905
Missouri____________ 0.2% +/-0.1 of __2,741,377
St. Louis, MO-IL MSA 0.2% +/-0.1 of __1,321,905
St. Louis, MO-IL ua_ 0.3% +/-0.1 of ____998,463
St. Louis County,_MO 0.2% +/-0.1 of ____477,274
City of St. Louis___ 0.7% +/-0.4 of ____142,450
St. Charles CountyMO 0.0% +/-0.1 of ____177,202

Notes:
MSA= Metropolitan Statistical Area
ua = urbanized area
St. Louis County does not include the city of.

JRA

It was a slow day.


_____________bicycle to work / # of workers
United States_________ 0.5% of 138,265,905
West__________________ 0.8% of _31,831,348
Midwest_______________ 0.4% of _31,457,396
Northeast_____________ 0.4% of _25,650,200
South_________________ 0.3% of _49,326,961


West Region:

______________bicycle to work / # of workers
West__________________ 0.8% of _31,831,348
Alaska________________ 0.8% of ____317,371
Arizona_______________ 0.7% of __2,731,538
California____________ 0.8% of _16,335,802
Colorado______________ 1.1% of __2,392,520
Hawaii________________ 0.8% of ____629,113
Idaho_________________ 0.8% of ____674,920
Montana_______________ 1.3% of ____459,766
Nevada________________ 0.5% of __1,201,744
New Mexico____________ 0.6% of ____857,733
Oregon________________ 1.7% of __1,741,953
Utah__________________ 0.6% of __1,190,466
Washington____________ 0.7% of __3,030,099
Wyoming_______________ 1.1% of ____268,323



Midwest Region:

______________bicycle to work / # of workers
Midwest_______________ 0.4% of _31,457,396
Illinois______________ 0.5% of __5,990,729
Indiana_______________ 0.4% of __2,951,039
Iowa__________________ 0.5% of __1,505,469
Kansas________________ 0.3% of __1,377,119
Michigan______________ 0.3% of __4,433,325
Minnesota_____________ 0.6% of __2,670,719
Missouri______________ 0.2% of __2,741,377
Nebraska______________ 0.5% of ____910,351
North Dakota__________ 0.5% of ____332,363
Ohio__________________ 0.2% of __5,325,529
South Dakota__________ 0.7% of ____398,229
Wisconsin_____________ 0.7% of __2,821,147


Northeast Region:

_____________bicycle to work / # of workers
Northeast_____________ 0.4% of _25,650,200
Connecticut___________ 0.3% of __1,714,985
Maine_________________ 0.4% of ____649,045
Massachusetts_________ 0.5% of __3,173,416
New Hampshire_________ 0.2% of ____685,446
New Jersey____________ 0.3% of __4,129,054
New York______________ 0.4% of __8,740,300
Pennsylvania__________ 0.3% of __5,720,060
Rhode Island__________ 0.2% of ____514,823
Vermont_______________ 0.5% of ____323,071


South Region:

_____________bicycle to work / # of workers
South_________________ 0.3% of _49,326,961
Alabama_______________ 0.1% of __1,964,398
Arkansas______________ 0.2% of __1,223,692
Delaware______________ 0.4% of ____398,315
Florida_______________ 0.5% of __8,143,041
Georgia_______________ 0.2% of __4,295,479
Kentucky______________ 0.1% of __1,837,225
Louisiana_____________ 0.4% of __1,807,758
Maryland______________ 0.3% of __2,813,342
Mississippi___________ 0.1% of __1,178,470
North Carolina________ 0.2% of __4,103,837
Oklahoma______________ 0.2% of __1,598,736
South Carolina________ 0.3% of __1,938,132
Tennessee_____________ 0.1% of __2,698,377
Texas_________________ 0.2% of _10,514,531
Virginia______________ 0.2% of __3,787,653
West Virginia_________ 0.1% of ____739,968



selected Urbanized Areas:

Atlanta, GA ____________________ 0.1% of 1,979,928
Baltimore, MD __________________ 0.3% of 1,029,448
Boston, MA-NH-RI _______________ 0.7% of 2,036,204
Chicago, IL-IN _________________ 0.5% of 3,912,618
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN ___________ 0.1% of __739,208
Cleveland, OH __________________ 0.2% of __793,416
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX_ 0.2% of 2,179,299
Davis, CA Urbanized Area ______ 16.7% of ___30,904
Detroit, MI Urbanized Area _____ 0.2% of 1,643,926
Houston, TX Urbanized Area______ 0.3% of 2,023,433
Kansas City, MO--KS_____________ 0.1% of __702,093
LA--Long Beach--Santa Ana, CA___ 0.7% of 5,548,818
Miami, FL Urbanized Area________ 0.4% of 2,421,118
Milwaukee, WI Urbanized Area____ 0.4% of __620,996
Minneapolis--St. Paul, MN_______ 0.8% of 1,271,239
New York--Newark, NY--NJ--CT____ 0.4% of 8,306,641
Philadelphia, PA--NJ--DE--MD____ 0.4% of 2,393,306
Pittsburgh, PA Urbanized Area___ 0.3% of __783,280
Portland, OR--WA Urbanized Area_ 1.8% of __868,089
Riverside--San Bernardino, CA___ 0.5% of __765,803
Sacramento, CA Urbanized Area___ 0.7% of __676,462
San Diego, CA Urbanized Area____ 0.6% of 1,291,143
San Francisco--Oakland, CA______ 1.6% of 1,558,784
San Jose, CA Urbanized Area_____ 0.8% of __745,787
Santa Barbara, CA Urb. Area_____ 5.9% of ___88,669
Seattle, WA Urbanized Area______ 0.8% of 1,447,702
St. Louis, MO--IL Urb. Area_____ 0.3% of __998,463
Tampa--St. Petersburg, FL_______ 0.6% of 1,026,246
Washington, DC--VA--MD__________ 0.5% of 2,196,648

Scot_Gore

Place: Minnesota
Population: 2,670,719
Bicycle: .6

Place: Minneapolis
Population: 193,591
Bicycle: 2.5

PaulH

Virginia: .2%
Arlington, .6%

Paul

genec

Did you happen to notice the trend... those areas with over 1% ride share tended to be those places that work to accommodate cyclists...

Davis, CA Urbanized Area ______ 16.7% of ___30,904
Portland, OR--WA Urbanized Area_ 1.8% of __868,089
San Francisco--Oakland, CA______ 1.6% of 1,558,784
Santa Barbara, CA Urb. Area_____ 5.9% of ___88,669

Now here are a couple that surprise me:

Montana_______________ 1.3% of ____459,766
Wyoming_______________ 1.1% of ____268,323

And this too is interesting:

Colorado______________ 1.1% of __2,392,520

But overall, I noticed a lot of leading ZEROS.

JRA

Yea, I noticed that, too.

But the data is biased.

Because of the way the question was worded, I'm sure it significantly underestimates the bicycle mode share.

The question was:
How did this person usually get to work LAST WEEK? If this person usually used more than one method of transportation during the trip, mark (X) the box of the one used for most of the distance.
-- Car, truck, or van
-- Bus or trolley bus
-- Streetcar or trolley car
-- Subway or elevated
-- Railroad
-- Ferryboat
-- Taxicab
-- Motorcycle
-- Bicycle
-- Walked
-- Worked at home

In order to mark 'bicycle,' the person would have had to have usually gotten to work by bicycle in the previous week and used a bicycle for most of the trip. There might be no indication at all that they ever use a bicycle, even though they might frequently ride a bicycle to work.

The question is biased against bicycling.

A person might have bicycled to work twice in the previous week. They might have bicycled to work every day in other weeks. Yet they still wouldn't check 'bicycle'.

And when was the survey taken? If it's the middle of January in Buffalo, New York, it shouldn't be surprising that fewer than one person in a hundred usually rode a bicycle for most of their trip to work.

A less biased question would ask what modes of transportation are often used and allow for multiple answers.

The way the question was asked could also partially explain why the West did better than other regions.


That's true but the ones you list are also all on the West coast and some are also college towns. There are multiple factors at work.

I was impressed by the 0.8% figure for Alaska. That's higher than any state not in the West (although it only represents a few thousand workers who bicycle to work).

I also notice that relatively high mode shares tend to be rather localized phenomena.

All in all, I don't think the data is particularly useful.

closetbiker

it's bike to work week starting on Monday and this mornings paper had an editorial on bike commuting.

https://www.canada.com/vancouversun/n...d-66619e547feb

My figure was a little low. I said it's 3.3%, the editorial says it's 3.8% and it laments on a couple of the obstacles on the way to city officials goal of reaching 10% by 2010.

They cite weather as a problem, and skirt over the small problem of " discourteous and distracted drivers, chatting on their cellphones as they jump another stop sign, arrogant and unrepentant, posing a life-threatening risk to riders" and then focus the best part of the piece on the bike theft problem.

The city is also going over a proposal for a bike share program that is currently in use in Paris, France. If they manage to implement the program, I'd expect a large increase in ridership. Maybe it'll get close to that hoped for 10%.

UnsafeAlpine

Colorado 1.1%
I guess my town of 2800 isn't listed. By my calculations, though, er... 1 person rides.

Tabor

Oregon 1.7%
Portland metro area: 1.8%
Portland proper: 6%

JeffS

Strange, I always assume that all non-car numbers are overestimated due to the "wishful thinking" error - meaning when people are polled there is a tendency to lie about facts to make themselves look better.

crhilton

Lincoln, NE 1.5%.

crhilton

I'd guess there is another group who downplays. They might ride to work once a week and say they always drive. The numbers aren't terribly bloated.