More Americans are biking to work, says the Census

There are lots of graphs in this article. Click on the link for the full article.

http://voices.suntimes.com/news/transportation-news/cycling-transpo...

The number of Americans who biked to work increased to 786,000 during the 2008-2012 time span, officials say. That’s an almost 61 percent increase from the 488,000 who said they rode bikes to work in 2000. Of the 1.2 million workers in Chicago, 1 percent biked to work in 2012, a .4 percent increase since 2000.

Those numbers are still dwarfed by the number of workers who drive or carpool to work. There were 140 million workers: 86.2 of them carpooled or drove alone to work. Only 0.6 percent biked and 2.6 percent walked.

But the number of bikers is increasing. In 1980, only 0.5 percent biked to work. That dropped to 0.4 percent in 1990 and 2000. But now those numbers are increasing again, the Census Bureau says.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on May 8, 2014 at 11:28am
Permalink Reply by Tricolor on May 9, 2014 at 3:59am

Considering they get a guaranteed left turn without bikes or pedestrians in the way (assuming they follow their own signals) I'd say turning traffic comes out ahead with this arrangement.

Permalink Reply by Simon Phearson on May 9, 2014 at 4:14am

It really depresses me that this seems to be the constituency against smarter cycling infrastructure. They will continue to vote for politicians that will continue to press for stupid measures intended to discourage bike-commuting, which will increase congestion and transit use, and then they'll want their politicians to do something about that, too - like build more lanes, push bikes off even more streets, etc.

Anyone who doesn't like to wait for through-bikes to cross on Dearborn just needs to ask themselves whether they'd prefer to have bikes in the rightmost traffic lane, with the cars. You give up a longer left-turn light for freer traffic flow and right turns on the other side of the street. That's a good trade-off, even if it inconveniences the solipsistic drivers who can't think beyond their own dashboards.

Jeff Schneider said:

Comment on WLS radio this morning was that 99% of Chicagoans don't commute by bike.  They were griping about the Dearborn bike lanes.  Waiting for the signal to make a left turn from Dearborn onto Wacker is a big issue for drivers in their opinion.

Permalink Reply by Michelle S on May 9, 2014 at 4:26am

It's been funny to see how different new outlets spun the news release from the census bureau, which focused on the fact that nationwide, there has been a 60% increase in bike commuting since 2000. Here's the headline they used for the article at the Des Moines Register:

"Iowans Prefer Driving to Bicycling to Get To Work"

Permalink Reply by Tricolor on May 9, 2014 at 4:27am

I wouldn't begin to blame bikes for problems truing right or left.  Pedestrians are a bigger issue than bikes; even for left turns from Dearborn.  The city really blew an opportunity at State and Jackson when they set it up to have an all-way pedestrian scramble without restricting pedestrians at other times and ended up removing all turn options from both streets.  A three phase set up with pedestrians, est-west, and north-south with turns would have smoothed flow for everyone.

Permalink Reply by Michelle S on May 9, 2014 at 4:34am

The Sun Times article is wrong in a few ways:

Of the 1.2 million workers in Chicago, 1 percent biked to work in 2012, a .4 percent increase since 2000.

Actually, the data in the census report says that in 2000, .5 percent of Chicago workers biked to work, whereas in 2012, 1.3 percent did. This is a 160% increase in bike commuting in Chicago, far more than doubling in 12 years.

 

Permalink Reply by Marc A. Irwin on May 9, 2014 at 5:19am

Now what is bothering me is that Strava is selling their data to traffic engineers.  Oregon paid $20000 to find out that 17,700 riders rode 282 miles a year.   Divided by 12 that sounds like one club ride a month.  If the engineers think that indicates anything resembling daily usage they will be wasting a lot of money on routes having nothing to do with commuting.

Permalink Reply by Tricolor on May 9, 2014 at 5:21am

What's an app that's preferred by commuters?  I've been using Endomondo for every bike trip I make including commutes for the last year.

Permalink Reply by Eli on May 9, 2014 at 5:36am

I would imagine that very few commuters use any kind of app.

Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on May 9, 2014 at 6:22am

Has anyone reached out so they can correct it?

Michelle Stenzel said:

The Sun Times article is wrong in a few ways:

Of the 1.2 million workers in Chicago, 1 percent biked to work in 2012, a .4 percent increase since 2000.

Actually, the data in the census report says that in 2000, .5 percent of Chicago workers biked to work, whereas in 2012, 1.3 percent did. This is a 160% increase in bike commuting in Chicago, far more than doubling in 12 years.

 

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