A recent people for bikes blog post (and the better bike share blog post it's based on) try to tease out how bike share has increased bike commuting in the District. They make a noble effort, but there are just too many data limitations - in my opinion - to make any conclusions. But, my gut and my own observations tend to agree with the conclusions. Those being that bike share increased bike commuting across all races, but not equally.
There's a lot of problems with the data though. First it relies on American Community Survey data and as they note
When measuring commuting habits for all demographics except gender, the ACS uses the category “taxi, motorcycle, bicycle, or other means.” Lumping in “taxi,” “motorcycle,” and “other” along with bicycles makes it harder to draw specific conclusions, especially given the rise of ridesharing during the same time period.
Then, there's the problem that it doesn't really tell us anything about bike sharing. Bike commuting could be up because of better streets, a younger demographic, changes tastes, rising oil prices, etc...Of course, we know from Capital Bikeshare survey data that many people did start commuting by bikeshare or bikeshare and transit once they got a membership, but that's not mentioned in the articles. One thing that should help with this is that MWCOG plans to ask about bikesharing in their next "State of the Commute" Survey.
But we're not sure from ACS data how much the increase in TiMBO data is due to biking and we aren't sure how much any change in bike commuting is due to bikeshare. Still, it's good news to find out that a wide variety of people might be biking more.
(Note that the better bike share blog post claims that "DC is home to North America’s oldest bike share program." It isn't.)
Also, as my Valentine gift to you I present the video below. If someone doesn't make a CaBi version soon I will cry. Where are the Tune Ups when you need them?
It's not true that the ACS doesn't provide a way of looking at just bike commuters. The ACS five-year estimates might roll together "taxi, motorcycle, bicycle, or other means," but the estimates are summaries.
The actual survey asks about these transportation modes as separate categories. We can get (a sample of) the original ACS survey responses as PUMS data. A researcher, interested in the demographics of just bike commuters, would want to pull the PUMS data and run a custom analysis.
Posted by: David R. | February 14, 2018 at 11:17 AM
Nobody gives Tulsa its due. August 2007! http://www.tulsa-townies.com/
Posted by: darren | February 14, 2018 at 08:54 PM
I once asked Paul DeMaio for a ruling on that. He said Tulsa didn't count because they only had 2 stations or something. Anyway take it up with him.
Posted by: washcycle | February 14, 2018 at 09:04 PM
Three! If you leave one place and have a choice of 2+ other places to go, it's a network. Bixi? Asterixi. Tulsa? Sooner!
Posted by: darren | February 14, 2018 at 09:13 PM
Again, Paul gave it a thumbs down. My hands are tied here.
Posted by: washcycle | February 14, 2018 at 09:24 PM
I love that the guys in the video are rocking Expos jackets. That is retro cool!
Posted by: contrarian | February 15, 2018 at 10:28 AM