The Census Bureau released its annual American Community Survey yesterday and for the 3rd year in a row bike commuting was down nationwide, and by an even larger number than last year. In 2016 data, bike commuting went down from 0.597% to 0.575% or about 22000 people total. In 2017 it dropped to 0.547% which is about 27,000 people. There are now about 836,000 American bike commuters according to the Census. Last year Streetsblog theorizes that the drop in global gas prices worldwide was the cause of the drop, which seems reasonable - people do respond to financial incentives, but the cost of gas isn't really that much of the cost of driving so I'm still skeptical. Adding to my doubt is the fact that since 2014, driving is also down - from 85.7% to 85.3%. The more likely cause is that working from home, which is up more than 10% over that time, is eating into every other mode.
Driving, transit, walking and biking are all down; taxis, motorcycles, and working from home are all up. Nearly 8 million people now work from home. In 2006, that was less than 5.5 million.
But for us, the big news is that DC continues to buck the trend. Bike commuting continues to grow - from 4.6% of all commuters last year to 5%*, which is another record high and means we have met the goal set in the 2005 bike plan for 2015. So two years late, but still a good sign. I suspect that will keep DC in 2nd place behind Portland for major cities, but haven't seen a full list yet.
*Actually it's 4.96%, but the judges say we'll accept the answer.
Unfortunately, driving in DC rose for the first time in a few years, from 38.1% to 39.6%; walking dropped again, to 12.7% from 13.7% and transit use was down. A lot. From 36.1% to 32.7%. Working from home meanwhile was up from 6% to 7.37%. The biggest growth percentage-wuse came from the "taxi, motorcycle and other" group. It was up to 2.73% from 1.61%. I'm going to guess that's Uber/Lyft.
Elsewhere the news is also mixed:
Arlington which last year tied Boston, dropped a full percentage point from 2.4% to 1.4%.
Alexandria, which dropped by a 3rd in 2017, came roaring back. It doubled from 0.9% to 1.8%.
Silver Spring, continues to recover, doubling from 0.6% to 1.2% .
Rockville which last year dropped from 0.7% to 0.1% rose back up to 0.8%
Gaithersburg which, having reached 0% last year, had no where to go but up is now at 0.2%
Just to note the numbers for the smaller jurisdictions are very sketchy, because the sample size is so tiny. I am sure biking in Rockville was not nearly that volatile. Better to aggregate several years of ACS data.
Posted by: ACyclistInThePortCIty | September 14, 2018 at 11:26 AM
Whoa, that's a huge drop in Arlington.
Posted by: Crickey | September 14, 2018 at 02:24 PM
Sadly, I've decided to stop bike commuting and decided to walk instead. Takes much longer but it is just too dangerous. I'd be curious to know if that's common here.
Posted by: Atlas Cesar | September 14, 2018 at 04:11 PM
Error and uncertainty rise as you get to smaller and smaller populations and sample sizes. A well known statistical and epistemological problem. It shows in the year over year variability, especially in small jurisdictions and especially with modes that are only getting single digit percentages
Posted by: Will H | September 16, 2018 at 11:47 PM