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43% Increase in Bicycle Commuting Since 2000
According to the US Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey (ACS), released today, 0.55% of American workers use a bicycle as the primary means of getting to work. This is up 14 percent since 2007, 36 percent from the first ACS in 2005, and 43 percent since the 2000 Census. See the League of American Bicyclists’ analysis of the numbers for the 70 largest US cities and the 50 states. You can look up this information for hundreds of communities and all of the states using the American Fact Finder.
Percent of Americans who bike to work
2000 Census: 0.38%
2005: 0.40%
2006: 0.45%
2007: 0.48%
2008: 0.55%
Percent Change
2000 to 2008: 43.40%
2005 to 2008: 35.80%
2007 to 2008: 14.30%
NOTES: The ACS numbers are estimated by the Census bureau based on samples taken year-round. The numbers in the tables above are rounded, if you calculate the percentages based on the rounded numbers, you’ll get different values than are presented in the second table.
~Darren Flusche, League Policy Analyst
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September 22nd, 2009 at 8:23 pm
The number of bike commuters was estimated to be 786,098 +/- 16,011. If you also consider that the total number of commuters (the denominator) has a spread of +/- 139,905 the percentages could range from 0.534% in the worst case and 0.558% in the best case. So, even in the worst case scenario it seems that there has been a significant growth in bicycle commuting (hooray!). When you cite estimated data (e.g. ACS) it is useful to remind folks that there is a range of values to consider. In some cases the range can be quite large and may affect your analysis.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:26 am
JR,
Thank you for your comment. What you point out is especially important for smaller communities which sometimes have very small sample sizes leading to much larger margins of errors.We will highlight this and other issues with the ACS when we provide the more detailed breakdowns.
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Thanks so much for posting this! I look forward to your more detailed breakdowns. Exciting news, reinforces what many of us are experiencing anecdotally.
~Tom, part of the 43% since 2000
September 28th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
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September 29th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Where is the bicycle breakout found?
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March 19th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
I cycled regularly to work when I was competing in cycling competitions. It kept me fit and cut out all the unnecessary waiting time for buses, taxis, etc.. So Yippee for the working cyclist.
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