Charts of the Day: Minneapolis Bike Commuting (Vs. the Rest of the USA)

Here are three charts showing how Minneapolis ranks compared to other cities (such as Portland, OR) in terms of bicycle commute-to-work mode share as measured by the ACS Census Data (an annual in-depth door-to-door survey).

While each of these charts use the same data, they look very different! The first is through 2011, and shows a declining trend. The second includes 2012 numbers, and is more optimistic. The third is from BikePortland and offers annual numbers which show a plateau for Portland, OR.

(Note: the ACS data has a relatively small sample size, and is thus prone to some random statistical fluctuation. Also note: I blogged about some of the differences between these counts and the Minneapolis city-wide counts last year, for the curious.)

2011 ACS bike modeshare

 

2012 ACS bike modeshare

[This second graph, which seems to use rolling averages, is from The Atlantic Citylab.]

2012 ACS bike modeshare 2

[For good measure, another graph of the same data which is less sanguine about Portland’s ascendancy.]

Finally, I couldn’t find the 2013 numbers for some reason. If anyone has a link to those, please share in the comments!

Bill Lindeke

About Bill Lindeke

Pronouns: he/him

Bill Lindeke has writing blogging about sidewalks and cities since 2005, ever since he read Jane Jacobs. He is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota Geography Department, the Cityscape columnist at Minnpost, and has written multiple books on local urban history. He was born in Minneapolis, but has spent most of his time in St Paul. Check out Twitter @BillLindeke or on Facebook.