Chart of the Day: Commuting by Automobile since 1960

Via Planetizen, here’s a chart with some handy-dandy ACS data:

commuting-chart-automobile-history

Some comment on the data from Emily Badger:

… the decline in auto commuting among millennials applies to those “who live in the principle city of each metropolitan area — so, not the suburbs.” A four-point decline [see second bullet above] may not sound like much (it means about 76.7 percent of these young urban workers still commute by car). But since 2006, the rate of their decline in driving is about four times greater than the national average. And, as the [below] chart shows, changes in commuting patterns happen gradually over many years.

So, it really matters where you live. And carpooling isn’t cool any more.

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.