BIKE: Percentage of Austin Bike Commuters

[Lane S. Wimberley]

Hi David.  Thanks for this interesting info.  My feeling is that you
are probably correct in your intuition.  Most of the growth has been
in the suburbs.  The upside of this is that it means that, in order
for Austin to have maintained (just under) 1% bike commuters, the
percentage in the inner city must have increased, perhaps quite a
bit.  So, since the majority of the spending on bike infrastructure
has been (correct me if I'm wrong here) in the inner city, I see this
as confirmation that such spending is effective.

On the downside, I think this also confirms what Mike Dahmus has been
saying for a long time regarding the need for more spending OUTSIDE
the city core.  I feel quite comfortable getting just about anywhere
inside Austin, but once I target a destination north of 183, or out
west of, say, 360, I'm compelled to leave the bike in the garage and
jump in the car.  Ugh.

My physical therapist was saying the same thing to me just this
morning.  He would happily commute the 17 miles from Leander in to his
office -- wishes he could -- but the route is just too hairy.  Ie,
there just aren't any reasonably safe routes out in the car-centric
design of the 'burbs.  Just makes me angry when a place so obviously
displays a car bias in its design, to the utter exclusion of all other
forms of transportation.

But then, I'm just preaching to the choir, eh?

I was in Dallas last weekend.  I grew up in Dallas (I know; save your
pity).  It is still a very car-intensive city, but I must say that the
light rail is really impressive.  Limited at the moment, but very
cool.  It is largely (if not entirely) grade-separated, and still very
accessible.  And, I also saw far more cyclists in the lower Greenville,
Lakewood, Lake Highlands and other areas than I ever saw twenty five
years ago when I used to live there.

-Lane

David Foster writes:
> I have run across a great web page which allows you to query U.S. census 
> data to create tables of stats for how people get to work in U.S. cities: 
> http://www.bikesatwork.com/carfree/carfree-census-database.html. This is 
> not to be confused with bikestowork.com which Michael Bluejay lists on his 
> web page.
> 
> The bikeatwork web page allows you to create tables which rank cities of 
> different size or in different states by % of bike commuters, walk 
> commuters, transit users, non-car users, and households without a car. The 
> tables list stats for both the 1990 and 2000 census so you can get some 
> idea of how things have changed.
> 
> Sadly but perhaps not surprisingly, Austin does not rank so well. Among 
> cities of 250,00 and more we rank 17th in % of bike-to-work commuters at 
> 0.96%. This is only slightly higher than the
> 0.76%  for 1990. Among Texas cities, Austin ranks 4th, behind College 
> Station, Galveston and Bryan. In College Station and Bryan, the high % of 
> college students skews the number for the good, no doubt.
> 
> The census numbers for Austin corresponds closely to the numbers CAMPO 
> produces every three years in its travel survey. The most recent one was 
> done earlier this year and can be found on the CAMPO web page 
> www.campotexas.org; the link is on the home page under the title '2004 
> CAMPO Transportation Issues Survey Executive Summary.' According to this 
> survey, the % of bike commuters in 2004 remains about where it was 10 years 
> ago, at 1%. This is distressing since we created a bike program and passed 
> a two-part bike plan in 1996 and 1997, have approved bond money for bike 
> projects, etc.  Perhaps the 'good' news is that the number of bike 
> commuters in absolute terms must have risen since we have gained so much 
> population since 1990, so our numbers must be keeping pace, roughly, with 
> this growth.
> 
> My guess is that there are great disparities depending on where you live. 
> Inside the central city, bounded roughly by Ben White on the south, MOPAC 
> on the west, and 183 on the north and east, my guess is the % of bike 
> commuters is significantly higher than 1%, but I have no way at present to 
> measure or prove this (I do not have the time to dig into census tract data 
> that might allow me to answer this question). But we know that most of the 
> growth Austin experienced since 1994 has been in the form of auto-oriented 
> sprawl subdivisions outside the central city, which has off-set any gains 
> made inside the central city, where (at least my intuition tells me) the 
> numbers have been climbing. And once we finally get around to completing 
> the Pfluger Bridge and the Lance Armstrong Bikeway, to name just two 
> obvious improvements, the numbers should climb more.
> 
> There are some encouraging indicators in CAMPO' s survey. Although over 90% 
> of commuters drive alone, about 26% of them would be willing to bike 'if 
> conditions are right for them.'  Of this 26%, 37.5%  said they would be 
> either willing or very willing to consider biking if they had 'safer bike 
> paths and lanes', and another 33.7% said they would be willing to do if 
> they had 'safer conditions.'  About 28% of commuters of all types work 
> within 5 miles or less of where they live, an easily bikeable distance. So 
> the potential for increasing the mode share in of biking in Austin is 
> large, as we have saying for many years now.
> 
> Still, I found it sobering to read how little progress we seem to have made 
> over the last 10-15 years. I also ran across an article from the Austin 
> Chronicle where Rick Waring, the city's Bike Coordinator in the mid 1990s, 
> said his goal was to increase bike commuting to 8% of work trips by 2015. 
> We have a lot of work to do. And does any one on this list recall if CAMPO 
> (known earlier as ATS or Austin Transportation Study) had a specific 
> numerical goal for bike commuting? I think they did but cannot find  it.
> 
> My hope is that the Envision Central Texas vision takes hold of policy 
> makers and we do urban infill and mixed-use, transit-oriented development 
> where we can. Check out the 'resources' link on the 
> www.envisionsentraltexas.org web page for information about emerging plans 
> or proposal for transit oriented development.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Get on or off this list here:  http://BicycleAustin.info/list




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Lane Wimberley, Wayport, Inc.,  512.519.6195 (voice)  512.519.6200 (fax)
Southpark Commerce Center II, 4509 Freidrich Lane, Austin, TX 78744