Every year since 2009, Portlanders have been dealt gloomy news by the US Census Bureau.
The bureau’s yearly estimates of how working adults (well, people 16 and over) get to work have been a source of jubilation and swagger in the last decade—with a relatively whopping 6 percent bike commuting rate fairly shaming other major US cities’ commuting rates. Then in 2009, Portland’s commuting strides began to stagnate.
People got depressed, and then mad. We were stuck at six.
But maybe we’re back in business? BikePortland’s Michael Andersen first reported this morning that 2014’s estimates show the biggest jump in bike commuting in years. The bureau now estimates 23,347 people—about 7.2 percent of Portland’s “adult” working population—bikes to work. There are the usual margin of error caveats, but it’s the highest percentage this city (any large American city) has ever seen, and it continues to dwarf the bike commuting of “competitors” like Seattle, Minneapolis, and Washington, DC. Andersen checked.
It also comes at a time when there’s reason to believe Portland can capitalize on the momentum.
Bike share is supposed to be on the way next summer. It’ll absolutely increase bike use in Portland, though we may not see that in the census numbers. Also, a still-foggy large-scale bike infrastructure project is expected to make it easier for cyclists to get around downtown in the near future. In the meantime, the city just agreed on a set of guidelines to make its bike-centric “neighborhood greenways” safer, Old Town’s about to get downtown’s best bike lane (so far), and small tweaks are being made to the Portland bike network all the time.
This is good news, as Portland works toward a goal of curbing carbon emissions and getting 25 percent of the population commuting by bike by 2030. Definitely go read BikePortland’s fulsome take on this data.
BIKES!!!1
Whoa, a WHOLE 7% !!
We need to institute major Bike Freeways immediately.
This is good. However, the uptick in biking occurred during an unseasonably dry year. Let’s see if the numbers hold up when we have a normal water year. Bear in mind also that Portland had a big uptick in drivers also. Transit was stagnant.
Bikes are good- but they are not the magic bullet.
25 per cent ? That’ll be the day.
That percentage is about the same amount of people who claimed they were sexual assaulted by Hart Noecker in Portland. Good job re-posting a BikePortland article ( can you come up with something original for once?). Too bad you never picked up the story about your Facebook buddy having multiple people accuse him of sexual assault.