Biking To Work In Chicago More Than Doubled In Last Decade
By Chuck Sudo in News on May 8, 2014 7:30PM
How popular has bicycling become in Chicago? So much that the number of people commuting to work via pedal power has more than doubled in the last decade.
The U.S. Census released a report Thursday that shows an average of 15,780 Chicagoans commute via bicycle, compared to 5,960 cyclists 10 years ago. The current number accounts for 1.3 percent of all commuters, a boost over the 0.5 percent of total commuters in 2000. Obviously, these numbers are still low compared to commuting by car, but this is a victory for the Little Bike People and proof the infrastructure encouraging bicycling enacted by the Daley and Emanuel administrations, such as buffered and protected bike lanes, stoplights for buffered lanes and bike-sharing programs, has borne some zero carbon footprint fruit.
Nationwide the number of people who commute to work via bicycle increased by 60 percent over the past decade. The Census report notes that number exceeded the percentage increase of all other travel modes during that period. The report’s author, Brian McKenzie, told DNAInfo Chicago the number of people walking to work in Chicago has also increased over the past decade. Currently, 6.4 percent of Chicagoans walk to work.
Read the full report here as a PDF file.