The League of American Bicyclists released an analysis of the Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey earlier this week. The last numbers I looked at, for 2008 listed Providence with 1.2% of commuters using bicycles as their primary means of transportation, so with this edition, seems to be an increase. Since the survey is largely compiled using statistical methods and a low number of survey respondents the error margins are pretty high at about +/-0.5%, but that’s lower than the margin suggested in 2008 of +/-0.7%.
Full Data and better explanation of the limitations of the the ACS data can be found on the League’s blog post, full data for 2010 is available, as is a data sheet of the 70 largest US cities over the last decade. Alas, no city in Rhode Island is in the 70 largest.
Apparently, even without State or Cities investing or expanding cycling infrastructure, more people are riding. Perhaps now we can argue more easily that spending 1.5% of federal surface transportation dollars on making 2% of road users safer is a good investment.
City State Population Total Workers Percentage of Bicycle Commuters Number of Bike Commuters Bike Commuters Margin of Error Percent of bike commuters who are female Female Bicycle Estimate Female Bicycle Margin of Error Percent of bike commuters who are male Male Bicycle Estimate Male Bicycle Margin of Error USA USA 309,349,689 136,941,010 0.53% 731,286 15556 26% 193100 7156 74% 538186 13372
Cranston Rhode Island 80,424 35,793 0.8% 274 294 77% 210 275 23% 64 109 Pawtucket Rhode Island 71,204 31,761 1.2% 384 343 12% 45 74 88% 339 338 Providence Rhode Island 178,162 70,344 2.0% 1,422 672 16% 228 237 84% 1194 675