A recent post on governing.com provided an interactive map of US bike commuting activity. It’s worth a few minutes of your time to take a quick look. A few things to note:
- Date is based on the 2011 census numbers
- Bike commuting numbers do not necessarily reflect everyone who uses a bike for at least a portion of your commute. For instance, if you ride your bike to the train, but the majority of your commuting distance is covered by train, then only the train portion will count
- Many RI municipalities reported no bike commuting data and a few reported no bike commuting
Presumably, this data is compiled from information households provide. If this is the case, then I’m scratching my head over why some municipalities report zero bike commuting and others have no reported data? 
Perhaps even more important than this map is the interactive changes map. The subset of the map at the right shows a net decrease of bike commuters between the 2006 census and the 2011 census. While NYC and Boston (Cambridge really) show dramatic upswings in bike commuting, we are heading the other direction. In my mind, this is a clear indication of what an impact those in charge, mayors in both cities, can have. It also shows that our work is far from done.
Hopefully, we will see Newport on this map after the next round of census numbers come out?