Creative bike parking in Palo Alto, where about 10% of commutes are by bike. Photo credit: Adam Fagen
Bicycling accounts for roughly 0.5% of commuting on the national level, but if you feel like you see more bikes on your commute around here it could be because California, and more specifically the Bay Area, leads the nation in bicycle commuting as demonstrated by the latest Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
Perhaps as no surprise, Davis is the top bicycling city, where 16% of commutes are by bicycle, followed by Palo Alto where bicycles make up 10% of commutes. Boulder, Colorado claims the number three spot with a 9.6% bicycle commute mode-share but the Bay Area is back at number four with Berkeley, where approximately 8.8% of commutes are done by bicycle.
Other Bay Area cities with significant bicycle commute mode-shares include Mountain View, San Francisco and Oakland, with 6.1%, 3.4%, 3% commute mode-shares, respectively.
Having the Bay Area lead in bicycle commuting is great news, and not just for the environment or cyclists. When more people cycle or take public transit everyone benefits in traffic as Good Magazine conveyed last year in a clever 1 minute video, illustrating that even a small modal shift away from driving can vastly reduce unwanted congestion.
