The number of people bicycling to work in the United States has ballooned by 60 percent in the past decade, with Portland, Eugene and Corvallis among the cities leading the way, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

With Americans driving less, bicycling has shown the largest percentage increase of all commuting modes, the Census Bureau report said.

Nationwide, the number of people going by bike to work increased from about 488,000 in 2000 to more than 786,000 in 2012, the last year that complete data was available from the Census Bureau’s Community Survey.

Nationwide, bicyclists still account for fewer than 1 percent of all commuters (the number is closer to 2 percent in the Portland metro area). But within the Portland city limits, the number has more than tripled since the 2000 Census.

In fact, Portland leads all large cities with a bicycle commuting rate of 6.1 percent. (That’s the figure you use to win a beer bet with a Minneapolis resident who insists he’s from Bike City U.S.A.)

Of course, Minneapolis isn’t too shabby either: Its bicycle commuting rate jumped from 1.9 percent to 4.1 percent from the 2000 Census to the bureau's 2008-2012 Community Survey.

Although Portland bicycle advocates were happy to see their city once again held up as the gold standard, they expressed concerns about complacency.

Rob Sadowsky, executive director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, noted that the percentage of bicycle commuters in Portland has actually dropped a bit in recent years.

Sadosky said the alliance continues to push for protected and buffered bike lanes, some of which will require parking spots or a auto lane to be removed on busy streets. The group is focused on downtown, East Portland and arterials.

“Really,” he said, “we need to take bolder steps” if the city wants more commuters to feel safe enough to leave their cars at home. “But we’re in a situation where politicians are reluctant to take these steps and we lack the funding.”

A long-delayed $4 million bike-sharing system, which still lacks a sponsor, should boost the city's share of bicycle commuters in the near future, he said.

Portland's strategic bike plan calls for 25 percent of all trips in the city to be made on a bike by 2030.

Corvallis has the second highest rate of bicycle commuters among small cities, with 11.2 percent, the report said. Davis, Calif., with 18.6 percent of commuters riding bikes, led in that category.

Meanwhile, Eugene was second among medium-size cities, with 8.7 percent of all commuters riding bicycles. Boulder, Colo., with 10.5 percent, was first.

Seattle, with 3.4 percent of commuters riding bicycles, was the only other Northwest city to make the Census report's "bicycle towns" list.



"In recent years, many communities have taken steps to support more transportation options, such as bicycling and walking," said Brian McKenzie, a Census Bureau sociologist and the report's author, in a statement. "For example, many cities have invested in bike share programs, bike lanes and more pedestrian-friendly streets."

Still, based on the Census data, the bulk of those investments and commuting cultural shifts are happening in the West. Cambridge, Mass., was the only city east of the Mississippi River to merit a top-five ranking on the Census Bureau’s list of large, medium and small cities with the largest bicycling populations.

The median commute time for those who bike to work in the U.S. is about 19.3 minutes, according to the data.

The Census Bureau also released a new commuting edition of the interactive map Census Explorer, which allows easy click-and-zoom access to commuting statistics for every neighborhood in the U.S.

-- Joseph Rose