Since the release of the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest American Community Survey data showing how Americans get to work, headlines across the country have been sounding a death knell for bike commuting.

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“Fewer Americans bike to work despite new lanes, trails, and bicycle share programs,” USA Today declared. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby asked whether “bike-lane fever” was “breaking,” and even argued against new bike lanes due to the decrease in cyclists riding to work.

Indeed, the number of people biking to work nationwide declined in 2017, hitting a low of about 837,000 commuters since peaking at nearly 905,000 in 2014. Even in cities commonly thought of as bike-friendly, like San Francisco and Seattle, bike commuting fell between 2016 and 2017—by significant percentages, in some cases.

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But those numbers tell only a small part of the story. If you look a little further in the past, cycling in the U.S. is still way up across the board. And in many cities—including Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Honolulu, New York City, and Washington, D.C.—bike commuting only continues to grow.



We took a closer look at the data and found that you shouldn’t play a requiem for biking to work just yet.

Where the numbers come from



Each year, the American Community Survey (ACS) asks about 1 percent of Americans a series of questions, including how they get to work. After 12 months of collecting this data, the Census Bureau compiles it into annual estimates that can provide demographic snapshots between the official 10-year Census.

But ACS data, like any year-by-year survey data, often fluctuates and can tell whatever story you want it to tell. Variables like gas prices, the overall economy, and the regional job market all factor into how people get to work, and what’s true now may not be true next year.

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In Philly, where I live and work as an advocate with the Bicycling Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, bike commuting actually jumped 20.5 percent between 2016 and 2017.

There are many reasons for this, one of which is obvious: Cycling is more common where the terrain is flat, and the city’s greater downtown area, where cycling rates are highest, sits on a dense grid of colonial-era streets. As people return to Philly after decades of population loss, some of them will inevitably choose to commute via bike. The same goes for many East Coast cities that have seen their bike-to-work numbers continue to rise.

Heck, bike commuting in Philadelphia is up 358.7 percent since 1990. As long as there are jobs here, people will bike to those jobs. That the city is now (slowly) installing safer, protected bike infrastructure only means commuting numbers may rise more steadily than they have in the past.



Bike commuting continues to grow in Philadelphia. Mark Makela Getty Images

The problem with ACS data

I’m psyched Philadelphia’s numbers rose between 2016 and 2017. I’m also prepared for them to fall next year. Or rise again.

That’s just the way these things work. You can go crazy analyzing year-by-year data, tracking numbers as they fluctuate. But it makes more sense to look at longer-term data, which is readily available.

San Francisco has been much-discussed in the supposed decline of biking to work in the U.S. Though bike commuting rates in that city fell by 19.9 percent between 2016 and 2017, they’re still up nearly 40 percent since 2006. Seattle, where bike commuting fell by about a quarter between 2015 and 2017, can still boast a more than 20 percent increase since 2006.

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And nationwide, bike commuting grew by a good 43 percent between 2000 and 2017—even if, in the last few years, it saw a slight drop from its peak. Media narratives about the decline in biking to work have failed to step back and note these longer-term trends that occur over decades.

Bike commuting in San Francisco fell between 2016 and 2017, but it’s still up nearly 40 percent since 2006. Justin Sullivan Getty Images

Now let’s talk about who isn’t counted. Say you live in a city but drive to work in an office park. When work is over, you drive home. Your friend calls later on, and you go out to meet her for dinner. And you ride your bike.

In fact, you ride your bike to do a lot of things: grocery shopping, trips to the dentist, whatever. You may use your bike for everything but commuting to work. If that’s the case, the ACS doesn’t count you as a bike commuter.

If you are a student who bikes to school every day, the ACS doesn’t count you, either. If you are one of the 8 million Americans who works from home and you also bike everywhere you go, guess what? The ACS won’t consider you a bike commuter.

The Census double-standard

Driving has risen and fallen, year by year, over the last century. But one thing remains constant: the construction of new roads. The U.S. built an average of 13,788 centerline miles of new roads each year between 2000 and 2013. They weren’t built based on the percentage change of people driving or not driving to work.

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For cyclists, however, year-by-year Census data does factor into whether cities decide to build new bike lanes. (It also provides anti-bike fodder for newspaper columnists.) Getting bike lanes installed isn’t a given in most U.S. cities. It requires advocacy, data mining, and organizing for public meetings. Cyclists need to show up and make a case for themselves, with evidence, if they want to argue for better bike infrastructure.

So if your city has “bike-lane fever” and is implementing changes on the ground, that’s a positive sign. Bike lanes—especially protected ones—have been shown to make everyone, of all commuting modes, safer. A one-year blip in the increase or decrease of bike commuters shouldn’t stop them from happening.