Tuesday, March 29, 2011

New Data Graphic Reflects The Awesomeness of Philly Bike Culture



Philadelphia has just nudged up a little higher into the National bike culture consciousness.

We have the data, and have blogged about it here and here, but a new info-graphic created by Kory Northrop, a master’s student in the Environmental Studies program at the University of Oregon has been making the rounds in the bike blogosphere over the past couple of days.

Considering that our fair city is often at the bottom of these types of "best of" lists (or top of "worst of" lists) its refreshing to be in the forefront especially, when the data comes from the US Census not some list generated by a publication trying sell magazines.

Northrop's graphic takes the 2009 American Community Survey Data (ACS) for the 70 largest cities and ranked them. Philadelphia landed in 9th place with a whopping 2.16% of all Philadelphians traveling to work primarily via bicycle.

In Philadelphia only 37% of the cycling population is female, that is however somewhat higher than the National average of 27%. Women are seen by experts as an indicator species in cycling statistics. Studies have shown that the most bike friendly places draw the highest percentages of female cyclists. In Northern Europe the percentage of women vs men who cycle often exceeds 50%.

Philadelphia is a big city and the intensity of bicycle commuting varies widely throughout. We are continuing to drill down with the Census Data and last year's bicycle counts to get a clearer picture of cycling in the City. Look for a report from the BCGP within the next few weeks.

1 comments:

barryg said...

Philadelphia is the largest city on that list by far (nearly twice as populous as #2), and also one of the most diverse. To have this kind of cycling population in such a large, diverse city is really a spectacular achievement.