Mumford & Sons 1I came across this handy map from the people at FlowingData that lets you see how people get to work county by county across the US. The featured photo to the left is a screen grab of Monroe County. The data is from the Census Bureau’s 2013 American Community Survey.

It will probably come as no surprise that almost everyone in Monroe County drives to work. But it surprised me that more people don’t car pool. 82% of people drive to work alone. Only 8% car pool. 3% take public transit, 3% walk to work and 1% bike — yes, even in winter.

Back in May, we looked at data (2008-2012) from a Census Bureau report on bicycling and walking to work that indicated 6.5% of people in Rochester walk to work. Rochester ranked 15th in the nation for walking commuters. Nationwide, only 2.8% of people walk to work. Large cities in the Northeast had the most walkers. And that makes sense, given that most of those large cities were built before there were cars so there is a glimmer of multimodalness left; unlike places like Orlando and Tampa, which grew from a different era. The report sums it up pretty perfectly: “Much of the developed landscape in the United States was designed to accommodate automobile travel, complicating travel by walking or bicycling in many areas.”

And anyone who commutes via foot or bike knows complicated is just what we have now. I would venture to say that in most places it’s actually not complicated at all — it’s just one-sided. Built for cars, not people.

Much of the developed landscape in the United States was designed to accommodate automobile travel, complicating travel by walking or bicycling in many areas.

Those of us who live in urban areas or towns/villages that have fought for walkability are lucky. At least we already have infrastructure that includes sidewalks, crosswalks, trees and narrower streets. Often, our fight is just redesigning the streetscapes and changing the mindset of what it means to be a participant in a vibrant community with living streets.

That last one is a doozy. Mindset can be a terrible thing to change. But if Oklahoma City and Phoenix (yes, I said “Oklahoma City and Phoenix”) can do it, then we surely can.

How do you get to work everyday?
What impacts your decision to take that mode of transportation?

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Written by: Renee
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