2007 Benchmarking Report - Alliance for Biking & Walking

PHOTO COURTESY OF TRANSPORTATION ALTERNATIVES
(cont. from page 22)
Looking at Sex and Ethnicity of Cyclists
The 2005 ACS provides demographic data including sex
and ethnicity for cyclists. Men make up 78% of all bike commuters.
The gaps between men and women cyclists differ from
state to state. New Jersey, Delaware and Oklahoma have just
13% women cyclists. New Mexico has the smallest gap between
men and women cyclists of any state with 40% of cyclists being
female. The ACS reports ethnicity only as white and non-white.
Data show that non-white workers have only a slightly higher
bike share of work trips than the average worker.
Cycling Safety
Cyclists are at a disproportionate risk for being a victim
of a traffic fatality. The project team reviewed three sources of
fatality data for this report: Fatality Analysis Reporting System
(FARS), Web-based Injury Statistics Query & Reporting System
(WISQARS), and State and City surveys. The team identified
discrepancies between data from the two national data sources
and what states reported. Although all three data sources differed
(see Appendix 4 for details), the greatest similarities were
between the state surveys and FARS data. Thus the team relied
on FARS data for analysis of bicycle safety for states. Because
there is no national source for these data for cities, City Surveys
were used to provide information on fatalities.
Though bicyclists account for fewer than 0.90% of all
trips (according to NHTS estimates), they account for 1.7% of all
traffic fatalities. In the most populous cities, where cycling mode
share is estimated at 0.94%, cyclists represent 1.9% of all traffic
fatalities. Hawaii ranks highest among states for percentage of
traffic fatalities that are cyclists (4.0%) and San Jose, CA ranks
highest among cities (8.9%).
Bicycle Industry
The bicycle industry plays an integral role in cycling
as they provide the vehicle, parts, and services that all cyclists
need. The Benchmarking team collected data on the number
of bike shops and retail sales of bike shops in cities. These data
are organized by Designated Market Areas (DMAs) which are
metropolitan areas and thus are larger than city boundaries. For
example, San Francisco and Oakland are reported as a single
DMA, as are Dallas and Forth Worth. For DMAs containing two
major cities, the number of shops was multiplied by the percent
of the combined population represented by each city. Because all
DMAs are metropolitan areas, the comparison by city is only an
approximation. The data are displayed as number of people per
bicycle shop to show how the bicycling market differs among
study areas. Data show that cities where the ratio of people to
bike shops is lowest are also some of the larger urban areas
including Boston, Oakland, Minneapolis and Seattle. Cities average
one bike shop per 33,663 people. Boston has the highest
rate of per capita bike shops with one bike shop for every 3,591
people. Charlotte has the lowest rate among cities with one shop
for every 339,196 people.
Bike shops in the most-populous cities bring in $57 per
resident in retail sales. However, this number may be slightly
inflated since data is reported by DMA. By dividing bike sales
for a metropolitan area by the population of the major city in that
area, results are likely to be slightly inflated for all cities.
CURRENT STATUS OF BICYCLING
Benchmarking Bicycling Bicycling & Walking & Walking/ the U.S./ Thunderhead Alliance 2007 2007
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