While the vast majority of U.S. workers still use a car to commute to work, there are differences across states. The greenest commuters live in the District of Columbia, in New York and in Massachusetts, where 57 percent, 35 percent, and 15 percent of commuters use public transportation, ride a bike or simply walk to their workplaces. On the opposite end of the scale, we find the southern states of Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, where more than 9 in 10 commuters use a car to get to work, while less than 1 percent of workers use public transportation.
Even though the automobile dominates the American commute, bicycles are making strides in many locations. U.S. cities are turning around their reputation of being unfriendly to cyclists by introducing miles and miles of bike lanes. San Diego is on top of the bike lane league with an impressive 620 miles of on-street bike lanes, followed by Tucson with 610.
Tucson introduced a regional plan for bicycling in 2009 whereby “bicycle boulevards” were identified and introduced, as well as Cyclovia events where tens of thousands of Tucsonans take to closed-off streets on their bikes on a certain day. New York just about creeps into the top 10 with 338 miles of on-street bike lanes. America’s very first bike lane appeared there all the way back in 1894.
Find more statistics at Statista.
