Pittsburgh a top ten car-free commute for large cities

By Bobby Kerlik

Published: Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, 11:51 p.m. 

Waiting for his bus home from Downtown on Tuesday, Jack King was surprised to hear Pittsburgh ranks eighth among large cities where people commute to work by means other than cars.

“It’s cheaper. The gas, the oil and parking is immensely expensive. The bus, in the end, saves me money,” King, 52, of Brighton Heights, said.

Bike Pittsburgh Executive Director Scott Bricker [says]…the city should invest in dedicated bike lanes with barriers separating vehicular traffic.

“It doesn’t look like we’ve moved at all in biking. It’s impressive Pittsburgh is ranking in the top 10 in these lists, but we’re seeing other cities making investments in biking infrastructure. We’ve plateaued.”

The Institute for Quality Communities at the University of Oklahoma dug through Census Bureau data — from the 2012 American Community Survey — on how Americans travel to work in the 60 largest cities and released its finding this week. Some walk, some bike, some use public transit.

Among Pittsburgh residents, 29.2 percent matched that category.

Among Northeast cities, Pittsburgh trailed New York, Washington, Boston and Philadelphia. But compared to Midwest cities, Pittsburgh trailed only Chicago, besting Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, St. Louis and others. Pittsburgh was well ahead of southern cities including Miami, Dallas and San Diego.
“I’d say that’s pretty good overall — eighth,” said Shane Hampton, a fellow at the Institute for Quality Communities who researched the data…

Read the full article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

To see our analysis of this data since 2006, click here.

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