The scene in Market Square during 2024’s Bike to Work Day

Our annual look at how residents commute in the top 60 US cities focuses on post-pandemic changes

The Covid pandemic caused shockwaves in all aspects of life. Not only did it change how people commute to their jobs, but also where those jobs are located. Notably, there has been no greater shift in how and where people work than those who now work from home (WFH) compared to pre-pandemic times. Pittsburgh is on the upper end of WFH cities, and the ripple effect has upended transit service and central business district economies not only here, but across the country. We’re just finding out about the 2023 numbers that provide us with some insights about how US workers now get to their jobs.

According to the US Census’ American Community Survey (ACS, 1-year estimate), in 2019 about 7% of Pittsbughers worked from home. Today (2023), that number is at 18%, two and a half times more people than before the pandemic a mere five years ago. Of the 60 largest US cities, Pittsburgh ranks 9th out of the largest 60 cities in the number of people who WFH. 

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For those who are commuting away from their home, the biggest shakeup in Pittsburgh unfortunately remains transit, going from 17.3% of Pittsburgh workers in 2019 to 13.6% in the latest stats.

One positive effect of the realignment is that fewer Pittsburghers are driving solo to work today than in 2019, going from 54.1% to below half for the first time. This is interesting because the number of Pittsburgh workers with access to a vehicle went up slightly, as did the number who use a taxi. 

While the number of Pittsburghers who walked to work dropped about 2 points, we still remain one of the the top cities in the country for workers who walk to their job.

Which brings us to bicycling. Initially, like the other modes that brought workers to their jobs, the pandemic caused an initial drop in the number of bike commuters. However, now that we are no longer operating under a world that revolves around a pandemic, bicycling has rebounded to the same rate as it was previous to Covid, despite all the other modes besides taxis taking significant hits. For comparison, other cities did not recover their bicycling mode share as Pittsburgh has done. For example, Minneapolis, long a model of a midwest biking city, recorded 3.9% of their workers choosing to bicycle as their primary means to work in 2019, but are at 1.8% today – slightly ahead of Pittsburgh.

A number of factors could contribute to bike commuting’s rise in Pittsburgh, including more non-work bicycling trips (making it safer for all riders), fewer cars, acceptance, ebikes, and consistent improvements to bike infrastructure and lower stress streets. More would need to be done to study these effects. 

The drop in the number of Pittsburghers who drive to work also needs to be looked at more closely. In 2023, of the Pittsburgh workers who left their home, roughly a quarter of them did not use a personal vehicle as their primary means of transportation.  Strikingly, in 2019 roughly 62% of Pittsburghers used a personal vehicle to get to their job, dropping to 55% today. 

This translates to roughly 10k fewer people driving to work in a personal motor vehicle than before the pandemic, even though more workers have access to a vehicle. 

We’re only now seeing the full impact of the pandemic on all aspects of daily life. How we choose to get to work is no exception. With fewer people driving (and parking), maybe it’s time to truly make that shift from an auto-centric policy to one that better reflects our new multimodal reality.

What is the ACS?

The American Community Survey (ACS) is the country’s largest household survey, gathering data from workers that live in their city and how they get to their job, wherever that may be. The ACS reports its findings yearly. With a sample size of about 3 million addresses, this is only an estimate, but is by far the best tool that we have for understanding trends in the United States. The survey uses questionnaires and interviews to gather information on demographic, economic, and housing characteristics.

Reference Points

Results are based on a survey that asks a subset of the larger population questions about their previous week of travel.

The ACS asks only about commuting, it does not tell us about bicycling and transportation for non-work purposes. This leaves out a significant group of people and only paints a small part of the true transportation picture.

When asking about an individual’s journey to work, the survey asks about “the primary mode of transportation to work,” and can only pick the single longest leg of their journey. This wording undercounts the actual amount of bike commuting as it does not consider people who ride only a few times a week, or who utilize multimodal transit, such as biking to a bus stop.

It is important to remember that these are estimates. The ACS does release a margin of error metric along with each estimate, which individuals can use to find the interval in which the ACS is 90% confident that the estimate lies within. This can be done by adding and subtracting the margin of error value from the estimate using the data on the ACS site.

Surveys take place throughout the year. This helps mitigate the problem that occurs with people changing the mode of transport based on the season/weather conditions but doesn’t resolve it fully.

Yearly changes may not be statistically significant.

The numbers reported here are for the “principal city,” not the larger Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which means we’re only counting how residents of Pittsburgh get to their job, wherever that may be.

The 2023 numbers are the latest from the US Census. We’ll see the 2024 numbers in September and December of 2025.

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