BikePortland's got a post on the Portland commute rate from the just-released 2018 census numbers, and here in Salem in broad strokes it's the same.
If we are trying to increase biking,
we are failing badly.
If we want to increase biking we just can't continue to
send out press releases that say "As part of a long-standing effort to make it safer to drive, bike, and walk in our community, the City of Salem will add a new safety feature at high volume intersections..."
Whatever the City thinks constitutes "a long-standing effort," its level of effort is nowhere near actually making change.
We need to do something very different and to do more.
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We are failing badly on walking and biking
(final June Our Salem indicators) |
Fortunately, the "indicators" from Our Salem will give more visibility to this failure.
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| Within the margin of error, we are on a decline or flat |
(See previous notes on the census numbers in previous years,
2018 and
2017. It's too much trouble to get the same exact slice of data each time, so I end up doing a new data series each year. The important thing is not that the data's exactly the same - and with margin-of-error anyway it doesn't need to be, so quibble away - but that
we haven't been able to budge past wandering around a center of 1% from year to year. We should be showing a steady trajectory of increase, not the decline or perhaps flatness we actually see. See also
additional notes on a Salem Reporter piece and
on a City "fun fact.")
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