Still Number Two

The 2008 Census data on commuting has been released, and Minneapolis has retained our second-place slot in terms of bicycle mode share. We increased our ridership by about 12%, going from a 3.8% mode share in 2007 to a 4.3% mode share in 2008. However, our chief rival for the title of "bike friendliest major US city," Portland, increased even more rapidly, from 3.9% to a full 6%. That's a pretty staggering one-year increase of more than 50%.



To put Portland's achievement in perspective, it helps to look at our proposed new sustainability indicator for bike mode share, which calls for us to reach a mode share of 6% by 2014, with a milestone of 5% in 2011. If we keep that goal, we'll catch up with Portland's 2008 achievement five years later.



Perhaps this means that our goal isn't high enough. My staff has looked at the trend line over the last few years, and it's pretty clear that the increase we've seen is actually faster than our goal - if we keep adding mode share at the same rate, we'll reach a mode share of over 7% by 2014. I'll be keeping this in mind as we adopt the sustainability indicator and targets later this year.