Getting Around in Bellingham

Welcome back, or welcome the first time, to all WWU students.  Here at the Green Shelf we try to show you connections between Western Libraries and the University's sustainability goals.  Sometimes all we have to do to make that happen is read the newspaper. 

Take, for instance, today's Seattle Times.  Danny Westneat reports some surprising figures.  Turns out 10% of people in Seattle walk to work.  It is also one of five major cities in the U.S. where fewer than one half of the working population drives to their jobs alone.  Since the year 2000 bicycling to work has gone up 150%, and working at home has shot up 75%.

The comments are interesting, mostly from people who see no sign of such a trend.  One suggested the figures come from the bicycle clubs.

But apparently they are from the American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.  Now it happens that I am the librarian who helps people find Census information, so this seemed like a great chance to practice my skills.  I went to American Factfinder, which is the Census's webpage for this kind of data, and pulled together some time comparisons for the City of Subdued Excitement. 

 
The bad news is that we Bellingham commuters are much more dependent on cars than are friends in the Emerald City. IN the most recent sample almost 69% were driving alone.  Only 2% biked and 6% took public transportation.  Our walking percentage was almost as high as Seattle's though.

Important: these figures are samples.  The orange column in the middle represents three years of samples (2009-2011) which makes it probably closer to reality than the one-shot sample in 2012.  Notice that the figures are a little more cheerful in orange.  But I guess we have our work cut out for us.