This morning, in the cool air at dawn, as summer slips into fall, I counted five other bicyclists apparently making their way to work.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the six of us are not alone.
Figures released this week show Lancaster County following national trends of more people leaving work work earlier than in previous years and more people commuting alone in their cars. But, those numbers do not provide a breakdown of people commuting by bicycle. And, those numbers are simply estimates based on the 2000 census.
To get a sense of bicycle commuting in Lancaster County, you have to look back at those 2000 numbers. According to Census figures, 1,049 people age 16 or older commuted to work by bicycle seven years ago.
That figure is less than one half of one percent of the 204,751 people who took an automobile to their jobs. The number of bike commuters is also only about one tenth of the 10,080 people who walked to work and about half of the county’s 2,161 bus riders.
But bike commuters comprise a bigger group than the 219 people who regularly rode a motorcycle to work or the 275 people who took the train.
In fact, the number of bicycle commuters in 2000 increased somewhat, by 8 percent, from the 963 who commuted by bicycle in 1990.
Hopefully, spurred by higher gas prices, congested roadways and environmental concerns, the upcoming 2010 census will show even more people have turned to their bicycles to get to work.
