The recently released demographic profiles from the 2000 Census include several data points of interest to transportation professionals -- commute mode, travel time to work, and number of vehicles per household.  Each data point is given by state, county, place, metro area, and congressional district.  This data has been compiled by state and made available for your use by the Surface Transportation Policy Project.

The demographic profiles do not include data by urbanized area or census tract.  Further, the data aggregates all public transportation modes (i.e. bus, subway, heavy rail) into a single variable, and lumps bicycle commuting in with "other means."  More detailed data will be available by all geographic types, including census tract, when the U.S. Census releases the Summary Tape File 3 sometime this summer.

It is important to remember that the Census Journey to Work (JTW) data, measures just that -- what mode of transportation you take to work, and how long it takes you to get there.  While commuting to work typically gets more attention from transportation planners than any other trip type, those trips comprise only 20 percent of all trips.  The Census JTW data does not include information on shopping trips, school trips, or recreational trips.  Further, because the Census asks respondents to indicate the mode of transportation they usually took to work, it fails to count people who took transit, bicycled, or walked to work occasionally.

Lastly, keep in mind that the mean travel time to work figure includes trips taken by public transit.  Because those trips may sometimes take longer than a typical trip by car, and because more people take public transit in more compact cities, travel times to work may be higher in those cities.  We expect that an analysis of mean travel times by private vehicle (when the data becomes available) will show little, if any difference in travel times between compact and sprawling cities.

click here for instructions on how to download the data

Comparisons with the 1990 Census Data

While the 2000 Census data is interesting in and of itself, examining trends can sometimes be even more revealing.  A limited number of comparison tables are available from the U.S. Census at http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2002/dp_comptables.html.  In addition, while STPP has not compiled the 1990 Census data as we've done with the 2000 Census data, it is available in a relatively easy-to-use format directly from the U.S. Census.  

Instructions on Downloading the 2000 Census Data

To download the data, please select the appropriate state and click on the file.  A window will appear prompting you to open the file from the current location or save the file to your computer.  Saving the file to your computer is the most efficient way for you to view and work with the data.  For especially large files (over 750 kb) the data is also available as a zipped file.

The image below is a sample data file.  The whole numbers represent the number of people taking a given mode to work, or the number of households with the specified number of vehicles available.  The percentages given are the portion of all workers commuting by a particular mode or working from home, or the portion of total households having the specified number of vehicles.  Mean travel time to work is given in minutes and represents one-way commute times from home to workplace.  As you can see, the table starts with column "O," meaning that there are numerous hidden columns to the left.  Those columns provide various geographic codes (i.e. state, county, MSA, and PMSA FIPS).  If you would like to view those columns, simply open the file in MS Excel, select the entire file by clicking -, click on the drop-down menu, select and then .