Where Do New York City Bike Commuters Come From?

Park Slope and Manhattan Valley have the largest numbers of bike commuters in NYC

The Department of City Planning just released its 2007 New York City Bicycle Survey. With over 1,000 survey respondents, the report documents several trends and key findings regarding bike commuting, parking, and facililties in the city. Some of the highlights include:

• For Bicycle Commuters: 44% start in Manhattan and 41% start in Brooklyn; 81% end in Manhattan and 10% end in Brooklyn.
• At the work place: 52% park and lock their bikes outdoors, 48% indoors.
• The average commute time for cyclists is 35 minutes.
• The most common reason that non-commuting cyclists do not commute by bike is because of driver behavior/traffic and lack of safe storage at work.
• The most common reason commuter cyclists do commute by bike is because it is healthy/good exercise and because it is environmentally friendly.

The report contains some great graphics. The map above shows where bike commuter trips originate, broken down by ZIP code. It turns out that Park Slope 11215 is the neighborhood with the highest rate of bike commuting in the entire city. Manhattan Valley 10025, at the northernmost end of the Hudson River Greenway runs a close second. The neighborhoods of western Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan are up there too. And while we’re at it, check out the massive bike commuting dead zone known as Eastern Queens, in gray above.

Not to make everything into a 9th Street issue but I hope this data shows State Senator Eric Adams’ chief of staff, Ingrid P. Lewis-Martin that it would be far more accurate to refer to supporters of DOT’s plan for bike lanes on 9th Street as “constituents” rather than “outside groups” and “special interests,” the terms she used in my phone call with her.

The entire report can be downloaded here.