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Tracking bicycle commuting trends in Georgia with Census Explorer

Census Explorer is a tool from the United States Census Bureau which gives quick and easy access to data on a number of popular topics, including "population estimates", "retail", "people, education, and income", and "commuting".  The tool features an interactive map, and access to information from the 1990 and 2000 censuses, and the 2012 American Community Survey.

When you are interested in researching a topic it is best to start with a specific question.  As an example, I'm going to pose the question: "Which areas in Georgia have the largest numbers of adults who commute by bicycle?"  Here are a set of steps for rapidly pulling together an answer to that question.  The graphics in this article are screen shots rather than live maps, but you can build the interactive maps and follow along in another browser window by carrying out the step-by-step instructions.

1) First, go to Census Explorer at http://www.census.gov/censusexplorer/

The opening screen of the current version as I write this article looks like this:

 

2) Since we're interested in data on commuting, we'll select "Go to Census Explorer Commuting Edition"

3) Click on the pull-down menu labeled "Select a Measure".

4) Since my research question involves the trends in bicycle commuting I'll select "bicycle" from the menu.

5) Next, select the pull-down menu labeled "Show by"

6)  I usually start with a larger geographic area to get a quick overview of the patterns, then drill down into the smaller units.  The largest unit relevant to my question is "County", so I'll start there.

7) I'll then double click on the interactive map to zoom in on Georgia, and adjust the size and position by manipulating the plus/minus icon and dragging the map around as needed.

 8) The default data for the map is the 2012 American Community Survey.  You'll notice on the map above that there are four darker areas in the Georgia portion of the map.  These areas represent Appling County, Athens-Clarke County, Baldwin County, and Chattahoochee County.  These are the counties with the highest percentage of people over 16 years of age who commute to work by bicycle. 

The University of Georgia dominates Athens-Clarke, so I would guess that university towns have a larger number of bicycle commuters than average.   Chattahoochee County is very close to Columbus GA, Baldwin County has Milledgeville as its county seat, and Appling is a rural county.  Tentatively I'd guess, based on the counties with relatively high bicycle commuting, that both high concentration of students, and low income, could be contributory factors to increased commuting by bicycle.

Drilling down to the census tract level is where it really gets interesting.  The census tracts with the highest levels of bicycle commuting are concetrated in metro areas, and a few metro Atlanta  census tracts have the highest levels.  In one Clayton County tract. more than ten percent of the commuters over 16 years of age commute by bicycle.  Since any percentage over one percent is unusual, Clayton County is remarkable.

In order to draw valid conclusions about cycle commuting in Georgia,  more analysis would have to be done. The Census Bureau has other tools to help with the process, including American Factfinder. But Census Explorer provides a good starting point.  You can get an overview of a number of characteristics of an area at the state, county, and census tract level.

 

The Census Explorer and Commuting by Bicycle

The Census Bureau has been gathering data on how people get to work, and how long it takes them to get there.  The Census Explorer tool is the fastest and easiest way to get at this data.  Another tool, American Factfinder, provides a much greater level of detail, but one of the advantages of Census Explorer is that it gives you a quick visual representation of the data, overlaid on a map.

Here's how to use it to get information on the percentage of people who commute to work by bicycle in your area.  I'm using metro Atlanta as my target, with the county as my unit of geography.

 

 

 

1. Visit Census Explorer
2. Select "Go to Census Explorer: Commuting Edition"
3. In the dropdown box "Select a Measure" choose "Bicycle"
4. In the dropdown box "Show by" select "County".  You'll get much finer grained detail by selecting "Census Tract", but save that for a more detailed examination later.
5. Use your mouse and the "+" and "-" icons on the upper right of the map to zoom in on the geographic area you're interested in.

I found a number of interesting things by exploring the map, other than the obvious fact that bicycle commuting is a very small percentage of overall commuting.  One is that Chattahoochee, Baldwin, Appling, and Clarke counties have the highest per capita percentage of bike commuters among Georgia counties.  It's obvious to me why that is true in Clarke County (the University of Georgia dominates the county, and college towns tend to have more cycling than other areas).  I'm not certain why the percentage is higher in those other counties, but it would be worth using American Factfinder to explore in more detail   The percentage is still small, but it reached or exceeded the one percentage mark in all these counties.

Selecting Census Tract under the "Show by" pulldown gives much more useful results.  A quick look shows that Clayton County in metro Atlanta has the census tracts with the highest levels of bicycle commuting, topping 10%.

The small percentages may seem demoralizing to advocates of cycling as a means of practical transportation.  But in order to increase commuting by bicycle it's necessary to know what factors lead to higher or lower numbers, and those numbers also need to be regularly tracked.  Both Census Explorer and American Factfinder should be important tools for advocates of bicycle commuting.

Connecting the Silver Comet Trail to Atlanta's Beltline

April of last year I wrote about an effort to complete the Silver Comet Trail, and to connect it to Atlanta's Beltline.  The Silver Comet Trail is not finished.  A planned section between Mavell Road in Cobb County and the Chattahoochee River was never completed.  With the continuing popularity and development of sections of the Beltline, there is now an opportunity to create a worldclass trail network, from the Beltline to Alabama.  The movement, which was begun by residents in Cobb County near the unfinished section of Silver Comet Trail, now includes interested people from the entire Atlanta region.

A lot has happened since I first wrote about this effort.  Momentum and support has been building for the project, and there now are a number of websites to visit for information and opportunities to help.

Here are a few sources of information:

The Connect the Comet Facebook group

Connect the Comet's website

An article which mentions the effort in Beltline.net

The Riverline Historic Area website

This is one of the most exciting efforts in the Atlanta area, and could benefit the entire region, in quality of life, and economically.

Connect the Comet -- Beltline to 'Bama

There is an effort underway to generate support for completing the unfinished and unfunded three miles of Silver Comet Trail which will connect the trail to the City of Atlanta, in particular to the trails which connect to the Beltline.

The Cobb Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan outlines three possible routes for accomplishing this.  In my opinion, and in the opinion of the River Line Historic Area, by far the best route is an unused section of CSX track which goes from the current start of the trail near the interesection of South Cobb Drive and the East West Connector, to the river crossing near South Atlanta Road (which becomes Marietta Boulevard when it crosses into the City of Atlanta).

In 2010 this route was removed from the table because CSX thought they might activate the track.  Since that time Georgia Power's Plant Atkinson has switched from coal to natural gas, diminishing the need for possible use of rail along that route, and CSX allowed Cobb County to pave over the tracks at Oakdale Road, a clear indication that they aren't planning anything for the tracks at this time.

Last Saturday the River Line Historic Area (RLHA) organized a walk of the unused tracks.  Here is a link to photos from that walk.

At this point River Line Historic Area, Bike Cobb, and the Mableton Improvement Coalition are committed to advocating for this project.  When it's complete there will be continuous greenway trails from Atlanta's Beltline to Anniston Alabama.

If anyone is interested in working on building support for this project, you can contact me at larryfeltonjohnson@gmail.com , or visit the Connect the Comet facebook page.

Cycling to the MARTA Station from south Cobb (and from there to the Dekalb Farmer's Market)

I mentioned in a previous post that I've been exploring bicycle routes to various destinations from our house in south Cobb.  This is a description of today's errands by bicycle.

I had a bit of uncertainty about titling this post, since today was quite an adventure for me.  I not only cycled in Cobb County, but in Fulton and Dekalb Counties as well.  My objective was to familiarize myself with the route from Oakdale Road to the Hamilton Holmes MARTA station, but I needed an errand to justify the trip.  Monday is my day for shopping at the Dekalb Farmer's Market, and the Avondale station on the East line is very close to that market, so I decided it would be an excellent time to check out the route.

Google Maps came up with the following simple route, which was the route I'd have guessed would be most efficient.  I simply took Oakdale Road to Veterans Memorial, which becomes Donald Hollwell Parkway after crossing the Chattahoochee River, turned right on Hamilton Holmes, took a right alongside I-20, and entered the station.  Here's the map:
View Larger Map

All in all it was a pleasant ride.  Traffic moves pretty fast along Veteran's Memorial, but there are two lanes of ample width, so cars and trucks were passing me with plenty of clearance room.  Hollowell Parkway narrows inside I-285, but it isn't far from there to Hamilton Holmes.

The trip from the Avondale Station to the Farmer's Market was even more straightforward.  One of the exits from the station empties onto Ponce De Leon, and the Farmer's Market is about a mile from the station.

After shopping I rode back to the station, and discovered that a medical emergency at the Georgia State station had stopped train service between Candler Park and the Georgia World Congress Center.  MARTA was providing emergency bus service, but rather than hope that a bike rack was available on one of those buses, I decided to cycle to the GWCC station.  This added quite a few overall cycling miles to my day.

After I put away the groceries from the Farmer's Market, I had one more errand.  I rode to the Lewis Ray branch of the Cobb Public Library on Oakdale Road.

My final cycling mileage for the day was 48 miles.  I'm feeling it at the moment, too.

Cycling in south Cobb County

I've been living full time in south Cobb, near the Chattahoochee River, since I sold my East Atlanta house about a year and a half ago.  One thing which has been on my todo list for the entire time I've been here is exploring the area by bicycle.  Despite the reputation of "Outside the Perimeter" (OTP) areas of Atlanta as unfriendly to cyclists, I see cyclists on the roads regularly here, and the Silver Comet trail, which starts near South Cobb Drive, has encouraged cycling in this area considerably.

I've finally gotten my gear in order and began exploring my immediate environment, which includes Oakdale Road, Veteran's Memorial Highway (the old Bankhead Highway), South Cobb Drive, the East-West Connector, and Atlanta Road.

My goal over the next few weeks is to map out good routes to the grocery stores in the area (there are three viable Publix stores and two Krogers), the post office on Floyd Road, the public libraries on Oakdale and Floyd roads, the Hamilton Holmes MARTA station, and the various CCT and MARTA bus stops in the area.  I'll post maps here as I explore them,

Today I made my first utility trip in the area, riding from our house on Brookside Drive to the intersection of South Cobb Drive and River View Road.  It was a pleasant ride, on Brookside, Roberts Drive, Oakdale Road, Dickerson Road, River View Road, and South Cobb.

Here's the Google map of the route I took.

 

View Larger Map

Simplicity Part II: Clutter and the 100 Thing Challenge

This is the second installment of my series on simplicity.  I've arrived at a format for these posts, now.  In each aspect of the topic (clutter, time management, technology, etc.) the first article will be a more personal treatment of the subject, using my own life as an example.  The second (within the following day or two) will be a more general discussion, including the philosophical and the practical.  Knowing the meandering nature of my attention span (with which I made peace many years ago), I'll probably elaborate on some of the topics in supplemental posts.

A few months ago I sold my house in East Atlanta to officially move in with my wife.  We'd already been married for over two years, and I had been splitting my time between my house in East Atlanta, and hers in Mableton.  We had developed a long term plan of selling both houses, then getting a house together in southeast Atlanta (East Atlanta, Ormewood Park, or Grant Park).

The most horrifying ordeal in selling the house was figuring out what to do with the enormous quantity of objects I'd accumulated during 60 years of life.  To some extent I'd already pared down the material objects I had on hand in the immediate sense, but I'd done it by using my East Atlanta house as a storage facility; a very expensive one, I might add, since I continued to keep the lights, electricity, phone, and gas connected, and pay insurance and taxes on it.

I managed to empty out the house by the closing date, but the whole fiasco reinforced my realization that I have far too many things.  Having donated, recycled, or discarded the entire contents of my East Atlanta house diminished the sheer number of objects dramatically, but I still have too many things.

The U.S. economy, in fact much of the world's economy,  is built on producing more and more things, most of which are unnecessary, duplicative, or actively destructive.  I'm not going to speculate on whether that really constitutes human progress or not in this post.  I'll save that larger topic for later perusal.  But on a personal level, having too many material goods is oppressive.  Once the number of objects exceeds what one needs for comfort and fulfillment, the effort spent maintaining, storing, cleaning, and transporting those objects creeps upward with every new addition to the clutter, to the point that it just isn't worth having the things.

Even benign impulses often result in the accumulation of stuff.  Cycling is environmentally good.  It also helps conserve oil, a nonrenewable resource.  But when I emptied out the house, I discovered that I had nine bicycles.  Each one had some alleged specialized purpose, but thinking back over the past year, I had only actually ridden two of them (my Raleigh road bike, and a Bianchi fixed gear bike).  Further,  I'd only ridden the fixed gear bike three times.  One of the nine bikes was a classic (a 1969 Raleigh Twenty folding bike) which I love, but never ride.  The others were fitted for specialized uses which never seemed to occur.

My point is that I had paid money for an additional seven  servicable bicycles, then  parked them in a back room for future need which never arose.  I can think of dozens of categories of similar material objects.  For instance, how many coffee mugs do I really need?  The answer is one.  Since I wash dishes every evening, one mug suffices for my morning coffee and tea.  I actually have somewhere around twelve.  Before I emptied the East Atlanta house I probably had thirty coffee mugs.  I'm aware of the mugs because I've already started packing the extras for donation.  But the same applies to clothing I never wear, books I've already read (and have no plan of rereading), obsolete or duplicative electronic equipment, woodworking tools (I was a cabinet maker thirty years ago, and have continued to carry the smaller tools around with me as I move), and cooking utensils.

Over the past few years I've made periodic strides in reducing my number of material objects, inspired by the 100 Thing Challenge.  Unless something radically changes with my lifestyle I know I'll never reach 100 objects.  To test how daunting this is, go to your closet and drawers, and count the clothes you wear periodically.  I'm no clothes-horse, and mine add  up really quickly.  Admittedly I could pare everything down to one each of pants, shirt, pair of socks, underwear,  shoes, and jacket.  Even that brings me to 6% of total allowable material objects.  It also doesn't allow for any variety, or temperature extremes.

So for me, the 100 Thing Challenge is more of an inspiration and process than an end goal.  If I got myself down to even 1000 objects my life would be much more clear of clutter, and much more manageable.  Does 1000 sound like a lot of objects to you?  If so, start counting the material objects in your own life.  If you have less than 1000, congratulations!  By modern standards you are living a spartan, near-monastic existence. 

 

 

On wooden bicycles and peak oil

I've written a post on Off the Beaten Path in Technology which may be of interest to those of you into cycling, New Urbanism, or peak oil.  It's called Wooden bicycles and peak oil.

The idea came to me when I saw a slide show of a wooden bicycle on Inhabitat.  The photos caused me to think about alternative transportation, then peak oil.  Then I end it with an interesting question.

I hope y'all enjoy it.

My cycling videos on youtube

I've begun posting some cycling videos to YouTube which I created with a Flip video recorder mounted to the handlebars of my Raleigh road bike.  This is the latest, and probably the best so far.

Cycling in Metro Atlanta Part 1: The Bike Cobb blog

While my focus has usually been intown Atlanta, or Inside the Perimeter (ITP) as it's popularly known here, I find myself cycling more in the counties adjoining Atlanta. 

Probably most of my miles Outside the Perimeter are in the south Metro area (south Fulton, Fayette, and Coweta counties) because of several well designed "centuries" (hundred mile sport/recreational rides) in that area.  Three or four hundred miles can put a pretty good dent in my yearly cycling averages.

But for practical purposes cycling conditions in Cobb County is of particular interest to me, since my fiance lives just over the bridge in south Cobb.  I've recently stumbled on a blog which, although it hasn't been updated in awhile, has insights into the overall cycling environment in Cobb.  It's the Bike Cobb blog  If you're interested in cycling in Cobb you may want to browse through the articles.

Based on my first trip on the CCT, I've decided to try out the bus-mounted bike rack, probably on a trip on the number 30 (the most efficient public transit method of getting to my fiance's house is probably bike-train-bus-bike).  I'll continue posting updates on my cycling and public transit experiences in Cobb as I have things to report.