Census report says more Americans now biking to work than in the past

WASHINGTON – More Americans are now biking to work, a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau says.

The number of Americans who biked to work increased to 786,000 during the 2008-2012 time span, officials say. That’s an almost 61 per cent increase from the 488,000 who said they rode bikes to work in 2000.

Those numbers are still dwarfed by the number of workers who drive or carpool to work. There were 140 million workers: 86.2 of them carpooled or drove alone to work. Only 0.6 per cent biked and 2.6 per cent walked.

But the number of bikers is increasing. In 1980, only 0.5 per cent biked to work. That dropped to 0.4 per cent in 1990 and 2000. But now those numbers are increasing again, the Census Bureau says.