census

The map geeks at the Toronto star have outdone themselves with this google map of Commuter cyclists by census tract (a small area as defined by Statistics Canada's census). It shows the breakdown of how people commute who live in that area. The census tracts with red boundaries are over 10%.

Politicians need to stop treating cyclists as if they are marginal. If you lived in an area with cycling at 13% and showed this data to your councillor maybe a lightbulb would go off in their head. It's still a minority but not one they can always safely ignore.

It doesn't address who commutes through the area. For instance, the area southwest of Dundas West and Dufferin has 11.5% of commutes by bicycle, yet there may be many people driving through from the suburbs which will water down that percentage on the road.

The highest percentage is on the Toronto Islands at 29%. This is unsurprising, since no cars are allowed. It's odd to think that 18% of them still drive to work - they must be parking cars downtown.

The second highest is in Parkdale at 14%! This area bounded by Dundas, Queen, Sorauren and Lansdowne has an above the Toronto average household income and is mostly detached houses with a few condos.

The core of the highest rates of bike commuting is in the Annex - bounded by Bloor, Dovercourt, Spadina and Dundas. Leslieville and East York aren't too far behind.

Us bloggers and readers have expressed some frustration that we don't have better numbers to reflect the number of cyclists that commute by bike across Toronto. We're certain that the numbers in Metro Toronto are higher than the edge of Scarborough. Well, I can now give a qualified confirmation of the anecdotal evidence. "Active transportation" is much higher in the "SOB" region (that's South of Bloor, folks).

I've gleaned information from Statscan's 2006 census of transit use and active transportation in various neighbourhoods. I take full responsibility for any shoddy analysis and arrangement.

I sampled an interesting variety of neighbourhoods (aka census tracts) such as Kensington Market, Leslieville, Regent Park, Scarborough Civic Centre, North York Civic Centre, Etobicoke Civic Centre, the east of Pearson Airport (otherwise known as the Bermuda Triangle), the neighbourhood near the Zoo/Rouge River, and my own near St. Clair/Lansdowne.

The 2006 census figures just released show that 1% of people in the Greater Toronto Area get to work by bike.

With shorter trips and relatively more welcoming streets, it's safe to assume this number doesn't reflect reality for downtown cyclists. It would be interesting to see how this number varies throughout the region. Casually, I've heard that 5% of people cycle to work downtown. If that's true, the number of cyclists in the suburbs must be much less than 1 in 100.

I know I'm mixing anecdotes with real statistics here, but 1 in 100 is an amazingly small number considering how many people tell me they either do ride their bike to work or would like to but don't feel safe.

With cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen seeing numbers in the 30 to 40% range, there's obviously a lot of room to improve.