How do Pittsburghers commute to work?

Korawich Kavee

Introduction

Everyone living in Pittsburgh, at some point, must has encounter some different choices of transportation. There are active modes of transport such as walking and cycling, and public transit like bus and light rail (the T) by Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAAC). Some might drive to work. Some simply just work remotely from their home. In this article, the basic 4 means will be investigated: Walking, Cycling, Bus, and Work Form Home (WFH). Datasets from the U.S. Census Bureau table “Commuting Characteristics by Sex” ID S0801 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019) are analyzed and visualized with ArcGIS 2.8. Let's look at these maps.

Walking

In the walking map, people who live in Central Business District (CBD), Oakland, North Shore (Allegheny Center), and Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar extensively ride a bicycle to work (33%-100% of all trips).

Bicycle

Bicycling seems to be less popular choice compared to walking. Some neighborhoods with high bicycling trips (9%-21%) are, for example, a part of CBD, Perry South, South Oakland, Garfield, and Shadyside.

Most other Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods, on the other hand, rarely have any cyclists.

Bus

Bus usage is concentrated all over the east side suburbs. This pattern is similar to the existing network of bus transit in the city. As a person living in Shadyside, this visualization seems to be true to my experience.

WFH

People who work remotely work from their residential area; hence there is no trip generation at all.

Conclusion

  • According to these maps, a small but significant group of Pittsburghers choose to commute to work by active mode of transport: walking and cycling.
  • Improving infrastructure for active transport (such as new bike lane, wider sidewalk) in low bike-trips zone (as shaded with light color) may help increase trips.
  • Improving walkability not only attracts people to walk more, but also may raise bus usage. Beside accessibility of the bus network, accessibility to the bus stop is also important.
  • WFH analysis may change in the future after coronavirus pandemic.

Reference

  1. U.S. Census Bureau. (2019). S0801 COMMUTING CHARACTERISTICS BY SEX. S0801 COMMUTING CHARACTERISTICS BY SEX. https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=S0801&tid=ACSST1Y2019.S0801