Last July 14, I devoted an entire Antiplanner policy brief to a review of a single table in the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ publication, National Transportation Statistics, table 1-40, passenger-miles by mode. My main concerns were that the table overestimated bus miles and failed to include walking and cycling miles.
Just four weeks later, on August 11, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics issued an update to table 1-40. The update reduces the number of bus passenger-miles (though not by as much as I estimated) and added walking and cycling miles.
Walking and cycling numbers are based on the National Household Travel Survey, which is repeated every five to eight years. As a result, table 1-40 only includes numbers for the years of that survey. Fortunately, the most recent survey was in 2017, so the numbers should be pretty comparable with the latest numbers for other modes, which are for 2018. Continue reading
