Only 5% car-free

[shootingstar]

another fun work poll where over 800 employees responded (out of 14,000) internally to mode of transportation.

Only 5% did not have a car.

[bmccasland]

There's a difference from not owning a car, and not using it for your daily commute. I can understand holding on to a car.

Says the person that could easily take a bus to work, but still drives. However, with my budget getting tighter in January, the bus option is looking better.

[Owlie]

There's a difference from not owning a car, and not using it for your daily commute. I can understand holding on to a car.

This. I lived in a city with good public transport and sidewalks. A car, however, would have been useful. I wouldn't have used it on a daily basis, but it would have made shopping for bulk goods and trips to the LBS much easier.

[SadieKate]

OK, I'll take the bait.

What's your point? Only about 5.5% of the workforce even responded and about 40 don't have cars. There obviously wasn't any real motivation to complete the survey.

Where do they live? Urban areas? Remote rural areas? Do they work from home? Do they have public transportation even available? Do they have a driver's license (or even allowed to get one)? Do they have hobbies that require a car?

Those stats really don't indicate anything to me.

[shootingstar]

OK, I'll take the bait.

What's your point? Only about 5.5% of the workforce even responded and about 40 don't have cars. There obviously wasn't any real motivation to complete the survey.

Where do they live? Urban areas? Remote rural areas? Do they work from home? Do they have public transportation even available? Do they have a driver's license (or even allowed to get one)? Do they have hobbies that require a car?

Those stats really don't indicate anything to me.

There's no real point to be made. Just a fact. This was an informal fun poll internally....like having a TE poll.

However it does indicate something...we just have alot of employees with access to a personal car. Actually there's over 4,000 employees who don't even have access to work computers/intranet because their jobs are outdoors and require focused attention on the road, etc. So we can't blame those employees for not responding.

Others just aren't interested /pay attention to internal polls.

HOWEVER:

There was a formal, in-depth online survey done on employees regarding their work commmuting transportation mode habits less than 4 months ago. Over 3,500 employees responded. I think it was at least over 30% employee response. That is high.

Final results will be released next yr.

Yes we do have public transit in our city. The in-depth survey did include several questions on cycling to work as a choice.

[jessmarimba]

Having public transit doesn't make the public transit useful. I could bike to the airport (which is 30 miles away) faster than I could get there by bus. And I'm not a fast cyclist. Plus to get to a bus stop that would make the transport to the airport take less than 3 hours and 3 transfers (more than 2 increases the bus fare), I would have to drive to a park'n'ride. Or bike to a park-n-ride but take no luggage.

Most cities in North America just aren't designed to be as accessible as those in, say, Europe, without a vehicle. Since I have to drive to and from the airport 1-3 times a week for work, not having a car would make my life hell.

(And yes, I suppose I could move closer to the airport, but my office is also 30+ miles from the airport so I'd be spending 6-7 hours a day on a bicycle or be forced to commute to work by car.)

[emily_in_nc]

I would think the percentage would be much lower than 5% in the US, at least outside of large cities, where more folks might forgo car ownership. Not having a car is a REAL anomaly, at least in the south, where I'm from. Here in Belize, not so much! One of the many reasons I'm here....

Emily
Car-free and loving it!

[Koronin]

Even large cities don't always have the most useful of public transportation systems. We lived outside of Charlotte, NC for 10 years. Charlotte its self does have public transportation, however where we lived had none at all (unless you include taxi service). Is the public transportation used? Yep, but it's also not viable for everyone. Take my husband's last job. Day shift started at 3:30 am and ended at 3:30 pm. 2nd shift started at 3:30pm and ended at 3:30 am. The bus and trains run from 6am until 6pm. So even if there was a line (train) or bus stop close to where we lived it would have done no good at all since the times didn't work. I guess my point is that even where there may be public transportation available it may not be useful. Then again you would actually need to live where it is available.

[zoom-zoom]

Even with ideal public transportation, add small kids to the mix and it can make it very trick to get around by non-car methods. Right there is one reason our family would need one car.