Why commute methods matter
Commute methods help us understand how people move around in a city. Certain types of movement, like riding public transit, are less likely to contribute to traffic crashes.
It is difficult to get data on how people move for all of their activities, such as errands or visiting friends. While commuting is only part of people's movement, it informs us of the general trends in the city.
How to use this dashboard
Click on the different types of commute methods at the top to change categories. Click on the city names at the bottom or add or remove cities.
The dashboard shows the percentage of working people by city who use each method to commute. Due to the pandemic, 2020 data is unavailable.
The second dashboard shows rates between carpooling and driving alone.
Commute methods across all groups
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
All data comes from the US Census.
Commute data is for working adults only.
A technical limitation of the dashboarding software (Microsoft PowerBI): When all cities are selected in the filter, not all city names may show in the dashboard. Use the legend to confirm the city by color, the tooltip (if available), or change the filters to view fewer cities at once.
To view the full dataset, visit the DataSF Open Data Portal.
Driving alone or carpooling
Data notes and sources
Data notes and sources
All data comes from the US Census.
Commute data is for working adults only.
A technical limitation of the dashboarding software (Microsoft PowerBI): When all cities are selected in the filter, not all city names may show in the dashboard. Use the legend to confirm the city by color, the tooltip (if available), or change the filters to view fewer cities at once.
To view the full dataset, visit the DataSF Open Data Portal.
Key takeaways
San Franciscans use public transit at high rates. San Francisco's rate of commuting by transit is among the highest in the peer cities, at 17% in 2022. Boston, DC, and Chicago have similar rates. Only New York City is notably higher, at 44%.
Relatively few working San Franciscans use their car to commute. San Francisco's car commuting rate was its highest in 2012 at close to 45% and has been lower in all years since. San Francisco’s car commuting rate is three quarters of the average across peer cities. Car commuting rates in 2022 increased from an all-time low in 2021 to align with 2019 rates of around 35%.
Commute methods are starting to return to pre-pandemic rates. Working from home dramatically increased in 2021 in all cities. All other methods decreased. In 2022, all commuting methods are increasing again and working from home is slightly declining.
Explore other metrics
Visit the Vision Zero Benchmarking home page to learn more about the effort and explore other metrics.