The City of Portland Auditor’s Office released results of their 2011 Community Survey this morning. The survey gauged Portlanders feelings on a number of City services, from public safety and the quality of parks, to transportation.
In addition to qualitative questions about how safe people feel while bicycling, the survey also asked Portlanders how they get around.
According to the survey, 7% of Portland residents citywide used a bicycle as their primary vehicle to get to work “in the last week” (the same percentage as last year). That number was highest in inner Northeast where 14% of those surveyed bike to work. The area of town with the lowest percentage was East Portland, where just 3% of those surveyed said bike was their primary mode (that was up from 0% last year).
Here’s the full geographic bike commute mode split breakdown (2010 numbers in parentheses):
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Southwest – 4% (3%)
NW Downtown – 4% (5%)
North – 8% (7%)
Inner Northeast – 14% (15%)
Central Northeast – 6% (8%)
Southeast – 10% (9%)
East – 3% (0%)
Not surprisingly, residents in the East and Southwest areas had the highest drive alone rates at 72 and 73 percent respectively. Citywide, 63% of residents still drive alone to work, that’s up 1 percentage point from last year. For the first time ever, a neighborhood coalition area had less than 50% drive alone rate. The 2011 survey shows that the Northwest Downtown area has just 49% of its residents driving alone to work
When it comes to the “safety of bicyclists,” 49% of residents responded “Good” or “Very Good” while 22% said it is “Bad” or “Very Bad” (30% were “Neutral”). (These numbers are essentially unchanged from 2010.)
The survey was filled out by 3,857 randomly selected residents and the margin of error is ± 1.6 percent for the citywide numbers and ± 4.0 to ± 4.7 percent for the neighborhood numbers.
Interestingly, for a city that prides itself on public process and an engaged citizenry, the Auditor’s Office said, “Most residents we surveyed had not participated in a community project or public meeting during the last 12 months, and the majority of residents felt either neutral or negatively about their opportunities to influence government decisions.”
“Overall,” states the report’s summary, “most Portlanders love their city and their neighborhoods, but gave mixed ratings to many City services, and lower ratings to the overall job City government is doing.”
You can download the report via PDF here.