Kimberlee Chambers: one of many ordinary Portland bike commuters.
(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)

More and more Portlanders are choosing to bike.

That’s the great news being confirmed this year by one data point after another. The latest: a city auditor’s survey released Friday, which estimated that fully 9 percent of Portlanders bike to work during the summer — the second consecutive year of increase.

[Read more…]

Not impressive.

The Office of the City Auditor released its 23rd annual Community Survey today and the results reveal yet another sign that the amount of people riding bicycles in Portland has reached a stubborn plateau.

The survey asked Portland residents to gauge a number of different city functions, from the quality of tap water to the smoothness of streets in their neighborhood. 9,800 surveys were sent and the results were taken from the 3,352 valid surveys (or 36 percent) that the Auditor’s Office received back. According to the City Auditor, “The purpose of our community survey is to provide the public and policy makers with information regarding resident satisfaction with City services. We encourage Council and bureau managers to study differences in community perceptions included in the survey and to consider where improvements in services are needed.”
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Results of 2011 Auditor’s Community Survey.

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. [Read more…]

Portland residents judged bike safety
and many other livability issues
in the survey.
(Photo © J. Maus)

The City of Portland Auditor’s Office has released results of their 20th annual Community Survey. The survey was sent to 9,800 randomly selected households this past summer, and 3,663 valid surveys were returned.

The survey asks a range of questions about general community and livability. The purpose is to inform City Hall and city staffers about how people perceive their neighborhoods so the city can look to improve those perceptions through programs or policies. Of particular interest to us is how people rate the quality of roads and the safety of bicycling in their neighborhoods. This year, there were two new questions on the survey directly related to transportation mode. [Read more…]

(Photo © J. Maus)

The City of Portland Auditor’s Office has released their annual Resident Survey and the results show that the number of respondents who drive-alone to work has increased while bike use fell one percent from last year.

The City received 3,194 responses to their survey. One of the questions was “What is the primary means to get to and from work?” Of the 2,004 people who work outside their home, here’s how the answers came back:
[Read more…]

See how your neighborhood stacks up.

The City Auditor’s office has just released neighborhood by neighborhood breakdowns of their 2007 Portland Resident Survey (I shared a preview of those results back in December).

The Portland Residents Survey is a useful tool that allows you to rate how neighborhoods stack up against each other based on a variety of specific livability issues. Over 20,000 randomly selected residents from 75 neighborhoods took part. They answered questions about everything from the quality of garbage service to how safe they felt in local parks.[Read more…]

Download report here (PDF).

The City of Portland Auditor’s Office has released its seventeenth annual Resident and Business Surveys. The lengthy survey includes an assessment of all City services, including the Office of Transportation.

The results show a 1% increase in bike commute mode share over last year and a major dip in the perception of bicycle safety (more details below).

According to Robert Cowan, a public information staffer at the Auditor’s Office, the survey was sent out on August 3rd of this year and 20,400 randomly selected people from 75 different neighborhoods responded to the survey. All responses were in by September 10th. [Read more…]