In many cities, more and more commuters are getting to work without a car or mass transit, a Brookings map of newly published Census data shows. The size of the bubbles indicates the share of people who commute by bike or walking, or work from home. The color of the bubbles indicates how that number changed between 2007 and 2013 — red means fewer walk/bike/work from home workers, blue means more of them.
The Brookings Institution
U.S. Public Interest Research Group
As the chart above shows, from the early 1970s through the mid-2000s the number of miles driven by the average American steadily grew. But in the last decade, that growth was arrested and the number started to decline:
85 percent of commuters still drive to work, but that could change as biking, walking, public transit, and telecommuting grow in popularity.