Percent split of modes based on commute to work (mode share)
Status
The City of Austin’s current mode
share is 66% drive-alone to work. This means that 34% of commuters in the City
of Austin are traveling by some other mode of transportation, such as taking
transit, riding a bicycle, walking, carpooling, or working from home. This
measure is an important indicator of our congestion, transportation choices,
and access to those choices, and is also a proxy for other community goals such
as air quality and affordability.
Trending
We track the makeup of our
mode share over time to see if we are reducing the drive-alone commute rate.
Through the adoption of the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan (ASMP) in 2019, City
Council adopted a goal of a 50/50 mode share by 2039, meaning that by 2039, 50%
of commuters are driving alone and 50% are using other modes. Our primary
objective is to track reducing our dependence on driving alone while keeping an
eye on the trends of individual modes, allowing us to adjust as new solutions
and options emerge. Learn more about the 50/50 mode share goal in the Introduction of the ASMP.
Note: To see the underlying data for this chart, please select the "View Source Data" link.
There was a significant change in the
number of people who drove alone to work based on the latest data. For the
previous several years, the mode share in Austin had not changed significantly;
it hovered around 74% of people driving alone to work and 26% traveling by other
means. However, since 2020 the number of people driving alone dropped by almost
8%.
This positive change is likely based
on the nature of this data and how it is collected and reported. The data
source used for mode share is the American Community Survey (ACS). This ACS
dataset is based on a 5-year average. This means the data that is reported in a
given year is lagging, because it includes prior years. The most recent dataset
includes survey responses collected between 2017-2021. This is the second ACS
dataset that includes the Covid19 pandemic and its effects, including the rapid
expansion of working from home for certain sectors and industries.
Since the “Work from Home” category
experienced significant growth, it is likely that many of the people who were
driving alone to work stopped doing so and began working from home. Working
from home still makes up a significant percentage of the mode share.
The transportation behavior change
caused by the COVID-19 pandemic supports the idea that when given good options
and opportunities, people’s behaviors and habits can change. Although working
from home was an option before the onset of the Covid19 pandemic, the public
health emergency made it critical that those who could adopt this work habit do
so. Supporting technology and infrastructure also rapidly improved and
proliferated.
These behavior and cultural changes bode well for the many investments Austin is making in updating our transportation network. In recent years, the City of Austin has made significant progress in implementing improvements that benefit all modes of transportation through the 2016, 2018, and 2020 Bonds, as well as prioritizing other funding. The City has also worked closely with Capital Metro to coordinate transit improvements by implementing transit priority projects that support the re-envisioned transit network from the Cap Remap effort, which is the initial implementation of the Connections 2025 Service Plan. The passage in November 2020 of Project Connect, Capital Metro’s high-capacity transit plan, also represents an opportunity for a major shift away from drive alone trips and toward public transportation instead. Although we expect the non-drive alone mode share to increase substantially due to this, these increases are still many years away.
The City continues to encourage and communicate transportation options through GetThereATX.com . Click here to learn about people’s satisfaction with transportation options to get around Austin (aside from their personal vehicle), such as using ride share, taking the bus or train, biking, or walking.
Additional Measure Insights
During the development of the ASMP, which was adopted in 2019, we conducted an analysis to understand what would happen if our mode share stayed the same or changed as the City continues to grow. We saw that with a 50/50 mode share (instead of 74/26), we can manage congestion even as the City continues to grow, out to 2039.
This means that even though the population is projected to almost double in that time, we could maintain approximately the same number of cars as we have on the road today by aggressively shifting the growth of total trips to other modes and strategically expanding roadway system capacity where feasible. There are many ways to arrive at our 50/50 mode share goal. Below is one scenario from the ASMP that illustrates an increase in using transit, telework, carpools, bicycles, and walking.
Note: the 2017 chart uses 2017 5-year ACS data, meaning it represents a data average from 2013-17.
Measure Details and Definition
1) Definition: Mode share tells us how much different transportation modes are being used to commute to work and which is the primary mode choice. Each mode has a share of the total commute trips in the city. For example, Austin has a certain percentage of bicycle mode share, meaning that a certain percent of commuters ride their bicycles to work as their primary mode of transportation. Learn more about the Commuting (Journey to Work) measure from the American Community Survey.
2) Calculation method: The American Community Survey asks respondents to provide their means of transportation to work. Means of transportation to work refers to the principal mode of travel or type of conveyance that the worker used most often to get from home to work during the reference week. The resulting American Community Survey estimates for the number of commuters who travel by each mode are divided by the total estimated number of commuters to calculate the percentage mode split.
3) Data Collection Process: This data is collected in the American Community Survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau. Learn more about the American Community Survey here. It is important to note that the values used for this reporting are estimates and are associated with a margin of error.
4) Measure Target Calculation: The long-term target is based on the City Council-adopted goal in the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan - to reach 50/50 mode share by 2039, where 50% of commuters drive alone and 50% use other means of transportation to get to work (calculated by subtracting the drive alone percentage from 100%).
5) Frequency Measure is Reported: Annually
(Calendar Year)
Date page was last updated: May 2023