Have you ever needed to quickly put your finger on statewide transportation statistics?
What percentage of Californians use public transit when commuting to work? How many transit fatalities were there in California in 2009? What percentage of California drivers use of safety belts? How many miles of public roads are there in California? What about carpooling and driving alone? How do all of these statistics rank when compared to other states?
This week, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) released State Transportation Facts and Figures.
This interactive web transportation mapping application is definitely a resource to know about!
It allows customers to find state-by-state transportation data, comparisons and rankings as well as gives them the ability to download state transportation information.
State Transportation Facts and Figures contains data and statistics related to each state’s transportation infrastructure, transportation safety, freight movements and passenger travel, vehicle characteristics, economy and transportation finance, and transportation energy usage and the environment.
Statistical information can be displayed either as a map, a bar chart, a pie chart, or a graphical “scatter” chart.
The map display allows you to “roll over” another state to make a side-by-side comparison.
This tool is not only useful for locating specific data, but also for discovering some surprises when just poking around.
For example, among the 50 states, Hawaii ranks 6th among the percentage of commuters that use public transit (ahead of Pennsylvania and California).
Utah ranks #1 for percentage of commuters utilizing light rail (34%) vs. other modes of transportation.
For additional state tables, check out State Transportation Statistics 2010.
This series of reports highlights major federal databases and other national sources related to the areas of transportation outlined above, any several more.
For even more transportation information, check out the Bureau’s Office of Geospatial Information Services for spatial data and analysis.
And in case you are curious about those initial questions:
Only 5% of Californians use public transit when commuting to work, but that is high enough to rank us 9th highest of any state
68 transit fatalities were recorded statewide in 2009
95.3% of California drivers use safety belts (ranking 5th)
California has 171, 874 miles of public roads (far behind Texas)
California ranks 5th in carpooling and 43rd in driving alone