City officials released initial results from a survey of Pittsburgh-area commuters on Thursday, sharing insight into the commuting patterns of some city travelers.
The Make My Trip Count survey compiled 20,710 responses this fall. Thirty-four percent of respondents said they use more than one mode of transportation each week, and more than half reported using another mode of transportation in addition to driving. Just one-quarter said they use public transportation.
The survey was available to anyone online for more than a month last year. According to the city, the majority of respondents were women; between the ages of 25 and 34; and work in the fields of finance, health care and education.
Isaac Smith, building performance analyst with the Green Building Alliance, which partnered with the city, said the goal was to get a representative sample of what is actually happening in Downtown, Oakland and other neighborhoods.
“Just speaking to the numbers, it’s estimated 113,000 commuters are traveling to Downtown on a daily basis,” he said. "We have about just shy of 10 percent of those commuters who took the survey. And, also, in Oakland, it’s about 12 percent of the commuters.”
The alliance, along with other regional partners, will continue to analyze their findings. The overall goal is to make future transportation plans based, at least partially, on residents’ actual commuting habits.
