Boulder residents continue to drive less and ride bicycles and walk more compared with the national average, according to the city’s latest “Mode Shifts” study.
Still, the trend isn’t on track to meet the city’s goal of reducing traffic to 1994 levels by 2025.
The ongoing study, which has tracked how thousands of Boulder residents get around since 1990, found that single-occupancy vehicle trips have decreased 7 percent since the early 1990s.
The 2009 Mode Shift study, the eighth edition since the city began tracking travel statistics two decades ago, is based on surveys completed by 1,220 random households in Boulder.
Participants were asked to keep a travel diary that shows where they went and how they got there during a random day during the third week of September.
One of the biggest changes over the past 20 years, according to the study, is the number of people who are commuting to work using bicycles or public transportation.
The number of people using vehicles to get to work and not carpooling has declined more than 19 percent.
At the same time, bus ridership has increased nearly 6 percent and bicycle travel has shot up almost 13 percent.
The study also shows a stark contrast between how far Boulder-area residents travel on average, compared with the rest of the country.
Boulder residents make shorter trips — an average of 5.1 miles — compared with the 9.9 miles that an average U.S. resident travels.
Boulder residents also spend less time on the roads, at 17 minutes per trip, compared with the 18.7 minutes that an average U.S. traveler spends.
The trend toward more buses, bikes and walking, however, is not moving quickly enough to meet Boulder’s goals of reducing single-occupancy trips in vehicles.
Boulder officials set a goal in 1996 to reduce vehicle traffic in the city to levels at or below those seen in 1994.
“If we stay on that trend line, we won’t meet the goal by 2025,” said Martha Roskowski, manager of Go Boulder, which promotes alternative transportation.
The city of Boulder wants 75 of every 100 trips to be made without the use of a vehicle carrying a single rider.
