Vehicle Trip Lengths in San Mateo
Theres a really interesting 2010–2012 California Travel Survey dataset gathered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that shows the average trip length for personal vehicle trips across California. This allows breaking down what percentage of trips by personal vehicle in the City of San Mateo by length.
Trip Lengths in San Mateo
Filtering the dataset by trips that start in the City of San Mateo we can get an estimate of what trips people are taking with personal vehicles. A majority of trips are less than three miles with almost a quarter of trips less than one mile.
Why Trip Lengths Matter
Trip length is interesting because it is a valuable indicator of what opportunity there is for moving trips to active transportation alternatives. E-bikes have expanded the range that people are comfortable undertaking without getting in their car. One dataset form the National Institute for Transportation and Communities puts the average trip length on an e-bike at ~9 miles while data from Denver's e-bike subsidy program puts the average length much lower at 3.3 miles with 85% of trips less than 5 miles.
Pulling It All Together
Biking and walking can easily serve trips less than one mile and most people are comfortable with 3 mile trips on a bike or scooter. E-bikes and e-scooters could extend that comfort level up to the 6 mile range based on the survey data. There is a huge opportunity for shifting trips to active transportation in the City of San Mateo based on this data.
Challenges
Shifting trips to active transportation assumes we have safe infrastructure to support people making this choice. So far that has been a struggle in San Mateo but the opportunity is there if the city works on prioritizing and funding infrastructure that enables people to make this choice.
- ← Previous
City of San Mateo Bikeway/Pedestrian Budget