San Diego trails in active transportation, study finds
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San Diego County is not among the top 30 counties in the U.S. for the share of trips taken on foot or by bike rather than in a vehicle, according to a new report.
Why it matters: Discouraging driving by developing dense, walkable urban areas has been a cornerstone of the region's strategy to combat climate change for years.
Driving the news: Transportation data firm StreetLight ranked all counties with at least 150 people per square mile in the contiguous U.S. by their share of trips taken via "active transportation" — walking and biking — compared to vehicles in 2023.
- Its analysis excluded transit trips entirely.
By the numbers: 14% of San Diego's trips come from biking or walking.
- That's higher than the average of all counties analyzed, which was 9.5%.
- 12% of the trips in the county were on foot, compared with just 2% by bike.
- Southern California counties performed similarly, with Los Angeles at 13% active transportation share, Orange County at 15% and Riverside County at 10%.
Yes, but: San Diego's share is a far cry from the top-ranked counties.
- The top five were all in the New York area: Manhattan (59%), the Bronx (44%), Brooklyn (43%), Queens (35%) and New Jersey's Hudson County (28%).
- The only West Coast county in the top 10 was San Francisco, at 27%.
Between the lines: Southern California counties tend to be large, containing urban, suburban and rural areas, contributing to their lower ranking, the report noted.
- But more urban census tracts within those counties could have much higher active transportation shares, it said.
The bottom line: The report indicated a relationship between population density and active transportation, with most of the top ten having at least 4,000 people per square mile.
- Tourist-heavy areas with less density were an exception.