San Francisco tops the nation when it comes to the percentage of its labor force working at home. According to data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau via the 2005 American Community Survey, 6.3% of San Francisco’s workforce doesn’t need to leave home to get to work, a higher percentage than in any other large U.S. city.
But for those who do need to commute to work, the “City by the Bay” ranks among the top five U.S. cities for the percentage of its workforce that use public transportation, walk and bike to work.San Francisco ranks third for percentage of commuters who use public transportation (32.7%), third for percentage of commuters who walk to work (9.6%), and fifth for percentage who bike to work (1.8%).
On the other hand, San Francisco ranked among the bottom five cities for percentage of workers who participate in carpools.
The American Community Survey, a service of the U.S. Census Bureau, recently published detailed data tables (in Excel format) that analyze how people get to work in cities with population 65,000 and over.
Besides San Francisco, other cities with the largest percentage of residents who work at home include Portland (5.3%), Seattle (5.1%), Austin (5.0%) and Colorado Springs (4.9%).
Not surprisingly, New York City ranked first on the list of cities for the percentage of its workforce that relies on public transportation (54.6%), followed by the District of Columbia (37.7%), San Francisco (32.7%), Boston (31.7%) and Philadelphia (25.9%).
Those with the largest percentage of walkers were Boston (12.5%), the District of Columbia (10.0%), San Francisco (9.6%), New York City (9.4%) and Philadelphia (8.1%).
The cities with the highest percentage of bike-to-work residents were Portland (3.5%), Minneapolis (2.4%), Seattle (2.3%), Tucson (2.2%), and San Francisco (1.8%).
Two Arizona cities – Mesa (16.7%) and Phoenix (16.2%) – respectively, topped the list of cities by percentage of residents who carpool, followed by Sacramento (15.7%), Honolulu (15.6%), and Fresno (15.1%).