[CTPP] RE: No Car but Drive Alone to Work - [SPAM] - Found word(s) list error in the Text body

Tue Mar 2 16:43:46 CST 2010

Unless I'm seriously mistaken, there is no question about cars owned in the ACS.  Question #9 (from the ACS 2008 questionnaire), as follows, asks about "automobiles...kept at home for use by members of this household:

9. How many automobiles, vans, and trucks
of one-ton capacity or less are kept at
home for use by members of this
household?

Questions 30 and 31 do ask about means of transportation to work, although neither one refers to the ownership of the vehicle:

30. How did this person usually get to work LAST
WEEK? If this person usually used more than one
method of transportation during the trip, mark (X)
the box of the one used for most of the distance.

31. How many people, including this person,
usually rode to work in the car, truck, or van
LAST WEEK?

As a personal observation, many automobiles are leased, not owned, and that may explain any unusually high numbers if indeed there are questions that allow a correlation between car ownership and means of transportation to work.

Manny Trillo
Manager, Research Data
Mid-America Regional Council
600 Broadway, Suite 200
Kansas City, MO 64105
Phone:  816.701.8220
Fax:  816.427.7758
E-mail:  mtrillo at marc.org

How does the Kansas City area compare to other peer metros?  Check out Metro Outlook, www.metrooutlook.org

-----Original Message-----
From: ctpp-news-bounces at chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces at chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Pete Swensson
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 3:58 PM
To: ctpp-news at chrispy.net
Subject: RE: [CTPP] RE: No Car but Drive Alone to Work - [SPAM] - Found word(s) list error in the Text body

Bicycles are a distinct mode category on the questionnaire (not lumped in with cars or trucks), so my guess is either the respondent did not understand the question and answered incorrectly (which can happen to a small percent on any question), or - as Ed Christopher notes - the odd response could be the result of imputing values to fields with no response (which can also give nonsensical results to a small percent).  Again, as Ed notes, having a company car (that is not owned by the commuter) might create a head-scratching moment for the respondent, leading to this result in a small percent of cases.  

Keep in mind too, that the question asks how the respondent got to work the majority of days last week, which could have been a non-standard work week for the respondent, such as when they go to a conference in a distant city.  For us, that has shown up in our dataset as "walking to work" at a job on the other side of the continent (e.g., from the hotel room to the conference room?), or traveling by ferryboat when none serves our community.

Sometimes the best strategy for dealing with the anomalous outliers is to read the exact wording of the question, imagine potential oddball scenarios that could create them, then ignore them with a clear conscience.

Pete Swensson, Senior Planner
Thurston Regional Planning Council
2424 Heritage Ct. SW
Olympia, WA 98502
(360) 741-2530 (direct line)
(360) 956-7575 (main desk)
(360) 956-7815 (fax)
swenssp at trpc.org

This e-mail and any attachments are for the use of the addressed individual.  If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify our systems manager.  TRPC has taken responsible precautions to ensure no viruses are present in this e-mail, however we do not accept responsibility for loss or damage arising from the use of this e-mail or attachments.

-----Original Message-----
From: ctpp-news-bounces at chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces at chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Don Burrell
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 1:13 PM
To: 'ctpp-news at chrispy.net'
Subject: [CTPP] RE: No Car but Drive Alone to Work

Have you ruled out bicycling?

Don Burrell, AICP, Senior Planner
Bicycle / Pedestrian Coordinator
OKI Regional Council of Governments
720 East Pete Rose Way,  Suite 420
Cincinnati, OH 45202-3576
513-621-6300
513-621-9325 - fax
dburrell at oki.org
<A bicycle is an instrument for playing the road>

-----Original Message-----
From: ctpp-news-bounces at chrispy.net [mailto:ctpp-news-bounces at chrispy.net] On Behalf Of Cook, Cliff
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 3:52 PM
To: 'ctpp-news at chrispy.net'
Subject: [CTPP] No Car but Drive Alone to Work

I'm hoping someone can help me address this question from a colleague.  He put together a table from the 2006-2008 ACS showing mode of journey to work by vehicles owned and came up with surprisingly large numbers who do not won a car yet drive alone to work. No doubt, there are a few people who fit this category but my guess is that this largely is the result of either people misunderstanding the question or some sort of coding problem. Here is an excerpt from his email ( the Cambridge here is Cambridge, Massachusetts):

I'm looking at ACS data and specifically at cities and percent workers have no car available.  From that I'm then looking to see how those workers get to work.

The attached worksheet shows my work.  What is strange is that it shows for Cambridge that 6.6% of people without a car available drove alone to work.  The percent is similar to Boston. And NYC has 3.4% of workers with No vehicles available driving alone to work.

So, the question is, how can someone without a vehicle drive to work alone?  Do you have any ideas on this?  It could be someone doesn't own a vehicle, but drives a friend's car to work. Or has no car of their own, but uses a company car to get to work.  But seems like a high number for this.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks

Cliff Cook
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clifford Cook
 Planning Information Manager
  Cambridge Community Development Dept.
   344 Broadway
    Cambridge, MA. 02139
     617/349-4656  FAX 617/349-4669  TTY 617/349-4621
      email => ccook at cambridgema.gov
       web site => <http://www.cambridgema.gov/~CDD/>

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