On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Patricia Becker
<pbecker@umich.edu> wrote:
This is going to be very difficult to test because so few ACS respondents have access to any of these. Does the word "metro" mean the same thing in all metro areas, or are there some where it refers to bus transportation? I'm not sure the term "rail" resonates well everywhere, either. I would suggest that FDOT gather information from the states and metros where rail commuting is a feasible option and find out what people call it, or how it's referred to, such as "metro" in the Washington DC areas.
Patty Becker
Hello,
As you may know, the Census Bureau's "means of transportation" question on the current American Community Survey questionnaire (as well as the previous Census 2000 "long form") is as follows:
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.
__ Car, truck, or van
__ Bus or trolley bus
__ Streetcar or trolley car
__ Subway or elevated
__ Railroad
__ Ferryboat
__ Taxicab
__ Motorcycle
__ Bicycle
__ Walked
__ Worked at home
__ Other method
Here at U.S. DOT, we (meaning FTA, FHWA, and BTS) are discussing whether updated descriptions might make more sense for the three public transportation categories associated with use of rail:
__ Streetcar or trolley car
__ Subway or elevated
__ Railroad
However, any changes to these three categories (or even collapsing these to a single "rail transit" category) will, if ultimately approved for testing, require a formal and carefully-controlled "ACS content change" test to be conducted by the Census Bureau in 2013 and 2014. So this is a very big deal. If three rail-related categories are maintained, here is one approach under consideration for future testing:
__ Streetcar or trolley rail
__ Subway, metro, or light rail
__ Commuter railroad or Amtrak
Or maybe a variation that makes it clear(er) each of these choices refer to a rail transit mode:
__ Rail - streetcar or trolley
__ Rail - subway, metro, or light rail
__ Rail - commuter railroad or Amtrak
If you have any comments about what seems to make the most sense from the viewpoint of a future ACS respondent and/or transportation data analyst, please send me an email and I will summarize all comments received in a future email to this listserv (along with your name as the author, unless you wish to be anonymous). But feel free to reply directly to this listserv with your observations!
Ken Cervenka
FTA Office of Planning and Environment
202/493-0512
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