[CTPP] Waiting Anxiously for County Flow Data

When your County level flow data does get released (any week now) what will you do? Might I suggest that you begin to get ready for it by preparing a county level trip table with your 1990 data. You can find that data at http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/jtw_workerflow.html. If you haven't already looked at the 1990 data for your area, you might want to do it NOW so you can be better prepared for the 2000 data when it does get released. Although this is only county level data it can still prove to be instructive especially the more counties you have. Three different numbers can be derived. The number of worker flows into an area, the number leaving the area and the number who live and work in the area. When working with this data it is always important to keep in mind what I call the definitional criteria. Some of the key points to understand is that it 1) represents workers 16 years of age and older; 2) does not count more than one work trip per worker. A census work trip consists of the one-way movement from one's place of residence to one's usual place of work. The actual Census question asked, "At what location did this person work LAST WEEK? If this person worked at more than one location, print where he or she worked most last week"; and, 3) assumes all work trips originate at the place of residence. Once the 2000 flows are release they will be posted at the Journey to Work Branch of Population Division at the Census Bureau's web site http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/journey.html To complement your flow data don't forget about the county and statewide data profiles housed on the AASHTO website at http://transportation.org/ctpp. Although this is only the beginning of a much larger data harvest, there is a lot of descriptive information and analysis that can be gleaned from these two sources. Besides it is a good time to begin to understand the nuances and definitional issues associated with the use of the data.