Re: [CTPP] Journey to Work data in the standard 2000 census prod

Patty: I would agree that a "standard census product" *could* be tabulations by place-of-work, tract-of-work and TAZ-of-work. I'm fairly certain this type of information would be extremely useful to local economic development departments, US Department of Labor, local city planners, regional demographers, and academic researchers. Yes, even regional transportation planners find this data useful! I just don't think commuter flow level at below county-to-county level is appropriate for "standard" census products. Perhaps "work in county of residence" versus "work outside county of residence" is a do-able recode for a standard product such as STF3A? One of the problems is that the Census Bureau has a *lot* of "standard" census products as well as "special" census products, some of which are very well concealed from the casual or even professional data users. For example, I did a search on the Census Bureau's web site for the "Census Transportation Planning Package" and I *did* find a page which summarizes the 12 CDs comprising the full set of CTPP "Statewide Elements" but *no* mention is made of the 30 some-odd number of CTPP "Urban Element" CD-ROMs. Casual data users would somehow need to figure a way to get over to the BTS web site, where again, the "urban element" CDs are also cleverly concealed from the casual user. There is also the Census Bureau's "Special Tabulation Process" program which is a cost-reimbursable program for special user requests not fulfilled with standard products. This is an extremely valuable program to researchers and governments, but isn't highly publicized by the Bureau. I would love to see a full list of these STPs to see the scope and range of these cost-reimbursable products! Thinking back on our analysis of 1990 Census datasets, we made most use of the PL94-171 files; the STF1a (100% count); the STF3a (sample data); STFS-5 (county-to-county commuters, released 12/92); the PUMS 5% Sample; the CTPP/SE; the CTPP/UE; and our own cost-reimbursable product: STP-214 (journey-to-work flows by means of transportation by income quartile). And our librarians will testify as to the usefulness of hard copy Census Bureau-produced reports on the 1990 Census!! My hope is that the American Factfinder is a web-based approach to retrieving these standard census data files. I could see us using both "ready-made" and "custom" tabulations developed by the Bureau, as well as acquiring the raw data files (PL94-171, STF1A, STF3A, PUMS, etc.) Given the likely cost-reimbursable nature of the Bureau's FactFinder, it probably will resemble a virtual vending machine for census data. That's okay, as long as we have enough virtual money in our virtual regional data center / depository. If web retrieval of data files or tabulations is too slow, due to the size of the files or the speed of one's internet connection, then the Bureau could produce one-off CDs at an extra cost, with overnight delivery if needed! That's about all for now. Drop me a line if you want to continue our discussion off of the list? Chuck Purvis, MTC ******************************************************* e-mail: cpurvis(a)mtc.ca.gov Chuck Purvis, AICP Senior Transportation Planner/Analyst, Planning Section Metropolitan Transportation Commission 101 Eighth Street, Oakland, CA 94607-4700 (510) 464-7731 (voice) (510) 464-7848 (fax) WWW: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/ MTC DataMart & InfoMart: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/facts_and_figures/datamart.htm MTC FTP Site: ftp://ftp.abag.ca.gov/pub/mtc/planning/ Personal WWW: http://home.earthlink.net/~clpurvis/ *******************************************************