Re: [CTPP] 2004 ACS Data Release

Zak raises a lot of issues and I am hopefully that some of the Census folks and others on this list may be able to help. Needless to say, there is a whole lot of education that needs to be done when working with these data. Especially when dealing with year to year changes. One area that particularly struck me in Zaks work was the comparison of ACS 2000 Mercer county walkers to ACS 2004 Mercer county walkers. When I saw Zak's numbers I went to Fact Finder to see for myself what may have been happening and this is what I found. First, Mercer county was not an ACS test site in 2000 so I used the C2SS data for 2000. Looking at those numbers I got 5,567 walkers (with a low of 2,465 and a high of 8,669) for 2000 and 2,924 (with a low of 1,556 to 4,292) for 2004. Or put another way 2000 was 5,567 plus or minus 56% while 2004 was 2,924 plus or minus 47%. Becoming even more curious, I checked out 2003 and found 4,303 walkers (with a low of 2,223 to 6,383). That turned out to be 4,303 walkers plus or minus 48%. So what does all this mean? I am not quite sure except to say that for 2003 the overall mode split of walkers was 2.6% with a range of 1.4% to 3.7%. The mode split of walkers for 2004 was 1.8% with a range of 1.0% to 2.6%. However you slice it, something is going on but just what???. Hopefully, the "Guide to Using the ACS" that the Census Bureau is developing and the NCHRP project to develop a guidebook on using the ACS data will help us plow though the forest that is apparently growing right before our eyes. Thabet Zakaria wrote: -- Ed Christopher Resource Center Planning Team Federal Highway Administration 19900 Governors Drive Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461 708-283-3534 (V) 708-574-8131 (cell) 708-283-3501 (F)