How many people ride bikes?
There is no clear and absolutely correct number, because bicycle usage varies widely - from children riding to school to people commuting to work to racers going for training rides. Collecting bicycle counts can be time-consuming and expensive, and - unlike as with auto traffic counts - there is no financial incentive for states and local governments to collect bike counts. Despite these limitations, though, there are a number of good estimates of overall bicycle use.
The 2002 National Survey of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Attitudes and Behaviors was sponsored by the US Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Bureau of Transportation Statistics in order to gauge pedestrian and bicyclists' trips, behaviors, and attitudes.
According to the survey, approximately 57 million people, 27.3 percent of the population age 16 or older, rode a bicycle at least once during the summer of 2002. The survey breaks this down by gender, age, and race/ethnicity.
Additional bicycle travel data is provided in the 2001 National Household Travel Survey. (If the previous link times out, the survey can also be found at http://nhts.ornl.gov/publications.shtml).
