[jyl]

"All trips" is literally that, if you walk two blocks to the corner store that is a "walk" trip. I think that is how the data is set up. It's not that people are walking from one county to the other.

Portland has a pretty dense core. Two of my co-workers walk to work, they live about 15 blocks away, takes maybe 15 minutes. Out in the suburbs, I doubt there is too much walking going on, and the data seems to confirm it.

The question this survey is raising, around here, is whether it makes sense to have transit out in the suburbs - buses or light rail. If only 8% percent of people use it, why have transit there? If that percent has risen only 2% in twenty years, why invest in having more transit there?

I think the missing context is the absolute numbers. The population of Portland and its suburbs has grown a lot since 1994. The significance of going from 6% of a small population to 8% of a large population is more than just reading 6% and 8% conveys.

Naturally, our local crap newspaper has done zero thoughtful writing about this. The article simply regurgitates the percentages. There is a reason why the main use of the daily paper's three or four pages of pretend news articles is to light fires and wrap fish.