Metro has posted some fascinating charts from their bicycle and pedestrian study. Here’s their chart showing the relative mode share for riders at each station:

Click to enlarge (PDF).

The most evident pattern is the variation between walking-oriented stations (mostly blue) and auto-oriented (mostly orange). DC, Arlington, and Alexandria stations have the most walkers, but the stations along the Red Line in Montgomery County have very high shares of walkers as well, except at Grosvenor and the ends of the lines. Rockville’s walk share is much lower than it ought to be given the station’s presence in the center of a significant city, though the environment around the station is not as pedestrian-friendly as it should be. Fairfax and Prince George’s stations, meanwhile, have few walkers.

The highest percentage of cyclists appear to be at West Hyattsville; bus riders, Anacostia; and drivers, Branch Avenue. If nothing else, the Green Line is a line of extremes when it comes to mode share.

There are large segments of “Other” at West Falls Church (almost half) and Morgan Boulevard (about 15%). Perhaps WFC’s is the Washington Flyer? Union Station also has a large share of “Other” for MARC and VRE (about 35%) and National Airport for airplane riders. National Airport’s stats only show about 20% of riders arriving via plane, with over half by foot. Is that really residents of the area walking to the station, or just airport patrons who replied “walk” to a survey?

What else do you notice?

Update: Metro officials confirm what we suspected: Many flyers at National Airport put down “walk.” In fact, “other” wasn’t an explicit option; the survey team coded “other” when people didn’t give a mode or put down two different modes. As for West Falls Church, they suspect that’s a coding error, and that Fairfax Connector buses were mistakenly categorized as “other” instead of “bus.” Therefore, most of the gray in the WFC circle probably should be yellow.

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.