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🚶 Fifty states, fifty ways to get to work

Walk, train, carpool, or just open a laptop at home — how Americans reach work is wildly different from state to state. And the winners are almost never the ones you would guess.

✅ What we know (fact)

The state with the largest share of workers who walk to work is not New York — it's Alaska, with New York #2.

Basis: ACS 2023 share of workers who walked to work, by state (this site's walk-to-work quiz)

✅ What we know (fact)

For buses, trains and subways, New York is in a league of its own — more than twice the share of #2 New Jersey. Nearly 3 in 10 New York homes have no car, truck or van available.

Basis: ACS 2023 public-transportation share and no-vehicle share, by state (this site's transit and no-car quizzes)

✅ What we know (fact)

But New York carpools the least of all 50 states, and the carpool champion is Hawaii — the two ends of the list are almost the opposite of the transit list.

Basis: ACS 2023 carpool share, by state (this site's carpool quiz)

✅ What we know (fact)

And the largest share of workers who work from home is in Colorado — not the big coastal tech states.

Basis: ACS 2023 work-from-home share, by state (this site's work-from-home quiz)

🤔 What people think (hypothesis)

Why such big differences? Distance, mountains, islands, snow, how old the cities are, whether trains were built a century ago — all of it probably matters. A subway may make a car unnecessary; an island with few roads may make sharing one obvious. But this survey counts what people do, not why — every explanation here is a guess worth arguing about, not a proven fact.

※ A hypothesis is an idea that isn't proven yet.

How do you get to school? Now imagine you lived in Alaska, or on a Hawaiian island, or in New York City — would your answer change?

📊 Sources for the rankings mentioned in this note (links to the original data and retrieval dates) are on each quiz page below.

🎯 Check it in the connected quizzes

Which state walks to work the most? 🚶 Which state rides the bus or train most? 🚇 Who shares a ride to work? 🚕 Who works from home? 💻 Where do homes have no car? 🚲 Where is the longest ride to work? 🚗