SANDAG’s latest commute report shows a 5 percent annual dip in cycling — but the eight-corridor sample and a 17 percent gain since 2019 complicate that headline.
By The Navarro Report Staff | California Desk — August 5, 2026
A headline figure in the San Diego Association of Governments’ newly released State of the Commute report — a 5 percent year-over-year dip in bicycle activity — has prompted concern that cycling is losing momentum across the region. A closer read of the data, along with the report’s own footnotes, suggests a more encouraging and considerably more complicated story.
SANDAG tracks long-term bicycle trends using a network of Eco-Counters positioned at eight corridors chosen for consistent, year-over-year comparison: Coast Highway and the Coastal Rail Trail, the Bayshore Bikeway, Rose Canyon Bike Path, University Avenue, 30th Street, Fourth and Fifth Avenues, Mission Road and the Inland Rail Trail, and Landis Street. It is a narrow, fixed sample rather than a comprehensive census of every rider in the region.
The agency itself flags a key limitation in the report’s endnotes, noting that sensor malfunctions and construction activity on University Avenue during 2025 required data reconstruction to fill gaps in the count. That single corridor’s disruption factors meaningfully into the reported annual decline.
Viewed over a longer horizon, the trend looks substantially different. Activity across the same eight monitored corridors remains 17 percent higher than pre-pandemic 2019 levels. The 30th Street protected bike lanes in North Park logged a 15 percent ridership increase in 2025, marking a fourth consecutive year of growth, and corridors including the Bayshore Bikeway and Rose Canyon Creek path continue to draw hundreds of thousands of riders annually.
The region has also substantially expanded the infrastructure supporting that ridership. San Diego County now counts 1,881 centerline miles of bikeways across five classes of facilities, from multi-use paths to Class V bike boulevards designed for less-experienced riders, with more than 331 of those miles built since 2016.
The pattern that emerges is one of dispersion rather than decline: as safer, more comprehensive infrastructure comes online, riders increasingly have alternatives to the fixed corridors SANDAG has tracked for consistency’s sake, which can depress counts at legacy monitoring points even as overall cycling activity holds steady or grows. For a region investing heavily in active transportation as part of its long-range transportation plan, the underlying trajectory remains a coherent case for continued investment, even if a single year-over-year number invites a more pessimistic read.
Human-Directed AI Journalism — This article was researched and drafted with AI assistance under direct human editorial direction and review. The Navarro Report | navarro-report.com