Study Finds People Tend to Overestimate How Long It Takes to Walk and Bike

Pennsylvania State University conducted a study with 505 participants and asked them to estimate the time it would take them to walk or bike to work. 90 percent of respondents to a survey over-estimated how long it would take for them to walk or bike to work, according to an article by Gretchen Reynolds.

Drilling down into the data, the researchers found even more interesting insights. Those who did walk or bike were (not surprisingly) much more likely to guess accurately how long it would take them to walk, and those that had permitted work parking were most likely to overestimate the commute and to exaggerate that overestimation beyond their peers. Researchers suggest that if people knew how much time it actually took to get to work under their own power they might be more likely to opt to walk.