Photo by Eric.

Just like the country as a whole, Washington D.C. sees more residents commuting via automobile than any other mode of transportation, but public transportation is hot on its heels here..

According to data released by the District Department of Transportation, 40 percent of Washingtonians drive to work, and it’s most popular in Ward 4, followed by Ward 3.

Map of driving commute rates by ward. (Image courtesy of DDOT)

Despite complaints about D.C. gridlock, the average driving commute for a D.C. resident takes 29 minutes. It’s safe to figure assume that people coming into the city from elsewhere probably face the brunt of traffic. D.C.’s population on a work week day swells from 680,000 to more than a million, on average.

Driving commutes are longest in Wards 4 and 8, at an average of 30 minutes. Wards 2, 3, 5, and 6 have the shortest, with an average of 27 minutes.

Comparatively, about 86 percent of the nation as a whole uses a car to get to work, according to the U.S. Census. It makes sense that D.C., as an urban area with a bevy of other options, would have much lower rates of car commutes than the nation.

In D.C., public transportation commute rates nearly tie with driving, with 39 percent of residents opting to get to work via buses and trains. That’s up from about 33 percent in 2000, according to a census working paper, despite well-documented issues with Metro.

Map of public transit commute rates by ward. (Image courtesy of DDOT)

It’s most popular in Ward 1, where it takes an average of 35 minutes to get to work. Public transit commutes take the longest in Ward 8—an average of 46 minutes—and shortest in Ward 2, at 32 minutes.

Fifteen percent of D.C. residents walk to work, mostly in Ward 2. And despite all of the hype about bike lanes and Capital Bikeshare, cyclists represent 6 percent of total commuters.

It’s worth clicking around on the DDOT’s data site to play around with the interactive maps, which are fueled by data from the American Community Survey and TIGER/Line Census Tract Shapefiles.

Update: The map labels were initially labeled incorrectly.