18.0% of Cook County households have no vehicle

Across Cook County, 378,260 households have no car, truck or van at home, according to Census Bureau survey estimates covering 2020 through 2024. That is 18.0% of all households in the county.

Most of those households rent. Renters make up 77.9% of Cook County households without a vehicle, even though they are only 42.3% of all households.

Those figures matter as Chicagoland argues over how to pay for its buses and trains. If CTA, Metra or Pace service shrinks, these households have the fewest fallback options for getting to work, school, the doctor or the grocery store.

Renters carry most of the risk

Among Cook County renter households, 33.2% have no vehicle. Among homeowners, the share is 6.9%.

That gap of 26.3 percentage points is statistically significant, meaning it is very unlikely to be a quirk of the survey. Put simply, a renter household in Cook is far more likely than an owner household to depend on something other than a personal vehicle.

Cook renters also go without a car more often than renters elsewhere. Their no-vehicle share is 15.3 percentage points higher than the share for renters nationwide, also a statistically significant difference.

The Census data does not explain why renters are less likely to have a vehicle. It also does not show where in the county these households live, whether in the Loop, on the South Side or in the suburbs. Income, housing type, parking and nearby transit could all play a part, but this table cannot sort them out.

Other research points to costs that can fall hardest on lower-income riders. A Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning analysis of transportation fees, fines and fares found that many low-income residents, especially those without bank accounts, cannot get Ventra cards, which offer cost savings (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning). That means some of the riders with the fewest alternatives may also miss out on discounts.

Higher than the state, the nation and peers

Statewide, 11.0% of Illinois households have no vehicle. Nationally, the share is 8.4%.

Cook's rate is 7.0 percentage points higher than the state's and 9.7 percentage points higher than the nation's. Both differences are statistically significant.

Cook also stands out among the big counties at the center of comparable metro areas. It ranks 1st in no-vehicle share among those principal peer counties.

Wayne County, Mich., home to Detroit, comes closest at 11.6%. Even so, Cook's share is 6.4 percentage points higher. Los Angeles County sits at 8.9%, Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, at 7.1%, and Dallas County at 6.8%.

How people get around, and what to watch

CMAP's household travel survey adds detail on how residents move. In Chicago, walking, biking and transit accounted for a large share of all trips, the agency found (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning).

Suburban Cook residents used those modes less often than city residents. But they still used them more than residents of every other county in the region (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning). CMAP said its 2019 survey found a similar pattern (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning).

Regionwide, transit's share of trips was similar to 2019, according to CMAP (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning). The agency also reported a large jump in residents who work from home at least weekly between 2019 and 2025 (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning).

CMAP also found that higher-income travelers mainly ride transit for work trips (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning). Households with no car at home may need transit for errands, appointments and school runs as well.

The newest CMAP results are early. The agency says they come from a regionally representative sample that is only part of the full household survey still underway (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning).

On funding, CMAP has written of an action that it says averts the region's looming transit fiscal cliff, a projected operating shortfall that threatened deep service cuts and fare increases (Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning). How that plays out on the street is still to be seen.

• Service levels on CTA bus and rail routes, Metra lines and Pace suburban buses.
• Whether fare changes or payment rules affect riders without bank accounts or Ventra cards.
• CMAP's full travel survey results, which should give a firmer picture of how car-free households get around.
• The next Census Bureau release, which will show whether Cook's share of car-free households is holding steady.

How we did this

We used American Community Survey estimates for 2020 through 2024 on vehicles available by housing tenure for Cook County, Illinois, the United States and the principal counties of peer metros: Los Angeles, Dallas, Harris and Wayne counties. We compared no-vehicle shares for all households, renters and owners, and tested each difference for statistical significance using the Census Bureau's published margins of error; every comparison reported here, including Cook's 9.7 percentage points gap with the nation, was statistically significant. Travel-behavior context comes from published Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning reports.

No vehicle available: the household reports no car, van or truck kept at home for use by its members. Household: all the people living in the same housing unit, whether related or not. Renter and owner households: grouped by whether the home is rented or owned by someone living in it. Percentage points: the simple difference between percentages, not a percent change. Statistically significant: the difference is large compared with the survey's margin of error, so it is unlikely to be a fluke of sampling.

Limitations

• All Census figures are survey estimates with margins of error, not full counts.
• The estimates pool responses from 2020 through 2024, a period that includes the pandemic, so they describe an average over those years rather than a specific moment.
• The data counts whether a household has a vehicle available, not how often anyone drives, rides transit or walks.
• These county-level figures cannot show how car-free households are split between the city and suburban Cook, or among neighborhoods.
• The data shows how renters and owners differ but cannot explain why.
• Peer comparisons use only the main county of each metro, not the full metro area.
• CMAP's newest travel survey results are preliminary and based on part of a larger sample still being collected.

Sources

• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey: Tenure by Vehicles Available (ACS 5-year 2020–2024), latest period 2024; retrieved Oct. 12, 2026. Data