More people walked than drove in every major region across the US during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Midwest leading as the area with the largest increase over pre-pandemic mobility levels. 

A new report from Commercial Café using smartphone search data indicates that after an "immediate and dramatic" drop in mobility through April 2020 in the early days of the pandemic, mobility picked back up into the summer before waning as winter loomed. But as summer 2021 began, more people got out walking, this time more so than the previous summer – likely due to continued occupancy restrictions, masking, and the availability and prevalence of vaccines.

Seattle, Chicago and Milwaukee are among cities where mobility has bounced back the most after a significant initial decline, according to the report. Overall, there were more searches for walking and driving directions in the Midwest and Northeast than in the Western and Southern states, with the former regions surging 122% and 95% respectively in walking direction searches when compared to January 2020.