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Friday, September 2, 2011

Transportation Young People Are Driving Less

Posted by Sarah Mirk on Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 11:29 AM

It's Graph Friday! A day I just invented. Let's look at this graph of Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) by age:

NHTS-age-specific-vmt1-535x387.gif

It shows that people under 40 (and also people age 50-54) are driving way less than they did a decade ago. What's going on here? I'd like to say that young people are more environmentally aware and looking for alternatives to driving. But there's also the fact that young people are pretty seriously hit by the recession, maybe we are just less able to afford cars these days. Anyway, it's nice to know that if you're carless, you're becoming less of a crazy minority.

 

Comments (9) RSS

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1
Hurray for collapse. Just think how little resources we'll consume when the country resembles a Mad Max movie.
Posted by Spindles on September 2, 2011 at 11:45 AM · Report
2
It's probably also worth noting that many young people of means (those who can afford to drive) are re-locating to denser urban environments.
Posted by Garibaldi on September 2, 2011 at 11:45 AM · Report
3
Gas is almost $4 a gallon. It was probably in the $2.50/gallon range a decade ago. Even if you own a car and drive, chances are that you're driving a lot less.
Posted by Ovidius on September 2, 2011 at 12:09 PM · Report
4
Thank fucking god for red ovals. I totally wouldn't have been able to figure the graph out if somebody hadn't added those.
Posted by # on September 2, 2011 at 12:40 PM · Report
5
WHY CAN'T WE GET THE 5-14 AGE BRACKET BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A FINE, FRESH NEW AUTOMOBILE?!? THIS IS WHY THE ECONOMY IS TANKING!!!
Posted by Graham on September 2, 2011 at 12:45 PM · Report
6
I think some of this also has to do with the cost of car ownership. I know that my son sold his car when he went to college primarily due to the fact that he couldn't afford the car insurance and the cost of parking near his school. Those two factors alone were more than his monthly food costs & transit pass.
Older drivers usually pay a lot less for insurance, and live &/or work in places that allow for free parking.

I'd be interested to view this chart if they eliminated data from the top ten largest metropolitan areas. It would be more interesting to see if this trend was more based on young people moving into densely populated cities, or if this also exists in communities where public transit is less available.
Posted by MonkeyBeat on September 2, 2011 at 12:46 PM · Report
7
Isn't it fair to say while EVERYONE is driving less, there are more people driving?
It's just the economy. Let's not get too excited by this graph.
Posted by frankieb on September 2, 2011 at 12:59 PM · Report
8
This is mostly due to gas prices - the summer of 2008 saw the energy industry ramp up the price to nearly $4 per gallon, while I remember gas prices in the late 90s (winter of 1998 to be exact) were less than $1/gallon, and a May 2001 article said that gas prices would rise for the summer to about $1.70/gallon for regular unleaded.
Posted by LawyerPepper on September 2, 2011 at 4:29 PM · Report
9
Yes, but they're eating more doughnuts.
Posted by Todd Mecklem on September 2, 2011 at 7:02 PM · Report

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