Americans Actually Driving Less
From today’s NY Times:
“The Transportation Department reported Friday that in March, Americans drove 11 billion fewer miles than in March 2007, a decline of 4.3 percent. It is the first time since 1979 that traffic has dropped from one March to the next, and the month-on-month percentage decline is the largest since record keeping began in 1942.”
Is it conceivable that Americans could actually change their excessive consumption patterns and methods of transport due to the high price of gas? Or will it just result in people purchasing smaller cars? Perhaps people will begin to realize that short distance car trips can be accomplished just as fast by bike.
I hope to see Hummers traded in for cargo bikes and Xtracycles in the near future…
-lauren
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
If we dropped 4.3 percent and that equals 11 billion miles, I think that means that in March we drove 250,000,000,000 miles. 250 billion miles.
That’s like to the sun and back a whole bunch of times. If my math is correct.
May 25th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
your math is correct, Anonymous. Each month, Americans drive more than 200 billion miles, for a yearly total in 2006 that topped 3 trillion miles. It is an unbelievably big number.