The keys to the car

The keys to the car

Baltimore Sun: One of the truisms of U.S. transportation planning has long been that each year, there will be more cars on the road. As the population grows so does their need to get to places, and motor vehicles are by far the most popular choice.

This has been the case for decades. But not the past decade. The growth in the amount of driving per capita, also known as vehicle miles traveled, is now in decline. People are simply driving less than they used to.

And it’s a trend that is being led almost entirely by young people. As a newly-released report documents, the average 16-to-34-year-old American is driving 23 percent fewer miles than the average young person drove in 2001. Yet, over that same period, the number of miles traveled on public transit by people of the same age range has increased 40 percent.

Today’s young people are far more inclined to walk and travel by bike as well, up 16 and 24 percent, respectively, and some are even deciding not to get a driver’s license.

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