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posted by LaminatorX on Tuesday January 27 2015, @11:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the Dump-the-milk-Ethel-the-cat's-drinking-unleaded! dept.

We discussed the end of the driving boom in This Story on SN just days ago. This was based on a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) study released in May.

But now a story in The Detroit News says that the same FHWA agency has reversed course, and now says driving in 2014 will exceed levels not seen since 2007.

Drivers are on pace to top 3 trillion miles for the first time since 2007 — when drivers logged 3.031 trillion miles, the most in history — and just one of two years in which driving topped 3 trillion miles. As drivers buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, they also opt to drive more as the price per mile declines.

Other sources indicate the upturn in traffic has been noticeable in California.

The falling price of fuel, expected to persist thought 2015, is likely to keep this trend going.

The graphics of Traffic volume (pdf page 9) of the newer FHWA Traffic Volume Trends report suggest that it is the decline in traffic growth that is over. Many sources suggest this decline had more to do with the recession than any actual decline in American automobile travel.

Related Stories

USA Driving Boom is Over — 9 Percent Drop Since 2004 54 comments

The United States Public Interest Research Group reports via Common Dreams

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has very quietly acknowledged that the Driving Boom is over, cutting its forecasted driving estimates by between 24 percent and 44 percent.

After many years of aggressively and inaccurately claiming that Americans would likely begin a new era of increased driving, the agency's latest forecast (PDF) finally recognizes that the Driving Boom has given way to decades of far slower growth. The amount that the average American drove actually declined nearly 9 percent between 2004 and 2014, resulting in about a half trillion fewer total miles driven in 2014 than if driving had continued to increase at earlier rates.

[...] the Department of Transportation (USDOT) had issued 61 driving forecasts in a row that overshot their mark.

[...] The baseline forecast of total driving miles shows an increase of only 0.75 percent annually during the period from 2012 to 2042, with population growth averaging 0.7 percent each year--thus leaving driving miles per-person essentially flat.

So, Soylentils, are you driving less? Planning trips better? Carpooling? Ride sharing? Taking public transit? Never did drive? Has the 'Net replaced a significant portion of your traveling? At what price did gasoline become too expensive for you?

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by dltaylor on Wednesday January 28 2015, @12:24AM

    by dltaylor (4693) on Wednesday January 28 2015, @12:24AM (#138696)

    Maybe we're just tired of being bullied and sexually assaulted by the TSA. Add in the airlines that treat passengers worse than animals transported by road or rail; then, since the airlines buy congressional/senatorial favor and subsidies, they can minimize usable rail travel in the USofA, we don't have much alternaitve there.

    Makes cross-country travel by road, either in a car or, my preference, on a motorcycle, much more attractive.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by gnuman on Wednesday January 28 2015, @02:18AM

      by gnuman (5013) on Wednesday January 28 2015, @02:18AM (#138711)

      Maybe we're just tired of being bullied and sexually assaulted by the TSA.

      No.

      Most people love the TSA and their "vigilance".

      http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/09/shock-poll-tsas-job-approval-rating-at-5412-2/ [hotair.com]

      Despite recent negative press, a majority of Americans, 54%, think the U.S. Transportation Security Administration is doing either an excellent or a good job of handling security screening at airports. At the same time, 41% think TSA screening procedures are extremely or very effective at preventing acts of terrorism on U.S. airplanes, with most of the rest saying they are somewhat effective…

      Overall, less than 15% of Americans did not like the "screenings" and/or didn't like the security theater. The other ~85% loved it every step of the way, or were indifferent to it. And the younger people loved TSA's naked scanners and pat downs more than the older people.

      http://www.transtats.bts.gov/Data_Elements.aspx?Data=1 [bts.gov]

      Air travel is higher than ever. 2014 stats are on track to break all records.

      So your perception does not match reality. Reality is Americans love police state policies. Car usage is up because it is cheaper to cruise around. Not because people suddenly are less likely to fly.

      • (Score: 1) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday January 28 2015, @02:39PM

        by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Wednesday January 28 2015, @02:39PM (#138873)

        Reality is Americans love police state policies.

        This. Most only pretend to care about the constitution or fundamental liberties, but readily sacrifice it all for safety (real or not, it's bad), all the while pretending they want the US to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @02:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @02:23AM (#138712)

    It will be interesting if this comes to pass, but it's been a month of Sundays since the folks making these forecasts of an increase got it right.

    Interesting point:
    Obama's approval numbers have gone up recently and that correlates with gasoline prices going down.
    Americans are so fickle. [aolcdn.com] page [autoblog.com]

    -- gewg_

  • (Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Wednesday January 28 2015, @03:21AM

    by Buck Feta (958) on Wednesday January 28 2015, @03:21AM (#138731) Journal

    I, for one, am not that high.

    --
    - fractious political commentary goes here -
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday January 28 2015, @04:10AM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday January 28 2015, @04:10AM (#138741) Journal

    I've never liked flying. I've done more than my share of it, and now that I have the time, I'd rather drive.

    I really mind freeways, but I'd rather take the US Routes, (US routes for you non-North-Americans, are the highways that predated the Freeway system). You can visit the small towns that the freeways bypassed, and the obscure historical monuments, and parks.

    I've not seen gas prices like these in years, and I hope to take advantage of them.
    (My tinfoil encrusted brain sometimes wonders if these gas prices are due to a world wide conspiracy to punish Russia for the Ukraine adventurism, and I wonder how long the prices can be maintained),

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 28 2015, @06:52PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday January 28 2015, @06:52PM (#138977) Journal

      (My tinfoil encrusted brain sometimes wonders if these gas prices are due to a world wide conspiracy to punish Russia for the Ukraine adventurism, and I wonder how long the prices can be maintained)
       
      I don't think that requires any tinfoil. Although, a second factor, I believe, is putting a hurt on US domestic production.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday January 28 2015, @08:19PM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday January 28 2015, @08:19PM (#139000) Journal

        But that would require American Big Oil to be intentionally banging their own fingers with their own hammer.

        True that all the fracking and shale oil have driven the price low enough that fracking and shale operations are not (at this moment) profitable. But if the price rises just a little they all become profitable again, and this presents a big cap on price rise.

        I think it would take a bigger conspiracy than could be mustered by one country alone. I actually have no idea how this would be managed in the real world.

        Then again, its entirely possible we were lied to all along about the actual state of reserves. There is a (largely ignored) faction that believes the oil supply has been intentionally understated for nearly a century. Nothing like a shortage to drive up prices. Then there is also the Russian scientists that believe that Oil is not dinosaurs and ancient swamps, and is still being made in the earth's crust today.

        So many whack conspiracies, its hard to choose.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Wednesday January 28 2015, @08:28AM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday January 28 2015, @08:28AM (#138801) Journal

    So in short, the cheaper driving is, the more do people drive. Why am I not surprised?

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.