Posted on 07/27/2013 3:42:24 PM PDT by Red in Blue PA
It may not seem like there are fewer traffic jams, and the gas station probably looks busier than ever every time you stop to fill up. But a new study shows that Americans are in fact driving less. We're seeing a steady shift in how people get around, with more people leaving their keys at home and finding other ways to get around. "This is an important change," said Michael Sivak, who conducted the study at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. "This is the first time we've ever seen a drop like this."
According to the study, driving in the U.S. reached a peak in 2004 and has been declining steadily ever since. "When you look at the distance-driven rate, we are where we were back in the mid-90s," Sivak said. In 2011, the most recent year for which data are available, the average licensed driver racked up 12,492 miles behind the wheel. That's down 1,221 miles, or 8.9 percent, from the peak seven years earlier.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I would guess that most driving is done back and forth to work. With only 49% of the workforce employed that means a lot of people are staying home. I see no big move to “urbanization.” The public busses in my town are mostly empty.
I used to see only a handful of cars on the trip into town but now it’s a constant flow of traffic and takes longer.
Willie Green used to pimp that same crap while claiming to be a conservative.
Strip the money out of roads and put it into high speed rail. When the roads deteriorate enough we’ll all move to town in the happy city. If the train won’t take me 30 or 40 miles from anyone where I want to go camping, that’s tough, I’ll have to go with a tour group.
Stuff me in a city like that and I’d be a killin spree waiting to happen. Out here I’m about as dangerous as a butterfly.
Don't believe this crap. "They" can't tell how much we're driving. I mean, how would they do it? A survey? Drones [well, there is that]?
This is just more statistical sleight of hand to further an agenda.
Yeah detroit should be happy over hussein’s driver-driven down america
Willie Green used to pimp that same crap while claiming to be a conservative.
Here is a gay Californian liberal against Agenda 21.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoMaYJwLyu4
She has a great presentation.
The other day Moo was wanting kids to walk to school. It’s 20 miles to school and the grocery store so I don’t think so. Yes, us rural folks combine our trips or we’d never have time to get anything done and be broke from buying gas. You’re out of milk for your cereal? Eat it dry until mama makes the grocery run next week.
Well they are making high end bicycles (and watches) in Detroit now. LOL Any jobs are good but bikes ain’t gonna get it done.
The reason traffic is worse:
* #&*! bike lanes. Six lane roads reduced to two lanes each way with a turn lane and bike lanes. In the name of the environment, congestion rises 33%.
* Refusal of liberals to build new roads where people are moving to or limit their growth. Rural areas and abandoned cities don’t have traffic complaints, but the rest of us suffer.
* Overall reduction in miles driven tends to be in long distance trips and business travel on the road. My company is doing everything it can to shift from driving to site to teleconferencing. Overall miles reduced, yes, but I still have to get to the school, grocery store, etc. Local traffic in major metropolitan areas isn’t affected much by corporate travel reductions.
* There are more people taking buses and informal taxis, but the number of cars is only marginally reduced.
Agenda 21 will move everyone to urban collectives where the gas price doesn’t matter to them.
Orchestrated attack on suburbs is coordinated through food control (you can’t grow your own) housing control (HUD) and transportation control (tolls, roads in disrepair, gas prices, liberal snotgrams).
I don’t miss willie.
A study from the University of Michigan. Hmmm..was the study conducted in Detroit?
Once upon a time private enterprise filled intercity transportation needs... and then came the taxpayer funded highways. Train fares were actually taxed 15% to fund the construction of public airports and interstate highways.
How about we completely privatize the highways? The new owner can institute user fees... make them all toll roads.
The automobile has it’s place... but think about the billions spent on highway maintenance... paid for with taxes. These days the cash grab for transportation money is sickening and wasteful... but it used to be funded in whole by private enterprise.
Read about the construction of the Hudson (North) River tunnels to manhattan and the construction of Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. It’s amazing... all done with private capital.
Imagine that today. Ain’t happenin’.
I go for groceries about once a month. In an emergency I can get what I need in one of the little towns 4 or 5 miles away but that doesn’t happen often.
Tighter budgets, higher gas prices, beginning of the mass movement of baby-boomers from daily workers/commuters to retirees, and stagnent, as opposed to growing, numbers of actively employed - going to work every day and earning daily pay.
It’s not rocket science.
Rural drivers tend to not idle their engines while stuck in traffic for an hour every day.
When you can shop online for everything from jeans to a Russian mailorder bride... the only reason to leave the house is to go to Costco once a month and get your monthly supply of institutional-sized dehydrated sugar frosted chocolate flavored soylent green flakes... and toilet paper.
People are more inclined than ever to withdraw to their little virtual world of sext messages and netflix.
Who needs a job? Who wants to get married and have a family so that the gubmint can suck them dry to pay for this generation’s entitlement handout.
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