On the Road Again: Driving Decline Ends

From THE CITY FIX: On the Road Again: Driving Decline Ends

It’s official – the historic decline in driving we’ve seen for the past two years has ended. From 2007 up to a few months ago, the economic crisis and high gas prices combined to produce some of the largest decreases in driving since the 1970s. We know that recessions lead to reduced driving, but still, these numbers along with the increased transit ridership we saw gave sustainable transportation advocates hope that we were witnessing a paradigm shift. The drop in miles driven even continued as gas prices plummeted in the fall of 2008.