We, Especially Young Men, Are Driving Less
Via Pandagon:
A quiet revolution that gets almost no mainstream attention is happening under our noses: Americans are getting out of their cars and biking, walking, or taking public transportation to their destinations in greater numbers. Phineas Baxandall of U.S. Public Interest Research Group crunches the numbers and finds that Americans overall are driving 6% less per capita, and that most of the shift comes from younger people not driving as much or at all. I know 6% sounds small on paper, but it adds up to billions of miles not driven a year. The largest dips come from men reducing their miles driven, because they had more to give up, as men drive more generally. Interestingly, in the youngest group, even fewer men than women have driver’s licenses.
I have witnessed this phenomenon first hand. When my brother and I turned 16 we couldn’t wait to drive – and drive we did. When my son got his license… shrug. He didn’t want to drive. Worse, he only drives if I make him. My nephew is staying with us for the summer. He’s sixteen, and guess what? He has no interest in driving.
Two days ago they went to the boardwalk. I offered them the car. They declined, and took the bus. As an urbanite I applaud this. As a former teenager… What the hell?
But the biggest decline is in young people, which again is in large part due to their shrinking job opportunities, but also seems to be part of a larger rejection by the Millennial generation of the notion that car ownership is a critical part of adulthood. In an era of laptop computers and smartphones, the sense that you need a car to have access to the larger world is shrinking. They’re also well-known for having more communal values than the generations before them, which reduces the impact of the traditional hostility to public transportation, i.e. the collective American fear of having to be in a collective.
I think the technology thing is a biggie, and my kids are too young for the job market and owning/renting a home, so… we’ll have to wait and see on that point. I will tell you this: When choosing a university for my son it was important to him that the location be totally accessible without a car.
But there’s definitely something changing besides less driving. Cities are growing faster than suburbs.
Since at least World War II, suburbs have represented the quintessential American mode of living. That may be changing.
More than half of the country’s 51 largest metropolitan areas saw greater growth within city limits than in their suburbs between July 2010 and July 2011, according to an analysis of new census data by Brookings Institution demographer William Frey and others. As the Wall Street Journal points out, that’s a reversal of a broad trend that has held since the 1920s, when the rise of the automobile prompted Americans to flee dirty, crowded cities for greener pastures.
Mr. Pandora and I are city residents, but we bought a large city house which is expensive to heat and cool – not to mention clean! Our plan once the kids ship out is to remain in a city but to downsize to a small townhouse or condo located in the very heart of an urban area. We want to ditch the cars. Hey… maybe we aren’t so different from our son and nephew!
Tags: Cities, Suburbs, transportation
So when do auto insurance rates for young men start going down? If you’ve turned on a TV lately you can see there is plenty of competition in the auto insurance market.
So when do auto insurance rates for young men start going down? If you’ve turned on a TV lately or checked your spam folder you can see there is plenty of “competition” in the auto insurance market.
Anyone remember in Ferris Buler where he lamented getting a computer when his sister got a car? i wonder how that scene would go today. “what a chump, she has to pay for gas, and insurance, and drive all her friends everywhere….. check out my badass minecraft world!”
Buy a Porsche and watch his interest peak.
Same here, youngest son could care less about driving and refused a serviceable used car. Sacriledge when I was young but I applaud it now.
Having a car is expensive (with insurance and gas costing $40-50 bucks to fill a tank). If you grew up in the city (where parking is annoying/expensive, tickets abound, and walking is usually an option), I can’t blame them.
I haven’t seen the same reaction with my younger silbings and their friends, but out here in the hideous burbs I think it’s more of a necessity.
Advocacy groups for walking and biking are also helping. In addition, building exercise into your daily routine with such things as commuting or running errands by foot or bike reduces obesity, cuts healthcare costs, helps the environment, and saves lotsa money. This has never been more apparent, and groups such as Bike Delaware are leading the charge: http://www.bikede.org/
And for naysayers who’ll never give up driving (not even for a city block), even a slight reduction in automobile usage can have tremendous benefits for reducing congestion: http://www.bikede.org/2012/06/06/motorists-benefit-greatly-in-a-walkable-bikeable-delaware/ and they should be cheering this on.
Kids are more aware than ever, given the information age we live in. Plus, the fact that few things on the dashboard tell good news, especially the little “E” and what it costs to fill up. And yeah it’s going down now but give it some time, especially once the economy improves.
I own a car, and I’d rather take the bus to the beach than drive. That’s not rejecting cars, that’s just not wanting to fight for fucking parking.
I have three children 19 to 30. None owns a car, though one’s spouse does to commute to work.
Upon further reflection, this is a trend that will not affect more than two-thirds of Delaware for a very long time. You simply cannot get around without a car in Kent or Sussex counties. It is impossible. DART is too infrequent – and overly complicated – to rely upon for getting to work or school. A car-share program might work, but doesn’t exist. And only a certain, small number of employers accept telecommuting as a viable option.
Where population is dense and people are crammed together, mass transit makes sense. But that’s only a very small part of our state. Glad y’all are happy with DART, but it sucks for the rest of us.
@ SussexWatcher
You may be right, but that’s not how we look at it. Even as a mostly rural country, almost 40% of all trips by car are 2 miles or less (google it). Ditto for Delaware. If we can nudge just some of those trips to bike or walk, the results for the oil industry would be disasterous while paying huge dividends to individual’s pockets (and health). It is already starting as Gen X&Y is moving inward where the services are.
Somehow, biking and walking have become an evil lib’rul idea coined up by the left. It’s the lie of the century (but then, what else is new with republicans). Nothing is more liberating from the federal govt than leaving the car home. Our land use patterns that demand car use is easily one of the most heavily subsidized by govt dollars ever – by a long shot. And to make matters worse, those who choose not to drive, or cannot drive are paying for those subsidies just the same while their chances of getting killed anywhere near the road are far higher.
I question your assertion, “less than 2 miles.”It is ridiculous on its face. The nearest place to buy groceries to me, and of course my neighbors is nearly 8 miles away with not a single retail esablishment between here and there.
The complete assertion is:
almost 40% of all trips by car are 2 miles or less
Responding to an assertion of averages with one anecdote isn’t a very good rebuttal.
It is not merely anecdote, look at the maps. Especially in rural areas, retail and services tend too be consolidated. There are thousands of households just like mine.
Take a look at rt 30. 22 miles of two lane plus solid shoulders (excellent for biking) with only Cedar Creek Subs and Wilson’s Store (where you can purchase fried egg and scapple samiches as well as bread, milk, and bullets, you know the staples (nothin’ more rural than that). That is it, except for a whole bunch of houses, between the metropoli of Milford and Millsboro along rt 30. And I actually prefer it this way as oppossed to say the Pike Creek/ Newark area.
Heck, when I lived in Pike Creek the nearest grocery store was still 2 miles away according to google maps.
“The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.”
@ meatball
Google it. National Household Travel Survey. The data here is dated but trends have only moved higher given congestion and no more 1.35/gal gas.
http://www.bts.gov/programs/national_household_travel_survey/
One example doesn’t mean much. The U.S. has huge urban cores and lotsa suburban landscapes. DE same thing, smaller scale. PA is pretty reliably blue (or used to be, anyway) mainly because of Philly and Pitt. Politically, most areas between could compete with Alabama. MD due to Baltimore, not Cecil Cty, etc. This alone illustrates how relative few folks live in rural America.
Buying a home far and away from services is a choice many folks are still making, albeit less and less. They just better be rich, or hope petrols stay cheap and plentiful. And knowing who’s behind the oil companies, I wouldn’t trust ’em for all the tea in China.
Here’s a better link, since the previous takes some careful mining:
http://www.csus.edu/org/eso/bicycle.htm
Excerpt:
“According to the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, 25 percent of all trips are made within a mile of the home, 40 percent of all trips are within two miles of the home, and 50 percent of the working population commutes five miles or less to work. Yet more than 82 percent of trips five miles or less are made by personal motor vehicle.”
You’ll have to take my word for it that it’s in there, since I’m really looking to get out of here right now and start enjoying the weekend 😉
Puck as a young man now 26 insurance goes down when you get married, have children, and every year with age. Having good grades or a CDL, taking a defensive driving class, being in the military all lowers price for young men. Nothing trumps age, experience and a relatively clean record. I will have my civilian CDL shortly.
Living in OK, and AK it takes way more than 2 miles to get anywhere. closest large cities are hours away and the for example OKC is 606 sq miles with a half million population whereas; say Philly is 134 with 1.5 million, and Baltimore is 80 with six hundred thousand. In OKC there are no parking tickets you pull your truck up on the grass. Having received parking tickets in NYC, DC, Philly, Baltimore, Bethany Beach, Newark and Wilmington. I never did have that kind of problem in rural America. I can understand public transit or running, and biking in a real city. That said driving is so damn convenient and SW, is dead on about the necessity in LSD.
“The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.”- Can I not figure out what this means because I drive everywhere? 🙂
I can’t leave my neighborhood on foot or on bike for fear of being flattened by a car.. no shoulder outside of my neighborhood.
I live in Newark and it is every day that I see cars riding in bike lanes and passing on the shoulder. And don’t try to drive on 896 unless you like to drag race.