For months now, we’ve been tracking the fact that vehicle travel in the Northwest—both in general, and on specific urban highways—has been surprisingly flat for years, even decades.
One of the most common reactions to this news has been: well, duh, there’s a recession on. A few folks have argued that once the recession lifts we’ll see vehicle travel resume its steady ascent.
I think that misses the point of what we’re finding. The slowdown in vehicle travel started long, long before the current recession began. In fact, it started back when the economy appeared to be humming along quite nicely.
The graph to the right shows it best. Total annual vehicle travel in Washington and Oregon grew steadily for many years. Then, in about 1999, growth started to moderate. And after a few years of slower-than-average increases, traffic volumes essentially plateaued in 2002.
Since 2008 we’ve seen driving dip, tick upward, and then dip again—which is perfectly consistent with what’s happened with the economy and fuel prices.
But the interesting part of the story isn’t the recent trends. It’s what happened about a decade ago to make the VMT curve flatten out.
Remember, there was a bit of a recession in 2002—the year of the VMT plateau. But from 2002 through 2007, unemployment in the Northwest fell steadily, even as the population of Oregon and Washington grew at a steady clip.
But still, despite increases in both population and economic activity, VMT in the two states barely budged from 2002 until the recession began.
I’ll leave it to some future PhD student to figure out precisely what caused the shift in VMT trends in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I have lots of theories:
- Major urban highways hitting capacity constraints;
- Increases in gas prices, coupled with a growing belief that gas prices wouldn’t ever hit the lows of the late 1990s again;
- Demographic changes, with more senior citizens and smaller families leading to less driving per person;
- Land use shifts that let more people walk, bike, or take shorter, chained car trips for daily errands;
- Possibly, declines in new road construction;
- An increase in flexible work schedules, with more people working from home on some days;
- The internet cutting back on shopping and/or work trips;
- Cultural shifts that substituted tech toys for cars as objects of desire; and
- Economic shifts, with fewer teens working (or looking for work) and widening income disparities that made it hard for some folks to pay for cars and gas.
Those are just theories; some are probably wrong. But regardless of the precise reasons, the trends themselves are clear enough. The “Where are my cars?” story doesn’t simply follow the trajectory of the recession. It’s a more complex story, with older roots.
Eugene Wasserman
The major increase in the 1980’s for vehicle miles traveled was from the increase of women moving in to the work force. That shows the step increase in vehicle miles traveled.
In the 2000 to 2010 years the City of Seattle lost 40,655 jobs, while the region outside Seattle gained 51,130 which would cause a plateau on urban highways.
Seattle’s population growth was below the region’s growth.
The plateau in the urban highway BMT’s traveled are probably the result of the plateau of Seattle’s population’s growth and the major decrease in Seattle’s employment.
Eric de Place
Eugene,
I don’t follow your reasoning. The chart shows total VMT for Washington and Oregon combined, not for Seattle by itself.
If employment and population really did shift outside of Seattle (or other city centers) during the 2000s one would assume that would have exerted an upward pressure on VMT. So, in other words, the plateau in VMT starting in 2002 is even more remarkable.
SpencerPDX
In your list of potential reasons for declining VMT you might also consider adding a bullet point for environmental concerns.
The early 2K’s is about when I started paying serious attention to troubling information about the impact of formerly fossilized carbon on climate. I imagine I’m not the only one.
Not that most of us (myself included) totally stopped driving because of this concern.
But where in the early nineties I saw driving as a fairly guilt-free activity that was a form of recreation in and of itself, now I tend to look at it as something I only do when the destination warrants it. And that mainly comes down to the fact that in the intervening years the burning of fossil fuels started to seem like an all-around bad idea, a thing to be avoided if possible. (Especially if an alternative like biking or walking is easy and pleasant.)
So while environmental concern might not lead to major behavior changes for most of us, it could contribute to a trend away from driving. This in much the same way that high gas prices won’t entirely stop people from driving, but might make them think twice about it.
Clark Williams-Derry
That’s a good point, Spencer! And I suppose we could add national security concerns as another possibility. After 9/11, a lot of folks who never think twice about the environment started thinking hard about the security implications of oil imports.
Eugene Wasserman
VMT’s generally follow employment growth. So I cannot totally explain the plateau except to guess the as people and jobs move to the suburbs people are actually closer to their jobs. The other guess would be that as people sit in traffic they are driving less miles.
The decline would be the impact of gas prices which if I remembered correctly occurred before the recession.
Clark Williams-Derry
For the Northwest, I think it’s fair to say that VMTs used to follow employment growth. But since the late 1990s they haven’t — or at least, not consistently.
I agree that road capacity constraints in urban areas may be part of the story. But again, the trends are statewide, and not all roads in the major metro areas of the NW are clogged at rush hour. And besides, some roads started becoming capacity constrained long before 2002.
My sense is that the biggest determinant of the trends has been gas prices — which hit all time inflation-adjusted lows in about 1999, and have followed a bumpy upward path since then. A lot of those other trends may have their roots in gas prices.
Eugene Wasserman
It is important to take into account the increasing consultants and workers working out of their homes and the probably reduction of in store retailing because of Amazon.
SpencerPDX
Another theory to add to the pile, this one from Ezra Klein:
“What could explain this cultural shift? Maybe more young people are worried about the price of gas or the environment. But—and this is just a theory—technology could play a role, too. Once upon a time, newly licensed teens would pile all their friends into their new car and drive around aimlessly. For young suburban Americans, it was practically a rite of passage. Nowadays, however, teens can socialize via Facebook or texting instead—in the Zipcar survey, more than half of all young adults said they’d rather chat online than drive to meet their friends”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/why-are-americans-driving-less/2011/08/18/gIQAUv7tNJ_blog.html