In Oregon, it looks like the number of registered passenger vehicles (personal cars and trucks) per capita fell by more than 5 percent between 2007 and 2010.
In absolute terms, Oregon’s passenger vehicle fleet fell by 2.4 percent from 2007 to 2010, while population grew by 3 percent.
I think that most reasonable observers would attribute the decline in vehicle ownership to the sour economy. But it remains to be seen what will happen, when (or if) the economy starts to gain steam. Maybe, just maybe, we’re seeing some evidence of “peak cars” in the Northwest — just as we’re seeing signs of peak gasoline and peak car travel.
There’s evidence from national surveys that car registrations continued to drop even after economy bottomed out. It would be interesting to see a zip code breakdown of where the changes were happening? And, even better, to understand what the mobility changes were in these households?