On Friday, the Department of Transportation reported that driving in America underwent its largest, continuous decline in ever. In the U.S. people drove 100 billion less miles between November 2007 and October 2008 compared with the year before. Driving declines even when gas prices came down from the summer. This trend is evidence that our travel habits are changing. Today, the average price for unleaded gas was $1.656 per gallon compared to the peak of $4.114 per gallon on July 17. In October, the amount of driving dropped the most is has dropped since 1971. We have driven 3.5% less (8.9 billion less miles) compared to a week ago. There are concerns that the decrease will negatively affect the nation's highway system funds.
"The way we finance America's transportation network must also change to address this new reality, because banking on the gas tax is no longer a sustainable option."
More than 2.8 billion trips were taken on public transportation nationwide from July to September, an increase of 6.5%.
1 comment:
I see a good and bad side to this. We are cutting down on driving which I'm sure helps make the country at least a little bit greener. At the time time though, as you mentioned Caity, the government is collecting fewer and fewer gas taxes and they might not be able to keep up with the maintenance of the American roadways.
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