Cutting Vehicle Miles Would Yield Health, Economic Benefits
Money and lives could be saved and health could be improved if only, as a society, we abandoned “car culture.” So why don’t we drive less?
Tag Archives: VMT
Sunday Summary – September 29, 2019
It is now officially Fall, so keep the link to the DNR’s Fall Color Finder handy (complete with a list of state parks and how close they are to “peak leaf” and comparison to past leaf seasons). You can even subscribe to updates by email. Visiting state parks is mostly a road trip idea, but […]
To Decarbonize Transportation, MnDOT Needs To Challenge Itself To Reduce VMT
Just this past week, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) released a report entitled “Pathways to Decarbonizing Transportation” that models various ways for the state to achieve its climate goals. These goals were set in the Next Generation Energy Act (NGEA) that was passed in 2007 and signed by Governor Tim Pawlenty (!!!). Minnesota aimed […]
Chart of the Day: Vehicle Miles Traveled vs. Change in Wealth Per Capita (Selected Countries)
Here’s a chart that compares how much people drive to how wealthy they become, across a bunch of countries including Japan, Australia, and some of Europe’s larger nations. As you can see, the US is a bit higher than the rest: The chart comes from a study that compares rates of driving and preferences in London […]
Chart of the Day: Climbing “Mount Auto”
Here’s a chart from the new book by streets.mn writers David Levinson and Kevin Krizek called “The End of Traffic and the Future of Transport,” all about trends that are changing how we think about transportation. I managed to get my hands on an (appropriately electronic) copy of it, and it’s full of great charts. Here’s one […]
Will Self-Driving Cars Solve Congestion?
Conventional wisdom seems to be that self-driving cars will do a lot to alleviate congestion. They will be able to interact with each other and the environment so that they can space themselves closer together, detect and reroute around congestion, and not cause crashes (which accounts for about a quarter of the existing congestion). However, […]
Chart of the Day: Per Capita Auto Fatalities vs. Per Capita Vehicle Miles Traveled
This is a great chart from the New York Times that puts a dizzying spin on the usual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and fatality graphs by plotting them against each other. Auto fatalities per capita is on the Y-axis, and VMT per capita is on the X (moving to the right = larger): (Note: 1979 = the […]
Chart of the Day: Vehicle Miles Traveled 2014
Via Planetizen, here’s an informative chart about an oft-discussed topic here on streets.mn: annual vehicle miles travelled. The nice thing here is that it attempts to correlate VMT with other economic and demographic data: Planetizen’s Steve Polzin has a few prescient takeaways: Fuel prices and a soft economy were important contributors to slowing VMT […]
Chart of the Day: Per Capita VMT over Time by State
Typically, we see LOS and VMT charts done nationally. Here, you can compare how these rates changed by state: The Washington Post piece has a bunch of other charts on VMT vs. GDP which make for some interesting food for thoughts. Here’s the takeaway: Over the 2000s, 30 other states in this data no longer […]
Chart of the Day: Future VMT Scenarios
If you saw yesterday’s chart that disaggregated the falling vehicle miles travelled (VMT) according to type of vehicle, here’s another compelling chart that shows potential future VMT trends, from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program. (Note: very official!) The report (which is very wonky, by the way) has a range of scenarios from “tech triumph” all the way […]