The most idiotic ideas come from articles written by anti-car writers. This isn’t recent, but a colleague from Washington let me know of a 2022 article from a “public interest” organization called the Frontier Group that reports that “less driving is possible.” Thanks to “compact neighborhoods” and “investments in infrastructure that supports walking, biking or riding transit,” some states have managed to reduce per-capita driving, which the Frontier Group regards as a victory.
To encourage transit while discouraging driving, Washington converted lanes on a bridge that had previously been open to all vehicles into light-rail lines. Image by Sound Transit.
As evidence, the author of the Frontier Group article, Elizabeth Redlington, compared miles of per capita driving by state in 1996 and 2021. Between those two years, some states increased but some declined and the biggest decline was in Washington state, which saw a 15.8 percent drop in per capita driving during that period.
In 2008, the Washington state legislature passed a law requiring cities to attempt to reduce per-capita driving by 50 percent by 2050. Since then, Seattle and other cities have spent billions of dollars on transit, tens of millions of dollars subsidizing compact development, and millions of dollars on bike lanes. Redlington attributes the decline in per capita driving to anti-auto policies that were implemented as a result of this law.
Yet a lot of things happened between 1996 and 2021 and a closer look at the data makes it questionable whether Washington’s anti-VMT policies are responsible for the reported decline. Miles of driving by state are reported in table VM-2 of the Federal Highway Administration’s annual Highway Statistics. The Census Bureau publishes state population estimates for the years between the decennial censuses, such as 1990 to 2000 and 2000 to 2010. Divide one into the other to get miles of per capita driving.
I split the years 1996 through 2021 into three periods: 1996 to 2008, when the state passed its anti-VMT law; 2008 through 2019, the last year before the pandemic; and 2019 through 2021, the most recent year for which we have driving data.
From 1996 through 2008, Washington’s per capita driving declined by 16.9 percent. Nearly all of that decline was between 2007 and 2008; from 1996 through 2007, per capita driving had fallen by less than 0.8 percent. The 1996-2008 decline was probably related to the housing crash.
From 2019 through 2021, per capita driving declined by 11.9 percent. That was probably due to the increased number of people working at home because of the pandemic. According to American Community Survey data, Washington saw a 266 percent increase in the number of people working at home, the fifth-most of any state in the country.
That leaves the period from 2008 through 2019, which is the period in which Washington’s anti-auto policies such as compact development and spending on transit improvements should have had the most effect. During those years, Washington per capita driving decreased by 11.4 percent. Whoops! I mean per capita driving increased by 11.4 percent.
In other words, all of the decline in Washington’s per capita driving reported by Redlington can be attributed to a recession or to people working at home. Not only did Washington’s anti-auto policies have nothing to do with the 1996-2021 drop, those anti-auto policies resulted in a significant increase in driving.
These data are not 100 percent reliable. Driving data are based on traffic counters on freeways, other arteries, and collector streets and roads. But a lot of driving takes place on local roads and streets and the number of miles of such driving is inferred by state highway agencies. Changes in assumptions about the relationship of local to arterial and collector driving can lead to large changes in reported numbers. That’s why it is important to look at the data for a lot of years.
Redlington’s comparison of just 1996 and 2021 opens her to accusations that she cherry picked the data. Whether deliberate or not, Redlington failed to consider that other factors, such as the economy or increased telecommuting, may have played a bigger role in changes in per capita driving than the anti-auto policies she supports.
In a larger sense, I have to ask: just what is so virtuous about reducing per capita driving? Automobility gives people access to more economic opportunities, and limiting that automobility can have negative impacts on a wide variety of businesses and people. Some of the biggest negative impacts fall on low-income people, who are less likely to be able to work at home or to adjust their work days to avoid traffic congestion. Washington’s anti-auto policies were passed by elitists who didn’t consider or don’t care about what those policies do to businesses and working class people who need automobiles and trucks for their work.
In the past, anti-auto groups justified their positions on pollution and safety issues. Yet we’ve greatly reduced transportation-related pollution and highway fatality rates without reducing driving. If anything, efforts to reduce driving made those problems worse.
The goal of Washington’s 2008 anti-VMT law was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But reducing VMT is not the best way to reduce emissions. For one thing, there is no direct correlation between miles of driving and greenhouse gases. Instead, the correlation is between gallons of petroleum consumed and greenhouse gases.
As I’ve noted before, table 9-15 of the Department of Energy’s Transportation Energy Data Book indicates that people living in more compact (i.e., higher-density) cities do drive fewer miles per day than people living in low-density areas. However, the table also shows that they drive at slower average speeds due to greater congestion in high-density areas.
Table 4.34 in the same book indicates that driving at slower speeds typical of high-density areas uses more fuel per mile than higher speeds typical of low-density areas. The increase in fuel consumption is great enough that per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the higher-density areas are greater than in low-density areas. Thus, if the goal is reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Washington’s driving to increase compact development is counterproductive, as are any policies that increase congestion such as converting auto lanes into dedicated transit or bike lanes.
Anyone who is genuinely worried about climate change should support policies that truly reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as by making automobiles more fuel efficient or finding alternative sources of energy to power them. What has happened instead is that anti-automobile elites have hijacked the climate issue to promote their preconceived VMT-reduction agenda even though it is likely to do more harm than good. This is bad for the climate, bad for social justice, and bad for the economy in general.
Nor should we encourage any more or less.
Per capita miles is inconsequential, it’s simply a symptom of How far you are from everything you need, desire. Modern suburban design parameters use zoning which makes retail and lifestyle accoutrements even Schools impossible to install close proximity to housing. On top of that, street patterns of cul de sacs and add on roads means even a Destination literally one mile away is 1.4 or 2 miles to drive thru a maze streets. More importantly contemporary high volume access roads with high speeds aka Stroads make walking or biking those dangerous best, suicidal at worst.
Stroads are bad. Even the Federal Highway Administration knows it. So now what? Now we look at our local stroads and decide: Should this be a street, or should it be a road? To Auto drivers, it’s a death race. Non-freeway arterial roads, stroads, which typically carry large volumes of traffic at high speeds, are the most dangerous for people on foot, accounting for 60% of all fatalities in US. But as the Antiplanner aruged 6. in his Mobility principles. Segregation of use.
Segregation of Use is the problem. Without sidewalks/crosswalks and contemporary zoning practices that segregate retail from housing, it’s extremely dangerous to leave suburban enclaves just for a gallon of milk.
By contrast even Europeans with cars will walk to destinations 70% of the time for trips less than 1 mile.
Americans won’t bike even a bike that costs 99 dollars. But entire industry Peloton of simulated biking in your home for a machine that costs 1900….. and sold 2.4 million units for a bike that goes nowhere.
Your mention of the problems with stropads just demonstrates the stupidity of encouraging bike use, already the most dangerous of the modes of travel promoted by the EcoNutters – right behind light rail.
Biking’s not dangerous to cars, Cars are dangerous to Bikes. If two people are walking towards one another on their phones, Whose the bigger threat…. a man whose a 300 lbs linebacker for the Dallas cowboys, or a 6 year old girl. Both are culpable.
Bike….get’s a line of paint, nothing more.
Government: Oh, Bike lanes, protected from auto crashes and the like… take months stipulation, years of planning and cost/benefit analysis.
Oh segregated protection for Chicago streets so we can host a race for machines going 150 miles per hour………Give us ten days.
https://www.nbcsports.com/nascar/news/how-nascar-chicago-street-race-track-cup-barriers-fences-geobrugg
“There is no direct correlation between miles of driving and greenhouse gases.”
Sure … in lala land.
Sum it up. A gallon if gasoline weighs six point five pounds. And produces 20 lbs CO2 when burned. Point is…whether you get 8 miles per gallon driving the Super duty you Don’t need for work or 50 mpg primus it’s roughly the 20 lbs.
Reduce CO2 emissions easily by reducing unnecessary trips, unnecessary idling.
“ Reduce CO2 emissions easily by reducing unnecessary trips, unnecessary idling.”
Yeah? How you going to do that?
Brilliant analysis, Antiplanner!
I would only add this:
“Anyone who is genuinely worried about climate change should support policies that truly reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as by [REDUCING CONGESTION, RATHER THAN EXACERBATING IT, AND BY] making automobiles more fuel efficient or finding alternative sources of energy to power them.”
By interpolating this graph, a car traveling at 5 mph (congestion) produces about 2.5-3 times as much CO2 as a car traveling 25-40 mph (uncongested and prudent city speeds). Nobody loses when you reduce/eliminate congestion.
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3vz7t3db
As to the Eco-Nutters obsession with CO2, these are the same nut cases that are now causing kitchen refrigerators to explode because they falsely accused Freon of causing ozone hole based on erroneous calculations and inspired a world wide ban on a proven safe refrigerant, freon. their solution was to use highly flammable Butane (yes, as in lighters) as a refrigerant in our home refrigerators. (yeah, I know it is not the actual refrigerator that explodes, its just the pool of gas that it leaks out that explodes in the area around the refrigerator.)
Back to the current Eco-Nutter’s profit center, Global Warming, one does not have to look very far to understand that it is best describes as Al gore’s climate scam:
1.—-
THE CLIMATE HAS ALWAYS CHANGED!
5000 years ago, there was the Egyptian 1st Unified Kingdom warm period
4400 years ago, there was the Egyptian old kingdom warm period.
3000 years ago, there was the Minoan Warm period. It was warmer than now WITHOUT fossil fuels.
Then 1000 years later, there was the Roman warm period. It was warmer than now WITHOUT fossil fuels.
Then 1000 years later, there was the Medieval warm period. It was warmer than now WITHOUT fossil fuels.
1000 years later, came our current warm period.
Climate alarmists are claiming that whatever caused those earlier warm periods suddenly quit causing warm periods, only to be replaced by man’s CO2, perfectly in time for the cycle of warmth every 1000 years to stay on schedule. Not very believable.
The entire climate scam crumbles on this one observation because it shows that there is nothing unusual about today’s temperature and thus CO2 is not causing warming or any unusual climate effects that are frequently blamed on warming.
Evidence that those warm periods actually occurred:
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/climatehistory.html
Evidence that the Roman & Medieval warm periods were global:
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/warm_periods.html
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/page216.html
2————
1. Our current climate started warming 200 years BEFORE man’s CO2 emissions started to rise . NOT before.
2. Previous Holocene warm periods were warmer than now.
3. Solar fits climate better than CO2
4. There is nothing unusual about today’s climate compared to before man emitted CO2.
5. Recent warming is a same rate as the late 1800s but now with much more of man’s CO2. (More of a cause should cause more effect.)
6. Man’s CO2 has never been proven to cause dangerous warming.
7. Man emits only 5% of annual CO2. Plus CO2 only causes 9-26% of greenhouse effect.
8. Human CO2 release warms the climate less than 0.03?C https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.01245.pdf
See DebunkingClimate.com for evidence
3.———-
1. The IPCC says the earth warmed less than 0.8 degree from 1850 up to 2012. See Pg. 209 of the IPCC WG1AR5_all_final.pdf
2. Man only emits 6% of total annual CO2 emissions (Nature emits 94%). Add the numbers on the NASA diagram of the carbon cycle.
3. CO2 only causes 26-32% of the greenhouse effect. (H2O is 60-75%) see wikipedia greenhouse_effect page and Table 3 of: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Vol. 78, No. 2, February 1997
4. We do not have enough data to say that hurricanes have increased. pg 178 of WG1AR5_all_final.pdf
5. We do not have enough data to say that storms have increased. pg 178 of WG1AR5_all_final.pdf
6. Sea level has been rising for centuries, it HAS NOT RISEN FASTER recently. Page 306 WG1AR5_all_final.pdf
7. There is little, if any, global scale changes in the magnitude or frequency of floods. pg 230 of WG1AR5_all_final.pdf
8. Confidence is low for a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness pg 178 of WG1AR5_all_final.pdf
9. Long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. Page 774 of IPCC third Assessment Report (2001) Section 14.2.2.2
In view of this, why does anyone think we have a climate problem?
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/ipcc_says.html
4——————
Here is the climate truth from genuine scientists:
Will happer & Richard Lindzen:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/article/two-princeton-mit-scientists-say-epa-climate-regulations-based-on-a-hoax-5460699
Their Report: https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Happer-Lindzen-EPA-Power-Plants-2023-07-19.pdf
Lindzen on hydrodynamics of climate: https://youtu.be/KhCKYvETYDc
Like most everything spewed by “urbanists” it’s mostly about appearances for an observer rather than experiences for the people that live and work there.
The compact city argument simply increases density and leaves people with less personal space and more congestion. It doesn’t change the distance between me and Costco or any other place I’m going. Placing more people and buildings between me and my destination simply increases congestion, noise, pollutants, traffic, etc.
Since the article was about Washington state – hope the Antiplanner can have a little fun with this article about transit in Washington state:
https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/11/03/sound-transit-moves-to-tighten-fare-enforcement-starting-november-15/
Whilst I”m not concerned particularly about CO2, Other pollution, particulates, Carbon Monoxide, stoich hydrocarbon emissions are problematic for cities.
Regardless dubious benefits electric cars…..In Cities, they’re potential for pollution reduction should not be underestimated. Since they have no Tailpipe, smog and other emissions are eliminated. Sure the power in their Charging, however electric power HALF in the USA is now byproduct of natural gas which is Vastly cleaner. Certainly, clean enough to cook indoors with.
The era of miniature gas turbine, will allow homes, businesses, offices, industrial facilities have their own power onsite.
https://theleadsouthaustralia.com.au/industries/renewables/micro-gas-turbine-could-help-take-homes-off-the-grid/
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Whether deliberate or not, Redlington failed to consider that other factors, such as the economy or increased telecommuting, may have played a bigger role in changes in per capita driving than the anti-auto policies she supports.
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The single biggest driver, and by far the biggest, of less driving is aging.
We probably already have more boomers retired than working. You have people that were driving a hundred or two hundred miles a week while they were working, now maybe driving a 100 or two hundred miles in a month.