Car Trips are Down, With Young People Leading the Charge

The latest Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) data reveals that driving trips are down in the United States, with the trend driven largely by younger people. “On a per capita basis, Americans are still driving less, down 2.3% since 2019,” writes Chris McCahill in the State Smart Transportation Initiative blog.

As McCahill points out, travel demand had flattened out even before the pandemic. “ow the data points to a new normal in which growth is slower, uneven, and increasingly shaped by changes in how people work, shop, and spend their free time.” Today, the average American drives 5 percent less than they did in 2004.“From 2017 to 2022, average daily trips among young adults fell nearly 50%, and their personal travel mileage dropped by 41%.”

According to the study, young people take fewer car trips that are longer on average, keeping their total VMT since 2017 roughly the same. “This pattern suggests people may be trading shorter, more frequent trips for fewer but longer ones—a shift consistent with Marchetti’s constant, the idea that the time people devote to travel each day tends to remain steady over time.”

For McCahill, this points to an opportunity for transportation planners to “rethink road design and investment priorities—planning for a future where traffic grows slowly, if at all.”