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Page added on July 5, 2013
Are America’s Youth Falling Out of Love With the Car?
Between 2001 and 2009 car travel by American youth declined 23%!
That isn’t a typo, it’s an outlier. Like solar panel prices dropping by 80% in five years, or Indian grid losses being 25% of total generation.
Sure, there was the great recession and gasoline prices have tripled, but 23% is massive. That is the equivalent of a whole generation waking up Canadian.
Before I get to the youth let’s have a quick look at Americans in general:
Using data from the Department of Transport’s Traffic Volume Trends we can see that the total vehicle miles travelled in America peaked in 2007 and have since declined by 3%.
This peak is presumably driven by a mix of high oil prices, the recession and changing behavior. In per capita terms the drop is more impressive:
Per capita vehicle miles travelled have fallen by 8% since peaking in 2005. Between the recession and the tripling of gas prices 8% seems reasonable, but what about those kids?
The 23% drop figure comes from a report published last April called Transportation and the New Generation that used the data from the National Household Travel Survey. It states that between 2001 and 2009 the average vehicle miles travelled by 16-34 year olds fell from 10,300 to 7,900 miles.
The fact this is so much greater than the national average suggests a value shift is underway in America’s youth, and there is more data to support this idea:
- the decline was independent of employment status
- the same youth cohort cycled 24% more often
- they also walked 16% more frequently
- travelled 40% more miles by public transport
- those without a licence rose from 21% to 26%
The report also highlights the role of technology and social media in reducing the desire of the young to travel. Furthermore it provides survey data that show young people have a growing preference for good local amenities, walk-ability and cycling facilities.
Perhaps the kids have caught the medium chill? Perhaps they’ve gone all hipster? Or perhaps they are just too busy tweeting?
Speaking of tweeting 
7 Comments on "Are America’s Youth Falling Out of Love With the Car?"
DC on Fri, 5th Jul 2013 3:44 am
Sigh, not this crap again.
Amerikas ‘youth’, already saturated with debt even before they leave there 2nd rate post-secondary colleges and universities, cannot afford to take on even more debt to finance a toxic, depreciating ‘asset’ aka-the gas-burning trash bin. Since amerikas real unemployment rate is somewhere around 20%+ and youth unemployment is likely even higher if other countries are a guide, then who can afford a gas-burner?
Even people with jobs spend upwards of 20% of there gross income or more, supporting there car-habit, and even more paying taxes to support cars-only transporation systems, how can the un-or under-ployed ‘youth’ afford GM’s and Ford murder machines?
And sorry, ‘social media’ doesn’t cut it. Thats an even worse excuse than amerikans buying more ‘efficient’ cars LoL! Neither is true-people cant afford to drive, and even if they could, there is no longer any places worth driving to. Every place now pretty much resembles every other place. And endless tangle of featureless sprawl and big boxes. Your better off staying where you are….
BillT on Fri, 5th Jul 2013 5:28 am
Not good news for the auto industry … lol. Their future customers are finding out that they can do without their product. Just buying an old used car today, with all of the required insurances, licensees, and fees can take the best part of a burger flipper’s income, not to mention fuel or the maintenance expenses that sometimes exceed payments. And it is about time!
GregT on Fri, 5th Jul 2013 6:16 am
Who needs a car, or a family, or friends, or even a society. We now have social networking. Finally, we can experience the ‘real world’, without ever leaving the comforts of our cubicles.
Arthur on Fri, 5th Jul 2013 7:39 am
It is not so much falling out of love but rather running out of money. And as Greg suggests, everybody is becoming an internet zombie, monitored by US, UK and F data vacuum cleaners. The internet is replacing the car, because the engine of a $400 tablet burns 3 Watt, where an average $20,000 car burns 75,000 Watt and achieves the same result. I can see the face of my brother in greater detail on skype than in reality. I write several emails a day to family and friends. iPhone pictures are emailed all the time to illustrate something. It is better than nothing. But it is also clear that yet another addiction is developing and will lead to additional isolation of people. Community lives suffer.
Beery on Fri, 5th Jul 2013 9:00 am
Arthur and Greg, you probably need to join us in the 21st Century. We have been isolated since the 1950s. This latest change is just making the voluntary isolation less polluting. If people don’t want to be isolated, there are more pubs, libraries, discos, etc. than ever before, so let’s not get our knickers in a twist.
Arthur on Fri, 5th Jul 2013 11:45 am
My parents had a lively community life until high age, all derived from work and church communities, much more so that the ‘individualistic’ next generation, our generation. My mother told me she had mixed feelings about the 1945 liberation, because it ended a sense of community never ever experienced afterwards. When I was young in the sixties I lived in an all-Dutch street, with every household having at least 3 children. In the summer all the front doors were open and everybody entered each others homes freely. Total trust. Today the street of my parents RIP is still all-Dutch, but everybody is old and grey, hardly any new children. The demise of the Dutch fabric of life went hand in hand with an almost totalitarian belief in supremacy of economic values. Sure, a family can have a car, tropical holidays twice a year, a paid-off mortgage and a second home in France, but the downside is that the mrs needs to work as well. Anything else would be sexism, suppression of wimmins rights and we are all glad we are not like that. Obviously this is not very good for Dutch birthrates, but hey Dutch people are not very good for the environment anyway, so what the heck.
Stephen on Sat, 6th Jul 2013 8:01 am
I bet this is the result of the following:
* Increased fuel prices
* Cost cutting due to recessions by parents losing jobs and houses
* Increased Teen Driver Restrictions such as passenger restrictions and/or night time restrictions (a.k.a Graduated Licensing) taking the glamor and convenience of teenagers driving themselves and their friends
* Some States raising the driving age to get a permit or license
* The going green environmental movement