Lane Love: Young People Are Driving Less, Cycling More
“From 2001 and 2009, the average annual number of vehicle-miles traveled by young people (16 to 34-year-olds) decreased from 10,300 miles to 7,900 miles per capita — a drop of 23 percent.” This news comes via a report titled Why Young People Are Driving Less and What It Means for Transportation Policy recently released by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and The Frontier Group.
But the study didn’t just find that today’s young folk are driving less, it also found that they’re cycling more: “In 2009, 16 to 34-year-olds as a whole took 24 percent more bike trips than they took in 2001.”
The overall gist of the public interest study is that young people (Generation Y) are driving change when it comes to transportation. More specifically, states the study: “Young people are driving less for a host of reasons — higher gas prices, new licensing laws, improvements in technology that support alternative transportation, and changes in Generation Y’s values and preferences — all factors that are likely to have an impact for years to come.”
Active Lifestyle, Advocacy, Health, Lane Love, Pedaling Change
