The urgency to reduce vehicle emissions was delivered loud and clear, when the States Highway Agencies released preliminary reports suggest that travel during June 2009 on all roads and streets in the US increased by 2.0 per cent – the equivalent of 4.9billion vehicle miles.
The US Federal Highway Administration now estimates that travel during the month reached 256.7billion vehicle miles, despite the fact that cumulative travel for the first six months of the year has fallen by 0.4 per cent.The significant increase supports data that suggests traffic volumes have shown some year-on-year gains earlier this year. Now June represents the first month in which driving was higher in all regions of the United States on all types of roads.
Traffic volumes had started to decline in November 2007 alongside petrol price rises and experienced dramatic drops in 2008. However, it now appears that with petrol prices back to a more normal level the public is back to using private vehicles to fulfil the majority of their transport needs.
Despite this, ridership on public transportation has only shown a modest decline so far this year with the first quarter report from the American Public Transportation Association, released in mid-June, showing a 1.2 per cent drop in year-over-year ridership. Light rail systems performed the best with a 1.8 per cent increase in ridership; while large bus systems experienced a 1.2 per cent drop in ridership.
