Livability.com editor Matt Carmichael takes his turn steering the debate on autos and urban – and suburban planning – on the website’s blog this week. Carmichael analyzes a study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute that concludes the U.S. has hit “peak car” and that the percentage of all households with a vehicle, the miles driven and the gas needed to make that happen has reached the top of the hill with nowhere to go but down.
Considering that we’ve done nothing short of build an economy around the car and the infrastructure to drive, park, service and fuel one, the implications could be quite profound. And so, of course, are the implications for everything from urban design to mass transit to telecommuting and office space. But lest anyone thinks the auto is going the way of the horse and buggy, Carmichael notes there are numerous demographic trends in play that suggest we may not have peaked, auto-wise:
“Single-person households now account for 28 percent of all households. Married couples with kids have fallen below 20 percent, and married couples have dipped below 50 percent for the first time ever. Single-person households often can be found in big cities and dense areas where public transportation, or at least easy access to amenities and workplaces, make having a car less necessary.”
Demographers like Joel Kotkin note that once single, young people become older, married people, they tend to gravitate back toward suburban environments in which they were raised, places where public transit tends to be less developed, where lugging kids to school, soccer practice and piano lessons requires at least one vehicle and where the minivan has no fear of being an endangered species.
Read more of Matt Carmichael’s insights on autos and urban planning on the Livability.com blog.
via:http://businessclimate.com/blog/2014/01/peak-car-the-end-of-the-road-for-the-age-of-the-auto/
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