Driving in America has changed: Rural is up, urban down, mass transit out
(WOLF STREET) – Total miles driven by all types of passenger and commercial vehicles, including over-the-road trucks and local delivery vehicles, in June, on all roads and streets in the U.S. rose to 282.5 billion miles, the highest since October 2019, and just a tad below June 2019, according to the Federal Highway Administration this week. In other words, total miles driven are now roughly back where they were before the pandemic.
But beneath the surface, there have been some shifts that reflect the shifts many Americans have embarked on, including the shift to working from home, and thus less urban driving, and the shift to vacationing within the US, rather than to foreign destinations, and much of it by car, and thus an increase in driving through rural areas, such as on Interstate Highways and scenic byways.
In urban areas – on urban Interstates, arterial streets, and regular streets – Americans drove 193.4 billion miles in June, still down by just under 1% from June 2019 and June 2018 (red line in the chart below).
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