The Great Shift Away From Driving
Anna Eshoo wants to hear the case for HSR on the Peninsula, and we’re going to make sure she hears it loud and clear. Starting today, with an examination of the great shift away from driving.
As I’ve argued many times before, the debate over HSR is fueled in part by a generational divide. Older Californians who are convinced that driving will always be our primary form of travel don’t see the need for passenger rail, and in an era of declining real estate values, it’s easy for them to see HSR as a threat that isn’t necessary to the community’s survival.
Younger Californians, however, generally don’t have the same attitude. They recognize that driving is not the basis of travel on the Peninsula even today, and have no desire for it to be so in the future. Instead, they are joining their counterparts across the country in moving away from driving.
It is a fundamental and massive shift with enormous implications for the future of California, the Peninsula included. As a recent article in Advertising Age explains, the digital revolution is driving a decline in car culture:
The internet has wreaked havoc on the music industry, airlines and media, but it just may be doing the same thing to automobiles.
It’s a rarely acknowledged transformational shift that’s been going on under the noses of marketers for as long as 15 years: The automobile, once a rite of passage for American youth, is becoming less relevant to a growing number of people under 30. And that could have broad implications for marketers in industries far beyond insurance, gasoline and retail.
For generations – as far back as at least the 1920s – the automobile was THE symbol of freedom for American youth. If you were a teenager, you wanted a car so you and your friends, or your sweetheart, could escape the oppressive gaze of your parents and the rest of society and go off to your own place, to your own world. I can still remember being in high school in the early 1990s and counting down the days until I turned 16 and could get my driver’s license and experience that freedom for myself.
But that appears to have undergone a dramatic change since 1995 (the year I finally turned 16). In the 15 years since, there’s been a huge decline in the number of young Americans who have driver’s licenses and own cars, part of a 30-year trend as shown in the following Ad Age graphics:
Ad Age delves into the numbers to show this is no fluke:
Certainly it’s hard to believe for anyone stuck in traffic on the way to O’Hare airport in Chicago, a bridge or tunnel into Manhattan, any freeway in Los Angeles, or the newly repaved four-lane highway to a suburban Walmart. But look around, and the people in the other cars are likely to be in their 40s or older….
It’s not just new drivers driving less. The share of automobile miles driven by people aged 21 to 30 in the U.S. fell to 13.7% in 2009 from 18.3% in 2001 and 20.8% in 1995, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration’s National Household Travel Survey released earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Census data show the proportion of people aged 21-30 increased from 13.3% to 13.9%, so 20-somethings actually went from driving a disproportionate amount of the nation’s highway miles in 1995 to under-indexing for driving in 2009.
What’s driving the shift? Part of it is the internet, which is radically changing how we get around, why we need to travel, and which modes of travel suit our new online lives:
William Draves blames the internet. Mr. Draves, president of Lern, a consulting firm which focuses mainly on higher education, and co-author of “Nine Shift,” maintains that the digital age is reshaping the U.S. and world early in this century, much like the automobile reshaped American life early in the last century.
His theory is that almost everything about digital media and technology makes cars less desirable or useful and public transportation a lot more relevant. Texting while driving is dangerous and increasingly illegal, as is watching mobile TV or working on your laptop. All, at least under favorable wireless circumstances, work fine on the train. The internet and mobile devices also have made telecommuting increasingly common, displacing both cars and public transit.
The environment is the reason Gen Y-ers most often give for wanting to drive less, Mr. Draves said. But he sees the fundamental economic transformation wrought by the internet (and, apparently on the internet; research firm J.D. Power & Associates found that Gen Y-ers don’t talk about cars nearly as much as their elders in social media). This demographic will be working on “intangibles” in professional jobs, not on tangible things that require physical presence, Mr. Draves said. “Time becomes really valuable to them,” he said. “You can work on a train. You can’t work in a car. And the difference is two to three hours a day, or about 25% of one’s productive time.”
As someone just barely in the Millennial/Gen Y category, I can vouch for this. I would much rather take a train or a bus than drive if I can help it. Why? Because on a train or on a bus, I can still use my laptop, my iPhone, my soon-to-arrive iPad. I can get work done that I simply cannot get done if I am driving.
I learned this just last weekend. I spent 12 hours of my weekend driving from Monterey to Anaheim and back. I fell behind in emails, work, and even blogging. I would have loved to have had those 12 hours back, but sitting behind the wheel of a car driving somewhere between 75 and 80 mph, I couldn’t have interacted online without risking my own life and posing a serious hazard to others on the roads.
It’s not just HSR advocates and consultants who have noted the shift. The auto companies themselves are very well aware of this trend, which risks their long-term business strategy:
Ford Motor Co. sees the trend as well, which is why it has introduced features such as Sync in its cars. “I don’t think the car symbolizes freedom to Gen Y to the extent it did baby boomers, or to a lesser extent, Gen X-ers,” said Sheryl Connelly, global trends and futuring manager. “Part of it is that there are a lot more toys out there competing for the hard-earned dollars of older teens and young adults.”
Digital technology “allows teens to transcend time and place,” she said, “so they can feel connected to their friends virtually.” New options like Zipcar also make it easier to do without permanent car ownership, she said.
Millennials “are an important customer to us,” said Ford’s Ms. Connelly. “But we also understand the context in which they use cars has changed. … It has nothing to do with performance or getting you from point A to point B. It’s just a change in what people expect to be delivered.”
Ford understands exactly what I was saying earlier – that the notion of “car = freedom” that was so dominant in the 20th century is no longer dominant in the 21st century. For the young people I know – especially those still under 18 – having their own cell phone, their own laptop, their own Facebook page is generally more important than having a car.
Having a license and a car is still important, but primarily as a means of transportation – getting to school, getting to work. And since that can be achieved by other means, especially if we provide the trains and buses to do it, it correspondingly reduces the desire and need to drive. When gas prices rise again, younger people will desperately seek out alternatives.
Why? Because in addition to the changing nature of American life, which renders car ownership/driving much less important and desirable, the cost of driving is another huge factor that is “driving” younger Americans to alternative means of transportation (forgive the pun):
The economy, rather than any longer-term secular trend, has impacted driving and licensing among younger people, said Paul Taylor, chief economist with the National Automobile Dealers Association. Unemployment has led some younger consumers to drive less, and the cost of insuring a 16-to-19-year-old driver alone can discourage cash-strapped parents from allowing them to get licenses. State licensing requirements and restrictions by many high schools and colleges on driving are also a factor.
Mr. Draves, however, notes that the shift began well before the recession or the preceding run-up in gas prices. The real-estate markets most profoundly affected by the bursting housing bubble — such as Las Vegas and other Sunbelt metro areas — are boom towns built around highways with no substantial train transportation. Real-estate markets that have been less affected or quicker to recover include Boston and San Francisco, which have strong urban rail systems. In New Jersey, Connecticut, Boston, Denver and Chicago, housing prices near new or existing train stations have either been among the first to recover or have seen less depreciation during the bursting of the housing bubble.
The stats in the Ad Age charts seem to bear out Draves’ point. And keep in mind that NADA has a clear economic interest in framing the shift as a temporary one, since they want to sell more cars to young people. Draves is also bolstered by the evidence he gave showing that real estate markets with strong urban rail systems have held up pretty well. That includes the Peninsula, by the way.
Some argue that as the Millennials get older, they’ll buy more cars:
Driving is more likely “delayed than denied,” argued NADA’s Mr. Taylor. “That age cohort may eventually get married and have children. Living near work is something you do when you’re young and single, and when you start picking out schools and amenities you want for your children’s development, people are less willing to live near the office.”
Again, NADA is missing the boat here, deliberately so. Taylor assumes that Millennials wil start to act like their parents and grandparents once they start families. But why would they do so when they haven’t exhibited the same behavior when they’re young?
In fact, from what I can see, Millennials are keeping to their less-dependent-on-driving habits as they start families. A number of my urban Seattle friends have bought houses and started families in the last 2 or 3 years. Every single one of them bought a house in the city of Seattle. Every single one of the prioritized access to a bus or light rail line in that purchase. Some bought townhomes or condos over homes they were looking at in the suburbs because the urban home freed them from dependence on the car.
“OK,” you might say, “that’s Seattle. What about California?” While some Millennials do still move to the suburbs, many more aren’t – or are prioritizing buying homes in places where they don’t have to drive as much. My sister is a good example of this. She’s unlike me in a lot of ways, including the fact that she’s much more comfortable with driving, sprawl, and the 20th century model of California urban life than I am.
But when she bought her new home in Anaheim, she and her husband (a car fanatic) also prioritized ways to reduce their need to drive. They bought near a Metrolink station so he could get to his job in LA without having to drive. They bought near the school where she teaches so she didn’t have to spend a lot of time in her car. They bought near a major shopping center so they could walk to the stores without always having to drive there.
The article goes on to mention that State Farm insurance is also noticing this trend and acting accordingly:
The trend of Gen Y driving less is definitely on the radar of State Farm, said Tim Van Hoof, director-marketing communications at the No. 1 insurer, and it’s changing how it goes to market. The company just launched a new campaign targeted at younger customers that “tries to start a broader conversation,” about life, renters and homeowners policies, rather than just auto, he said. Of course, cars won’t disappear, nor will the changes happen overnight. Mr. Draves predicts that by 2020, the combination of younger people driving less and boomers retiring will cut mileage driven in the U.S. by half.
That seems a reasonable conclusion to me. It’s not that Millennials won’t drive, it’s that we’re driving less, a shift driven by economic realities and the new, digital way we live. Electric cars aren’t going to make any difference, since they’ll cost about the same and won’t enable us to use our digital devices while driving anyway. In other words, electrifying cars won’t make a damn bit of difference to this trend.
It’s yet another reason why HSR is a necessary part of California’s future. It will help enable the shift already under way to a future where driving is much less central a part of our lives, where our transportation needs match our digital and economic needs.
It’s also a way that HSR will improve life on the Peninsula, enabling it and other California cities with HSR stations to benefit from the new 21st century economy and way of life, where young people can bring their incomes, families, jobs and spending to these communities and keep them prosperous and thriving well into this century.
Those who insist on seeing HSR as a threat basically want to turn the Peninsula – or whatever city they live in – into a giant old folks’ home, where there’s no new economic activity, where young families and new jobs have gravitated to cities and regions that didn’t shun mass transit, where people are shackled to their cars because those who had wealth and power insisted on trying to pretend the 20th century was still viable, like Canute trying to hold back the tides.
UPDATE: Matt Melzer reminded me of this Wired Magazine article from February pointing out that young people understand there is an inherent conflict between using online tools – in this case text messaging – and driving, and that the response should be to shift away from driving:
So what can we do? We should change our focus to the other side of the equation and curtail not the texting but the driving. This may sound a bit facetious, but I’m serious. When we worry about driving and texting, we assume that the most important thing the person is doing is piloting the car. But what if the most important thing they’re doing is texting? How do we free them up so they can text without needing to worry about driving?
The answer, of course, is public transit….
Texting while driving is, in essence, a wake-up call to America. It illustrates our real, and bigger, predicament: The country is currently better suited to cars than to communication. This is completely bonkers.
Once again: America is changing. The way we interact is changing. The way we travel is changing. Anyone who thinks that we’ll just keep on driving the way we did for the last 60 years is simply not paying attention to the nation around them.
Why does democracy in Europe give them trains, while democracy in America gives us cars? I know this question generalizes — we have some trains and they have cars, too — but there’s something about their political leadership that allows them to makes trains popular, while we only seem to make roads popular. I wonder if the difference has its explanation in this statement from Hans Voerknecht, a Dutch bicycle activist:
“One of the things is, if you would ask the Dutch public, ‘Would you rather pay less tax on your cars and pay less tax on your fuel,’ everybody would say ‘Oh yes!’ But the thing is we don’t ask them!
“You shouldn’t ask all the time, ‘Do you want to spend money?’ Of course they say no. The thing is, if people are so narrow-minded, you need politicians… Democracy is not about doing the will of the people; it’s about choosing the best men and women out of the people who make the wisest decisions.”
http://tinyurl.com/yjhgbl3
This statement sounds so wrong to me, and perhaps to many other Americans. Aren’t politicians supposed to do the “will of the people”? Isn’t that how democracy works? And yet, I have to ask too, aren’t politicians also supposed to be smarter, more talented, better than “the people”? When our politicians spend so much time telling us that we should get off foreign oil, when do we finally get some leadership from them to make that future possible?
rafael Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 11:59 pm
There are fundamentally four reasons why Europe has more transit, including fast intercity trains:
a) almost all EU countries have to import almost all of their oil
b) cities are older and denser, i.e. better suited for local (connecting) transit
c) people are (grudgingly) willing to pay higher taxes to ensure political stability
d) no European country tries to be a military superpower these days – not even Russia
Point c refers to the communist and fascist movements of the 19th and early 20th century in western Europe and Russia. For example, anti-democratic demagogues held sway over significant fractions of the electorate in the Weimar republic due to grinding poverty and hyperinflation after WW I.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:16 am
I would add what amounts to a corollary to point (a), the influence of the oil, auto, and road building industry in the US. The combined effect of this group of lobbyists even today is a potential stumbling block to a rail revival, and I am convinced is a big part of what has held us back for years.
There is also the cowardice and stupidity of our own politicians. Most are primarily concerned about their job security, and feel it is suicidal for their careers to argue for a vision that goes against what they percieve to be “the American way.” They are like the unnamed French pol, of whom Winston Churchill supposedly remarked, was “trying to figure out which way his people are going so he can lead them there.” That’s a good definition of politics, not leadership.
I was greatly disappointed in a state senator in West Virgina as one example; when I spoke with him about how gas was badly undertaxed even for road support, his reply was, “You’re right, Dave, but we can’t do that.”
Missiondweller Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 9:10 am
The primary difference is that the US is/was a “Frontier Country” with huge amounts of land and expansive spaces. Especially out here in the west, our cities developed around the “new” technology of cars rather than trains.
Contrast that with older eastern cities that developed in pre-car eras, like New York and Boston.
Contrast that again with Europe who still has many towns developed around tightly packed midieval towns or cities that grew based on railroads.
Its really just now in the twenty first century that the American West has grown enough to be able to take advantage of rail in the form of either light rail or HSR. It requires a certain population and density to make it feasible. We’re now there, and time makes it ever more so.
wu ming Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 9:51 am
this version of history has got some holes in it.
the prewar west was heavily based around rail, and interurban lines, trollies and commuter rail routes were common in every urban area. even if cities were smaller than after the postwar boom, most had sufficient densities to support rail because they were built to a different transportation and density logic. when they switched gears and started planning car communities, then they weren’t. it’s not about “frontiers,” it’s about a shift in city planning and the explosion of the oil/rubber/auto industries.
additionally, whole the cores of eastern and midwestern cities (like the cores of western ones BTW) remained transit-friendly because of existing infrastructure and legacy design/densities, their peripheries sprawled in a low-density car suburb pattern the same as they did out west. most communities outside of urban cores, no matter where in the country one is, are car-dependent because they were designed to be so after the 40s.
in contrast, much of europe in the postwar era – like japan – had giant piles of rubble with which to write completely new car-dependent urban design into the ground like a blank slate, had they chosen to. in some parts of europe, that is indeed what happened, not all of it is well-served by transit. but in most cities, the europeans and japanese chose to rebuild their cities along rail and mass transit, with corresponding densities. it wasn’t inexorable, it was a conscious, sustained choice. rafael’s response upthread about the effects of powerful economic interests in the respective regions probably explains the difference.
and now, we still have that freedom to make new choices, just as we always have. in fact, if one follows the growth of rail in CA in the past two decades, it’s pretty clear that people (esp. young people) are choosing to live in a post-car or car-decentered culture. that’s not because of our attaining a certain density, it’s because the cheap oil and attendant real estate ponzi game broke down, and weren’t really ever open to people born after the 70s to benefit from much anyways. the higher densities are, if anything, the result of a rival conception of urbanity. inasmuch as zoning laws allow it, people are buying denser, transit-connected, walkable housing. it’s not a population threshold issue, it’s two competing paradigms of community design, and two competing ideals of what “the good life” is supposed to look like.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:00 pm
That version of history also has some holes in it. The automobile alone didn’t kill the streetcar–so did white flight andan exodus of capital from the inner city. Most young people are not white and they have no particular affinity for racial separation as much as whites (still) do. Millenials are quite happy with density if there is sufficient supporting infrastructure. Cars will still exist, but usage patterns will change.
There may be a long-term decline in miles driven, but the recession is probably a better explanation for the recent reduction. Also, the 2001 numbers would have suffered from the dot-com bust and perhaps the recession caused by 9/11. The AdAge graph should have plotted points for 2002, 2003, and so on.
Additionally, unemployment among young workers is horrendous. We have nowhere to drive to.
Peter Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 4:16 pm
The recession likely only had a small influence on these numbers. The recession didn’t really start hitting people hard until the end of 2008. However, the summer ’08 gas price spike may have had a much larger impact on these numbers.
Spokker Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 4:39 pm
The Ad Age graph includes miles driven from 2009. That’s recession territory right there.
Peter Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Right. It helps if I look at both graphs.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 6:18 pm
I agree about seeing the other data points. But if you combine that chart with the one regarding licenses for 16-18 year olds, you see a long-term trend away from driving.
The factors you mention are further reasons why younger people are moving away from driving. The cost is not affordable in these hard times. Driving isn’t seen as something that money should be spent on unless it’s absolutely necessary – which was the case back in the 20th century. Younger people see other things as priority spending.
If Ford and State Farm thought this was just a phenomenon of the recession, they wouldn’t have sunk so much research and design money and time into this.
Spokker Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 7:06 pm
It’s hard to tell if people want to drive less. All we know is that people are driving less.
HSRforCali Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Of course this is probably fueled by more people moving into high-density areas such as downtown districts where commuting by car is unecessary.
Matthew Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 2:24 am
Spokker, surveys also support that people want to drive less. Not broken down by age, but a quick google search finds this study for example: http://fastlane.dot.gov/2010/04/survey-shows-americans-want-more-mobility-optionsbikes-walking-and-transit-should-be-in-the-mix.html
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:27 am
Thanks for the link, I’ve been trying to figure out how to properly contact LaHood for some time.
Spokker Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 5:15 am
Sounds hopeful, but stated preference surveys are notoriously unreliable and may overstate the demand for walking, transit and cycling infrastructure. There could be several factors at work.
-Survey takers want to sound progressive, educated and smart. Imagine people who say, “Yeah, yeah mass transit is great. We need more of it.” *turns key, vroom vroom*
-Survey takers want a greater investment in mass transit in the hopes that others will use it, erroneously operating under the belief that greater investment in transit would free up capacity on freeways.
-They may not have experience with transit, and may be expecting more than transit can deliver. Once they try it, they may flee back to the “safe haven” that their vehicles represent. I have no problem with the segment of transit riders that are crazy and smelly, but does the rest of America?
I want to believe that people want to embrace alternative forms of transportation, but the cynic in me is not that hopeful. As someone who has extensively used public buses and trains, I am confident in my belief that I wish to drive less and use alternative forms of transportation more, but I don’t necessarily believe the general public when they say that just because they said so on a survey.
Matthew Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 6:32 am
Maybe if people say that they want to drive less, and people *are* driving less then it doesn’t matter what they in their heart of hearts actually want.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 7:46 am
No need to believe a survey. We have hard evidence in the form of declining car purchases, declining gas purchases, declining vehicle miles traveled, rail ridership that is rising or at least steady at the post-2007 level, rising sales of bicycles (and some evidence of rising use of bicycles), the better performance of home values in dense, walkable neighborhoods, and so on.
We can find further indications of public desire for alternative forms of transportation in the vote totals for mass transit funding initiatives, from Prop 1A to LA’s Measure R to San José’s Measure B to SMART in Sonoma-Marin.
Add in the underlying factors examined in my post and it seems a conclusive case that the public demand is absolutely there for alternative transportation. We’re not building enough of it, or maintaining what we’ve got, because there is a demented belief in America that everyone shares the ideological refusal of a few to abandon the 20th century.
wu ming Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 9:58 am
especially for the suburban commuter crowd, the growing number of people riding transit is also probably eroding the “o god, i can’t sit next to *those people* on the bus/subway/train” factor, in a sort of virtuous cycle the opposite of the postwar pattern, just by their numbers. when i was in college in tacoma in the 90s, the bus was mostly pretty sketchy people, and heavily stigmatized; when i lived in seattle a few years later, where everyone rode the bus, there was far less stigma; when i lived in asia, transit was perfectly normal, with no stigma whatsoever; in davis, where the bus system is student-run and the majority of riders undergrads, it was a hip thing and great for people-watching, probably positive social status riding the bus if anything.
more people riding means less terrified suburbanites. of course then there’s the question of whether establish riders really want *those people* clogging up their buses and trains, cluelessly standing on the wrong side of the escalator, etc., as gripes after the bay bridge closures revealed.
I can totally relate to this post. I don’t know how older folks can bear driving in stand-still traffic. Totally inefficient.
I’m surprised no one has mention the Bicycle. You might be surprised to know that right here in auto-centric America the sale of bikes for use by adults, forget all those bikes sold as toys to kids, surpassed the sale of automobiles for the first time since WWII. The numbers weren’t even close. It was bikes over cars by two million units last year. And bikes didn’t even have the advantage of the cash for clunkers program. Bike sales will do it again this year. It’s called the silent revolution because you rarely hear anything about it in the press.
rafael Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:41 am
I suspect that many of these new bikes are being ridden by high school and college students whose parents simply cannot afford to let them have a car right now. This is anyhow the case in Europe, where you have to be 18 (UK: 17) to take a driving test that is substantially harder than the one in California. For one thing, student drivers have to master operating a clutch and manual gear box.
Perhaps partly as a result of heavy bicycle use by the 16-24 age group, some – far from all – European countries have extensive networks of bike lanes and paths. Holland and Denmark are famous for theirs, but the flat terrain of northern Germany also features a lot of them. Where such networks exist, regular bicycles are thought of as a means of transportation rather than sports equipment. The late teenage and early adult years are a formative period for attitudes toward mobility later in life. Even when people do drive more because living close to work is no longer an option, they don’t perceive cycling in a negative light and are more willing to give up road space for it.
Much the same psychology holds true for transit. Robert’s post was about early indications of a shift in mobility culture in the US, specifically in California. Modern telephony and data communications have indeed changed teenagers’ priorities. Having a car is still useful, but it’s no longer particularly cool. Instead, being permanently wired (or rather, wireless) and tied in to social networking is the new status symbol. Texting while riding a bike isn’t a good idea, but if the choice is between paying the bills for a car and paying the bill for an iPhone (or similar), teenagers will still choose the latter and accept that means getting around by cycling and transit.
It’ll be interesting to see if this shift in perceptions toward bicycles will create a significant market for electric bicycles in the US. In some European countries, they are no longer considered models for senior citizens. Rather, they’re a concrete way for people to reduce the number of miles driven by car. Fuel is expensive in Europe and, there’s a desire to contribute toward the general effort to reduce oil consumption.
Modern batteries would permit electric bicycles rated at e.g. 600W and, this would make a huge difference for hill climbing ability. This in turn would enable a shift away from cars and toward cycling in places where the terrain isn’t flat but the weather is reliably good in summer. Embedded computer control systems with anti-tampering features standard in the automotive industry and cheap to manufacture. Perhaps scaled-down versions could be used to implement reliable enforcement of acceleration and speed limits on bicycles with more powerful assist systems. California law currently limits electric bikes to 250W and 20mph and, you have to be 16 to ride one.
wu ming Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 10:00 am
my perception of such things is hopelessly skewed by having lived in davis most of my life. people drive to high school/college?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 10:12 am
Yep. When I was in high school in Orange County everyone drove – as soon as you turned 16. We did so even when there was no point – my best friend lived two blocks away, and he and I would drive our own cars to and from school. It was idiotic in retrospect.
wu ming Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 10:35 am
to be fair, i was being a bit facetious. i got my learner’s permit at 16 as well, i just rode my bike more often than not, because it was usually faster when i took parking and traffic jams into account.
I have a lot of friends who take Metro to get to such places as Universal Studios and even the beach! It’s easier than driving and a much more pleasurable experience.
This is what I’ve been seeing for years, as noted in earlier posts about NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) also being predominantly WOOFers (Well Off Older Folks), or as I termed them, “that difficult, in-between age” demographic, which is between just under 60 to just under 80 now (and was between 40 and 70 almost 20 years ago). The difference is this article has a lot of hard numbers.
For those who are just tuning in, a short version of what I’ve been seeing is that almost 20 years ago, when there was a ferocious debate about making a major road in my area of West Virginia a 4-lane highway, I proposed that we at least look at a light rail transit option to avoid the mistakes of the nearby Washington, DC and Baltimore, Md. areas. This included a 17-page cost study that suggested the rail option would be much cheaper to build than the highway, largely because you wouldn’t be moving so much dirt around, and you wouldn’t have to condemn as much property nor tear down as many, if any, buildings. Data for the cost study was based on the highway department’s own figures for earthwork, bridges, and the like, and what other figures I could find for signalling, rolling stock, and electrification. Keep in mind this was essentially a proposal for a high-grade interurban, along the lines of an Indiana Railroad or a Cininnati & Lake Erie, with highway standards for curvature and grades, and a line that was double-tracked throughout.
The reactions I got in promoting this revealed a pattern that the people who liked the idea at the time were either under 40 or over 70, and the ones who hated it (including all my political misrepresantatives, one of whom accused me of being a Communist) were between 40 and 70. This was also noticed by an Amtrak marketing man I was aquainted with at the time, who said his marketing department had measured the same pattern in regard to Amtrak across the country.
This debate went on for some time, and I began to notice everyone was getting older. I noticed that the younger break-point had moved up from 40 to about 50, and I assumed the high-end break-point moved up as well. Further evidence included noting that passengers on the commuter train I occasionally ride were looking younger, and there were more of them; riding on the Washington Metro (DC heavy rail system), the crowd looked even younger, and I’ll also point out was very well-dressed, not the baggy-pants teen set. Another time, I spoke about this with a coworker, and she said she had noticed at this time that the people who were over 50 loved their cars more than the people who were under 50.
My hunch on this is that the older crowd, who was overy 70 before and is almost 90 now, remembers what we had and is sorry it went away. The younger crowd, under 40 before and just under 60 today, takes cars for granted, perhaps doesn’t appreciate them as well as they should, is environmentally aware, is interested in electronic gizmos (and as a corollary, doesn’t see driving as a big deal, along the lines of “My grandma drives, what’s so special about that?”), and, as has been pointed out, has also had money problems. The crowd in the middle, between 40 and 70 before and between just under 60 and just under 90 now, would have come of age between 1950 and the first oil crunch of 1973; they would be at the peak of the ascendency of the American “car culture,” and would see the future as looking something like “The Jetsons” or, to be more down to earth, the New York World’s Fair of 1964. Trains and rapid transit were “horse and buggy” technology, and were supposed to disappear, like the stagecoach. This crowd can not or will not recognise that the future isn’t what the future used to be.
I am not the only person to notice this. Fritz Plous, whom I’ve had the opportunity to be in communication with (and who has also had some comments in these pages), and Fritz mentioned that when he was in his 20s and riding trains in the early 1960s, he was very often the youngest person on the train by a considerable margin, with almost everyone else being over 50, and the trains were nearly empty. Today, riding Amtrak regional trains in the Chicago area, he notices that he is often the oldest person on the train, the bulk of the passengers are under 40 or even 30, the crowd is working on computers and the like while on the train–and the trains are packed.
Now, I have to mention this is not universal, and one should not expect it to be. We are individuals, and there are always individual variations; at the same time, the pattern holds. (In this regard I’ve made the comparison to a toothpaste ad that claimed “Four out of five dentists recommend C——- toothpaste,” but you had that fifth dentist who disagreed.) I don’t doubt that the internet and other electronic devices are part of the picture, and there is no doubt that economics plays an important role. I do think the environmental aspect and the loss of novelty of driving are bigger parts of the picture than anybody wants to admit. And what about the fact that driving isn’t the fun it used to be? Do you know anyone who takes just a Sunday drive anymore? I think part of this is because of traffic, part is because cars are no longer exciting (even though they run so much better than they used to), part is because driving through suburban sprawl doesn’t reveal as pleasing a view as the countryside it replaced, and you have to drive through miles and miles of sprawl before you get to the pretty country. With all of this, driving has lost much of its appeal; the economic conditions we are seeing are merely accelerating an existing trend.
I’ll also point out the problem of the auto market being saturated, actually dripping wet or soaked! This country has 117 vehicles for every 100 drivers. How many can you use? I would not want to be an ad executive with an auto account, or anybody in the management of an auto company right now.
I’ve been following this for some time. Below are some links to articles and other commentary on this phenomenon:
http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2009/12/04/teens-delay-driving-in-favor-of-surfing-the-net/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/23/AR2010012301339.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/business/25drive.html?ex=1361595600&en=9f1e8520535af0e2&ei=5090&pagewanted=all
http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2008/02/fewer-16-year-o.html
http://www.blogrunner.com/snapshot/D/8/3/automobiles/
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2010/02/09/894758/fewer-teenagers-behind-the-wheel.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/09/business/fi-rebel9
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/the-shrinking-american-car-fleet/
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2010/update87
http://www.outlookseries.com/N4/Financial/3179_Earth_Policy_Institute_Lester_Brown_US_Auto_Fleet_Shrinks.htm
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vehicle-fleet-us-shrinking-sales-recession
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/01/25/1110168/fewer-teens-getting-drivers-licenses.html
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/feb/11/111612/todays-teens-no-hurry-drive/news-metro/
http://www.fox2now.com/news/ktvi-teen-driving-dropping-051810,0,5985694.story
This phenomenon is not unique to the United States.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28433813/
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/The_demotorization_of_Japan.html
Now, do not think this is universal. Again, I emphasise, this is a pattern, and patterns always have individual variations. However, I also think we have a trend here. And again, I wouldn’t want to be in the car business now.
What does the future hold? Ask yourself if the auto and oil and highway industries will go down without a fight, and ask what kind of fight they will put up. Look and see how the NIMBY crowd is mostly WOOFers, or at least of a certain age range.
I’ll admit to being a gas bag–I should be in politics! But this is enough for now.
One more link:
http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2010/03/02/demographic-boom-turning-to-bust-for-north-american-auto-sales/
Question: How old is Anna Eshoo? If she’s in “that difficult, in-between age,” she very likely will not believe you, and may even denounce you. If so, wear this as a badge of courage–and hope you won’t eventually feel your life was wasted because the idiots won.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Checked her age, she’s 68; likely to be someone who won’t believe you, but that’s not guarenteed to be right; she might surprise us.
YesonHSR Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:57 pm
After I learned she is a lives next to brown/engle is a nimby..maby buy force..you know those 2 loud mouths call her every day…dont ya old “cabalores”
Another one. Do you think this is an accurate prediction, or wishful thinking?
http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2010/03/02/demographic-boom-turning-to-bust-for-north-american-auto-sales/
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Bah, wrong link, this is the one:
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=1330814&ref=g_sitelink
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Wishful thinking. You can’t use online technologies while driving. One has to be chosen, and people will increasingly choose their smartphones over their cars.
The shift away from driving is largely a demographic change. As California and the nation because less white, it cedes much of its urban areas to first or second generation immigrants who are more comfortable living in dense areas. But by the same token, car usage has been shown to correlate with personal income. In areas like West Los Angeles, a USC study found that wealth, not age was the greatest determinant as to what mode of transportation a person took.
The argument for Anna Eshoo isn’t about driving (which will continue thanks to electric cars and social stratification). No it’s that density needs to be embraced and incorporated in the nation’s urban planning that it just isn’t right now. Transit oriented development needs to be something other than frou-frou shops with ridiculously priced condos overhead.
One also forgets that commuter rail can be an effective compromise too….
So bang the drum at people like Eshoo, but make the point that “suburbia uber alles” isn’t a winning strategy for the 21st century…that density and the big city need to make a comeback if we as a nation are to survive.
This whole discussion underlines yet again how important reliable broadband internet access will be to the success of California HSR. Considering how long it will be in service, the system will be used mostly by people who are young today, so it has to work for them. If taking the train allows them to remain connected while taking a plane doesn’t, they will take the train. In fact, their employers will as them to. It wouldn’t even matter if the train journey took a little longer, because the time spent in transit would no longer be wasted – upending a long-standing axiom of transportation economics. Perhaps the CHSRA board ought to include at least one person under 30 to represent this shift in priorities. Perhaps the next generation isn’t as mustard-keen on a top speed of 220mph (as opposed to 186-200) as the Kopp-Diridon-Pringle crowd.
Incidentally, this ties in quite nicely with the political desire for some private funding for the HSR project. The modern signaling system required to operate the service safely will likely be based on terrestrial wireless communications (cp. GSM-R in ETCS level 2) because that is cheaper to install and maintain and by now, sufficiently reliable. The mechanical and electrical components of the signaling systems could also host a separate network of regular telephony base stations to provide massive internet bandwidth to the passengers on board. Access might be included in the price of a first/business class ticket (cp. Thalys, TGV Est) but economy passengers would have to pay extra, either to the the HSR operator or directly to the phone company. Either way, the telephone compan(y)(ies) would profitably participate in the new HSR lifestyle, so (it)(they) would have an incentive to make a non-trivial investment in the communications portion of the HSR infrastructure.
Matthew Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 2:46 am
There are plenty of companies that provide internet access on trains and in public spaces, T-Systems is a major player in Europe and the US (I think they already provide service in public spaces in LAX for example). On Deutsche Bahn, I believe first class tickets include internet access provided by T-Systems, but for regular business travelers, even a long term mobile internet contract should be quite affordable. Passengers in 2nd class can pay for internet service by the hour, day, month, etc. A system like this should be fairly trivial to install, and there are no FAA regulations to comply with unlike air travel. I think we can safely assume that California High Speed Rail would at least have this level of service.
rafael Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 7:49 am
I’d love to assume that, but it still hasn’t appeared on CHSRA’s radar screen. They make all kinds of ridership projections based on yesteryear’s models, without any consideration of customers’ desire to do something more productive than twiddle their thumbs for several hours.
Perhaps they are optimistically assuming that telephone companies will install the required infrastructure themselves. However, the route is 432 miles long, about 80 of those are underground and many more in open farmland or wilderness areas where plain old voice cell phone reception is poor or non-existent – never mind broadband internet. I’m not suggesting that CHSRA take on the responsibility for figuring out how to provide reliable service for HSR passengers, just that they engage with telcos to minimize the amount of fixed infrastructure (support masts and power supply) that need to be installed in those remote areas. The signaling system will anyhow need those, why not let the telcos pay a little rent on them to bring down the cost for both parties?
OT: Le Grand united in opposing high-speed rail route through eastern Merced County;
Voices at meeting back the alignment along Union Pacific tracks farther west
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2010/06/02/1443747/le-grand-united-in-opposing-high.html
rafael Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 7:53 am
Surprise, surprise. Perhaps someone should explain to them that UPRR has made it very clear it’s not interested in co-operating and that as a major railroad, the state of California has no powers of eminent domain over it. That’s a Congressional prerogative.
Considering the UPRR line in the CA-99 corridor is the backbone between the LA/LB harbors, Donner Pass and the Pacific Northwest, the chances that Congress will force UPRR’s hand are none to absolutely none.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 8:57 am
There’s a difference between UPRR clutching it’s property tightly to it’s chest and mummering “Mine Mine Mine” and whether or not rail freight, roadway and high speed rail can be accommodated.
rafael Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:26 pm
I’m not as optimistic as you. UPRR’s rights of way through built-up areas in California tend to be narrow and there has been decades of encroachment by developers and Caltrans. In south San Jose, downtown Fresno and downtown Merced (to name just three), the fight is on for every single foot of lateral space.
James Fujita Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:38 pm
The ROW in downtown Fresno isn’t that tight. http://tinyurl.com/295ggkk
At least one large building (the ugly giant white one on the right in the link) along the right of way is completely empty and ripe for redevelopment… train station possibilities?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 3rd, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Hard to tell from the property tax maps but I estimate the UPRR ROW is more than 150 feet wide. trends towards 200 feet wide. More than enough space for 6 tracks if they insist on it, two for freight and four for passenger.
Interesting post. The number of people bicycling in the DC region has increased significantly and it isn’t just the usual road bikers/NPR crowd that is biking for transportation these days.
Regarding wireless internet, there are two articles in the papers today. First, Acela is offering free wireless internet on trips in the Northeast Corridor and the article notes that Amtrak plans on offering this later this year in CA (http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/traffic/2010/06/amtrak_extend_free_wifi_on_ace.html). At the same time, airlines are charging passengers up to $13 for wireless internet (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282744293409022.html.html). This raises another good point– it isn’t just the price of the airline ticket vs plane ticket that is relevant. The associated fees/taxes (Passenger Facility Charge, Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF) excise tax, the baggage fee charged by airlines, wireless internet that costs between $5-$13, ‘fees’ for traveling on peak demand travel days, etc… all add to the cost of air travel.
Regarding the ability to be productive during the travel period, Kevin Neels from the Brattle Group gave a presentation earlier this year examining this (http://www.nextor.org/Conferences/201001_NEXTOR_Symposium/Neels.pdf). Passengers value different parts of the total trip differently, according to their ability to be productive and if passengers are able to use a laptop or read during the trip, they do not necessarily consider the travel time wasted.
I prefer using public transit in San Diego. The system itself is great, but I wished they could increase the frequency. Then again, they won’t expand the system unless more people are using it. But those people are not going to come unless they are expanding the system. This is a cycle that could go on forever. The government will have to do the first step.
Another problem with San Diego is its low-density population but the city is working hard on this one, building high-density areas close to trolley stations.
Great discussion! Gives me hope even as we face so skeptical voices in our efforts to bring HSR to California. It really emphasizes the need to continually reach out to youth in promoting HSR.
I’d say younger Californians are less hysterical about property values too, since we’re the ones actually footing the bill for prop 13.