More US commuters drive solo

Global-warming warnings have not dissuaded Americans from driving to work alone. In fact, their numbers have been rising.

By Bina Venkataraman | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 25, 2007 edition

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Global warming may be the nation's latest roadside attraction, but the American obsession with the carbon-spewing automobile still seems to be charging full speed ahead.

Seventy-seven percent of workers in the United States – more than 102 million people – drive alone to and from work, up from 1990, according to recently released US Census data, based on surveys conducted in 2005. This happened despite the fact that retail gasoline prices rose by 60 cents per gallon in that same 15-year period, controlling for inflation.

The news comes amid growing hype about going green, in an age when climate change has become as common a conversation topic as its quotidian counterpart, the weather. It could indicate that when it comes to transit, Americans talk the talk, but – put simply – aren't walking.

"People don't have flexibility to respond quickly to changes. And Americans have almost grown accustomed to seeing a three in front of the price of gasoline," says Alan Pisarski, a transportation behavior analyst and author of the "Commuting in America" series. "There's an immense benefit – whether it's convenience or control – that people garner from driving alone."

S. Usman Iqbal drives alone to his job in Boston, but says he's not concerned about global warming. "People are really anxious to show they're conscious about the environment and energy, but they're really not that conscious about it," says the medical researcher, speaking of people he has observed in the Boston area, where he's lived for the past six years. "Their actions don't follow their words."

Sure enough, fuel-saving alternatives to the car commute are actually losing ground. Public transit use is slipping. Biking shows no gains. The share of Americans who carpool, the second most popular method of commuting, is also on a downward trend. Telecommuting – working from home and using technology to communicate with the central place of work – is the only category other than solo driving that has grown over the past 25 years, but still rings in under 4 percent, according to the study.

Some experts, however, suggest that the data underestimate how much Americans are commuting without their cars. "The way [the survey asks] the question is, 'What do you usually do?' It misses people who might use the nondrive-alone option two days or less a week," says Phil Winters, director of the transportation demand program at the Center for Urban Transportation Research.

Given the recent hike in gas prices, data collected after 2005 could show a different trend, Mr. Winters says. And the number of people using public transit has gone up in many places, but the share of people has not changed because of growth in employment, he points out.

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Click to enlarge Source: US Census Bureau's American Community Survey, interviews / Rich Clabaugh – staff