Minnesota drivers ease up on the odometer

Minnesota drivers appear to have taken a historic turn by driving less -- or at least no farther -- than they used to.

Since 2004, car and truck drivers have covered roughly 56 billion miles each year, after decades of nearly unbroken annual increases.

If drivers have indeed hit a ceiling, it would have broad implications, beginning with highway building plans and including statewide goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

"Something is really happening here," said Barb Thoman, program director for Transit for Livable Communities and a member of a state climate change advisory panel. "It changes our assumptions about transportation. It makes it a little bit easier to achieve the goal [of reduced greenhouse gas emissions] than it would be if we thought people were going to drive as much as they did in the last 15 years."

State analysts are convinced the change is for real.

"If it's one or two years, maybe it's a hiccup. But four years starts making a trend," said Frank Pafko, director of the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT)'s office of environmental services, who has worked on the recent figures that were compiled in December.

Transportation accounts for about 25 percent of the state's greenhouse gas emissions. Because of that, it has been one of the key areas targeted for emissions-reduction strategies by the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group, which will have its final meeting today before its recommendations go to Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature.

Among that group's proposals has been a goal of not just capping but reducing VMT, the insiders' term for "vehicle miles traveled." Proposals to make that happen include changes in urban land use and design, providing more mass transit and other commuting options and removing subsidies and other public and private incentives that favor solo driving.

But even without any major new policies, the MnDOT numbers now seem to show there's been a small but significant change in Minnesotans' driving habits. Projections now call for a 0.9 percent annual growth rate in VMT to about 2030. That's less than half as steep as the line rose in the past.

Why is anybody's guess

Many who have studied the dynamics point immediately to rising gas prices -- more than concern for the environment -- as the reason why people might not be driving as much as they used to. Twin Cities average gas prices were just under $1 per gallon in December 2001, hit $2 in May 2004, and $3 in July 2006, according to GasBuddy.com.

A handful of readers who responded to a Star Tribune online query indicated that gas prices are a main reason they've cut back on driving. But several cited decisions they made more than a decade ago to reduce their commuting stress by taking jobs closer to home, or moving closer to work, or telecommuting.

MnDOT's Pafko added that baby boomers might be driving less as they retire. John Adams, associate dean of the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and a retired geography professor, said the state's rate of population increase has also slowed and the number of high-driving 20-somethings has leveled off. At the same time, high-density living has increased, both in the metro and outstate Minnesota. A lagging economy may also mean less driving, Adams said.

A whole mix of reasons

"It's a consequence of a lot of things going on, rather than an explicit choice to drive less," Adams said.

Pafko added that the new numbers will change some of the long-range road and highway plans for MnDOT as well as local governments. That's because road-building revenues come in part from the gas tax. Indeed, that income has been flat since 2004.

Could the mileage traveled each year actually decline? The climate advisory panel has wrestled with goals calling for steep rollbacks in per capita mileage by 2025, as well as the even tougher standard of an overall decline despite a likely population increase.

Scott Lambert, executive vice president of the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association, said he thinks it will be difficult to get Minnesotans to change their driving habits that dramatically, even with changes in urban layout land use and other policies.

"It's all a big challenge," he said.

Bill McAuliffe • 612-673-7646