Younger People Less Apt to Drive? I Think Not

I read an interesting article over the weekend that I don't necessarily agree with but it came to some interesting conclusions which obviously had some thought behind them. The article was about a study that had been conducted by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments' Transportation Planning Department. According to the report, there have been increasing signs that drivers 30 years old and younger are driving less these days and they had a couple of reasons why they believed that to be the case. One of the main reasons was listed as the desire to reduce their 'carbon footprint' and become more environmentally friendly. The other big conclusion was that computer-based and virtual social networking has reduced the time that many young people would have ordinarily spent searching out their friends and socializing in person. Now while these are logical conclusions, I don't necessarily agree with them.

Take for example the fact that the report finds that more and more young people are turning to mass transit for their business and social transportation needs. Perhaps a lot of them are being motivated by environmental concerns and wanting to make the world a 'greener' place but I have an alternate theory behind the uptick in public transportation usage. Have the people on the Council actually driven through normal Washington Metro area traffic? Back up on I-66 can begin as early as 5:30 in the morning and doesn't subside until late-morning or early-afternoon. Elsewhere, getting into the city or around the Beltway can be a trial in and of itself. Having been a commuter in the area I can't tell you how often I have cursed the traffic Gods and wished for a better commute to no avail. But still, given the fact that gas prices are going up and getting into the city isn't getting easier then that's wonderful news environmentally speaking but it isn't accurately indicating why public transportation is experiencing increases.

Want to go to a game or meet friends in DC for drinks? Wonderful idea! Want to avoid getting pulled over at a checkpoint for a sobriety test? Then take public transportation. And speaking of going out drinking, yes, social networking has virtualized a lot of the meeting and greeting that apparently led to a lot of people driving to and fro around the area to meet and discuss the next social plan they wanted to carry out. But now that they can carry it out virtually they can simply decide ahead of time and then use public transportation to get to their destination and back home again so that they can get as sloshed as they want without concern about being pulled over or knowing when to say when. Now perhaps that's a more responsible means of having a good time but I guess that wouldn't look like a very good reason why younger drivers are on the decline in a government Council report.

If the Council truly believes that their conclusions as to why fewer people are on the roads are true then that doesn't explain to me why traffic in the area is still so bad (and seems to be getting worse). Depending on where you need to go and at what time of day, the trip can take up to three times longer than it would when traffic is at it's non-peak time. The Council's report even states that at peak driving times (which is a euphemism for 'rush hour') drivers over the age of 65 are less likely to be on the road. So if we have fewer younger driver and fewer older drivers then is all this traffic being caused by a massive population between the age of 30 and 65? That's a pretty sizeable population given how often I sit in traffic these days.