For Immediate Release
Contact: Daisy Singh: 202-857-1200, daisysingh@highways.org
Sharp Increase in Driving Shatters U.S. Highway Travel Records
Americans Drove 107.8 billion more miles in 2015 than in 2014
(WASHINGTON, DC) Today, the Federal Highway Administration issued its final estimate of 2015 highway travel which showed substantial growth in U.S. driving and a new record level of 3.1478 trillion vehicle-miles traveled. Americans drove 3.5% more than in 2014, or a whopping 107.8 billion more miles.
According to Greg Cohen, President & CEO of the American Highway Users Alliance, the news is generally positive for Americans, but also may point to some concerns the transportation professionals need to address:
“The growth in highway travel is a good sign for the state of our economy and quality-of-life, because more highway mobility means more people shopping, working, recreating, and taking trips of social value,” said Cohen. “During much of the past ten years, through the recession and weak economy, travel growth was anemic. Last year’s bounce in travel was faster than the growth of our GDP, which historically has grown at a similar rate. Among the likely factors involved in motivating more driving are more affordable fuels, increased consumer confidence, more freight movements, and employment growth.”
Cohen warned that the resurgence of highway use also comes with risks to the public that need to be addressed:
“With such substantial growth in highway use, safety for all road users and congestion relief strategies need to be addressed strategically. Motorists and truckers have not been imagining things. They have felt the stress levels go up as congestion has risen. Although the final numbers for road capacity have not yet been released, we anticipate last year’s travel growth to be several times higher than the growth in new road and new lane capacity.”
Cohen added, “With 107.8 billion more miles being traveled, we expect that the final tally of road deaths will be unsettling for 2015, despite a positive trend over the past decade and critical investments by states, counties, and municipal governments in data-driven road safety solutions.”
Cohen added a final note of good news for drivers: “In December Congress passed a new five-year highway bill, the FAST Act, which finally gives States the stable long-term funding needed to address both safety and congestion relief for the remainder of the decade. We urge transportation agencies at all levels of government to keep the latest data in mind while working to make our roads safer and more efficient.”
For more information, see today’s release of data from the Federal Highway Administration: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/15dectvt/15dectvt.pdf
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The American Highway Users Alliance represents motorists, RV enthusiasts, truckers, bus companies, motorcyclists, and a broad cross-section of businesses that depend on safe and efficient highways to transport their families, customers, employees, and products. Highway Users members pay the taxes that finance the federal highway program and advocate public policies that dedicate those taxes to improved highway safety and mobility.
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