Virginia Miller, spokeswoman for the American Public Transit Association, said the gains in transit use also are being reflected nationally. She said transit agencies began seeing steady increases once gas prices exceeded $3 after Hurricane Katrina.
Money as motivator
"People are changing their behavior," she said. "You've got to have a really good motivation to change a habit, and that motivation is saving money."
For the people who sell us cars, the decline in driving is translating directly into sluggish business. Peter Kitzmiller, president of the Maryland Automobile Dealers Association, said sales of large and medium-sized vehicles are off 20 to 30 percent from last year.
Signs of change are also being seen in the number of deaths on American roads - a figure that has hovered stubbornly around 42,000 for many years.
"In addition to us driving less, we are also driving differently," said Michael Sivak, director of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. He said figures from March and April showed drops in fatalities of about 20 percent while the declines in total miles driven were in single digits. That indicates, he said, that fewer drivers are speeding.
Sivak also noted that the biggest reductions in miles driven came on rural roads, which tend to be the most dangerous. Traffic in June was down 6.2 percent on rural highways nationally and 5.7 percent on those roads in Maryland.
"We expect there will be a continued reduction in vehicle miles driven," Sivak said. If the trends of March and April continue, he said, the number of highway deaths in the United States may dip below 40,000 for the first time since 1961.
Ragina Averella, a spokeswoman for AAA, said the organization doesn't expect any significant upsurge in driving unless prices fall to below $3 a gallon.
"Even though we have experienced a decline over the past month, which is encouraging, most people still realize that gas prices are still significantly higher than they were last year," she said.
The price this time last year: $2.75.
michael.dresser@baltsun.com
rona.kobell@baltsun.com
