Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Traffic

Streetfacts: Americans Are Driving Less

By Clarence Eckerson Jr. | Apr 2, 2013 | No Comments

We continue our Streetfacts series by looking at the data on driving in the U.S. Per-capita driving has declined every year since 2005. That’s not a blip, it’s now an 8-year trend. The reason? Neither the state of the economy nor changes in gas prices offer a satisfactory explanation. Social preferences and demographic shifts seem to […]

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For Eighth Year in a Row, the Average American Drove Fewer Miles in 2012

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 27, 2013 | No Comments

For decades — through the rise of the two-car household, women entering the workforce, the growth of the exurbs — Americans reliably put more miles on their cars every year. But no longer. Last year, for the eighth year in a row, vehicle miles traveled ticked down on a per-capita basis. The average American drove […]

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NSC: 36,200 Americans Killed in Traffic in 2012, First Increase in 7 Years

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 21, 2013 | No Comments

After seven years of declines, traffic deaths in America rose again in 2012, according to a preliminary estimate by the National Safety Council. An estimated 36,200 people were killed in traffic collisions last year — a 5 percent increase over 2011, according to the NSC. In 2011, 34,600 people were killed on American roads. Traffic injuries increased […]

Two NY Auto Insurers Now Reward Motorists for Driving Less

By Stephen Miller | Feb 21, 2013 | 5 Comments

Allstate has joined Progressive Insurance as the second company to offer New Yorkers the chance to save money with usage-based car insurance. Like its cousin, pay-as-you-drive insurance, usage-based insurance rewards people for driving less. On top of that, by constantly monitoring how people drive, it creates incentives based on behaviors that can’t be tracked by […]

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Gary Toth: TTI Congestion Scores Prove Road Expansion Isn’t the Answer

By Tanya Snyder | Feb 7, 2013 | No Comments

In response to our critique of the Texas Transportation Institute’s congestion rankings, which take traffic delays out of context and risk being used to justify road expansions, former New Jersey DOT leader Gary Toth raised this question: What if, instead of getting frustrated with the report, we reframe its interpretation? He does it by pointing out that the […]

Scared by Dangerous Traffic? Take a Xanax

By Stephen Miller | Feb 6, 2013 | 11 Comments

Once in a while, a story comes along that perfectly encapsulates how dangerous traffic forces people to re-orient their lives. This example, relayed to us by a reader, comes from a recent lecture at the psychiatry department of a major Manhattan hospital about anxiety disorders in the elderly. The lecturer brought up the case of an […]

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