This just feels like another version of the “people live in cities” phenomenon.
no, it’s the “americans fat/have no public transport” phenomenon.
But it’s not
I agree, it’s certainly correlated with population density and, therefore, destination density. But that also likely means the car-buying population has significant overlap with people who make most of the trips, so it has significance in the car market
Perhaps, though people in cities are far far less likely to own a car. So it might not be all that relevant. Hard to say without more data.
Why should I know that? Seems like a meaningless stat in a country this diverse.
There are a couple related stats in the article, and a graph.
It would be nice to put it in the context of transit or EVs or personal mobility or walkability, or king sized vehicles
Or whether you are 10 million living in a city or 4 thousand living in a rural town.
A “trip” by their definition only includes stays for longer than 10 minutes, so quick errands, delivers, etc are not counted regardless of distance. This probably removes a significant portion of what most people would consider as a “trip”.
Obviously some definition is required, because taking a walk, going for a run, walking the dog, etc probably shouldn’t count. But grabbing something from the corner store, picking up takeout, and dropping something off at a friend’s should count, but don’t under the current rules.
I’d say a trip is any journey away from the current place of occupancy (home, work, another residence) to a different destination in order to at least attempt a specific task or activity at the destination.
If I go three miles I’m just going down the road for a bit. If I’m going on a trip I’m going away for the entire day or more. It’s all about perspective and they wear theirs in their sleeve.
48% were three miles or greater.
Yes, but not by much. The graph in the link shows further breakdowns. 93% were under 25 miles.
7% were twenty-five miles or more.
For those not clicking the link, there’s a graph with further breakdowns. Here’s the key takeaway, to me:
28% could have been done without gasoline (under 1 mile)
52% could have been done without significantly affecting travel time by bicycle/e-bike (3 miles)
93% could have been done by a worn-out first-Gen Nissan Leaf EV with a charged but deteriorated battery (25 miles)
I’d like to see a measure of how miles fall into each category as well. I think a ratio could be extrapolated by multiplying percentage of each category by an average (weighted?) distance per group to figure out, say, how many miles were spent on a 1-3 mile trip in a 1,000 mile duration.
I did a 1.3 mile commute for a couple years by childhood bicycle most days, car in extreme weather. The bike afforded me a handful of pedestrian shortcuts* and “illegal” maneuvers** that made up for the speed difference. The car was 4 minutes because of stops signs and cross traffic. The bike was 7 minutes. My back hurt a lot less than during the prior 60 mile commute too, so that was cool.
- park path, anri-traffic dead end with sidewalk passage
**crossing the county road when there was a break in traffic rather than sitting at the exact intersection, yielding at stops signs instead of stopping as allowed here
My spouse and I consolidate our trips so we don’t do this. But some of our neighbors seem to leave and return in their vehicles almost hourly. We’ve noticed it for years.
