Have We Reached Peak Travel?  Lloyd Alter Transportation / Cars
January 3, 2011  What will limit growth in travel: fuel prices
or gridlock? Image credit Aidan.Morgan  A new study of travel
habits in eight industrialized countries (including United
States, Canada, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom,
Japan and Australia) comes to some interesting conclusions:
people are travelling less, and it is not just due to higher
fuel prices.  Historically, as GDP per capita rose, so did the
miles travelled for work or for pleasure. But at some point, it
hits a wall. From an earlier version of the study, PDF Here  The
authors of the study, Lee Schipper and Adam Millard-Ball,
compared GDP to the distance travelled by car, truck, bus,
train, light rail and airplane. Melinda Burns at Miller McCune
describes it:   The authors suggest that there are many possible
reasons: gridlock, parking, gas prices, and even an ageing
population that doesn't drive as much. It seems that once you
reach a certain GDP per capita, ever