Millennials in Motion Changing Travel Habits of Young Americans and the Implications for Public Policy Millennials in Motion Changing Travel Habits of Young Americans and the Implications for Public Policy U.S. PIRG Education Fund Frontier Group Tony Dutzik and Jeff Inglis, Frontier Group Phineas Baxandall, Ph.D., U.S. PIRG Education Fund October 2014 Acknowledgments The authors thank Adie Tomer of the Brookings Institution; Scott Le Vine of the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London; Doug Short, Vice President for Research at Advisor Perspectives and others for their review of drafts of this document and for their insights and suggestions. The authors also thank Danielle Elefritz for her research support and Tom Van Heeke for his editorial support. The authors bear responsibility for any factual errors. The recommendations are those of U.S. PIRG Education Fund. 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Frontier Group provides information and ideas to help citizens build a cleaner, healthier, fairer and more democratic America. We address issues that will define our nation’s course in the 21st century – from fracking to solar energy, global warming to transportation, clean water to clean elections. Our experts and writers deliver timely research and analysis that is accessible to the public, applying insights gleaned from a variety of disciplines to arrive at new ideas for solving pressing problems. For more information about Frontier Group, please visit www.frontiergroup.org. Design: Harriet Eckstein Graphic Design All covers photos from istockphoto.com: Woman on bus, Luis Alvarez; family, Ryan J Lane; man on bike, kupicoo. Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 Introduction 5 Who Are the Millennials and Why Do they Matter? 7 Millennials’ Transportation Behaviors Differ from 9 Those of Other Americans and from Prior Generations Millennials’ Daily Lives Are Less Car-Centered than Those of Older Americans 9 Millennials Are Less Car-Focused than Previous Generations of Young People 10 Millennials’ Transportation Behaviors Continue to Change 12 Millennials Have Led a Broader Shift in Transportation Behaviors among Americans 13 Why Millennials Are Driving Less 17 Socioeconomic Changes 17 Lifestyle Preferences 23 Higher Hurdles for Youth Driving 26 Changing Technology and Transportation Options 28 Making Sense of Changing Driving Trends and Their Implications for the Future 33 Incorporating Lasting Changes into Transportation Planning 34 Using Scenario Planning to Incorporate Uncertainty 35 Seizing the Opportunity to Reduce the Impacts of Driving 37 Notes 38 Executive Summary ver the last decade—after 60-plus people follow suit—America will have an years of steady increases—the opportunity to reap the benefits of slower Onumber of miles driven by the av- growth in driving. These include reduced erage American has been falling. Young traffic congestion, fewer deaths and inju- Americans have experienced the greatest ries on the roads, reduced expenditures for changes: driving less; taking transit, bik- highway construction and repair, and less ing and walking more; and seeking out pollution of our air and climate. places to live in cities and walkable com- Several indicators—including continued munities where driving is an option, not a decreases in per-capita driving across the necessity. whole U.S. population, the continued shift Academic research, survey results and away from the use of cars for commuting government data point to a multitude of by Millennials, and the consistency of factors at play in the recent decline in driv- Millennials’ stated preferences for hous- ing among young people: socioeconomic ing and transportation—suggest that it is shifts, changes in consumer preferences, unlikely that the trend toward less driving technological changes, efforts by state among Millennials during the 2000s has governments and colleges to limit youth reversed thus far in the current decade. driving, and more. Moreover, many of the factors that have Millennials (those born between 1983 contributed to the recent decline in driv- and 2000) are the nation’s largest gen- ing among young Americans appear likely eration, making their transportation needs to last. Now is the time for the nation’s particularly important. They have the most transportation policies to acknowledge, to gain or lose from the transportation in- accommodate and support Millennials’ vestment decisions we make today, as they demands for a greater array of transpor- will be affected by those investments for tation choices. decades to come. If Millennials drive fewer miles than previous generations as they Millennials are less car-focused age—and if future generations of young than older Americans and previous Executive Summary generations of young people, and their • Young people are not the only Ameri- transportation behaviors continue to cans who are driving less. The num- change in ways that reduce driving. ber of miles driven by the average American has declined nearly con- • Between 2001 and 2009, the average tinuously since 2004. Americans now number of miles driven by 16 to 34 drive no more in total than we did in year-olds dropped by 23 percent, as 2005 and no more on average than we a result of young people taking fewer did at the beginning of President Bill trips, shorter trips, and a larger share Clinton’s second term in office. of trips by modes other than driving. Young Americans drive less than older There are many factors at play in the Americans and use public transpor- drop in driving among young Ameri- tation more, and often use multiple cans. Many of those factors—from high modes of travel during a typical day or gas prices to tougher driver licensing week. laws—appear likely to last. • In recent years, young people appear Socioeconomic shifts to have continued to shift away from driving: • The Great Recession contributed to unemployment and falling incomes o Census data show that the share among young people. However, driv- of 16 to 24 year-olds traveling ing fell among both young people with to work by car declined by 1.5 jobs and those without during the percentage points between 2006 2000s, as well as among young people and 2013, while the share of young in households of various income levels, people getting to work by public demonstrating that the decline in transportation, on foot or by bi- driving was caused by more than just cycle, or else working from home, the recession. had increased. • Many of the driving-related so- o Young people aged 20 to 30 are cioeconomic changes linked to the less likely to move from central recession—such as the increase in the cities to suburbs than a decade number of Millennials “living in their ago. parents’ basements”—were already taking place for years or decades o Driver’s licensing among young before the recession began, suggesting people has continued to decline. that a return to pre-recession pat- The percentage of high school terns is not inevitable as the economy seniors with driver’s licenses recovers. declined from 85 percent to 73 percent between 1996 and 2010, o Americans have been getting according to the AAA Founda- married later and having children tion for Highway Safety, with later nearly continuously since federal data suggesting that the the 1960s and have continued to decline has continued since do so during the first years of the 2010. recovery. 2 Millennials in Motion o While the number of young enabled transportation services, from Americans living with their bikesharing to real-time transit track- parents increased sharply during ing apps. the Recession, the share of young people living in their parents’ • Young people have been the first to homes had been increasing even adopt many of these technologies and prior to the recession, and house- tools, and have been disproportion- hold formation among young ately attracted to alternatives such as people has remained slow during bikesharing and “ridesourcing” (taxi- the recovery. like services such as Lyft and Uber). • Millennials reaching driving age to- • Many of these technology-enabled day have no living memory of consis- services are relatively new and are tently cheap gasoline. Gasoline prices currently in use by only a small per- are projected to remain at historically centage of people. But some (such as high levels indefinitely, possibly lead- bikesharing and round-trip carshar- ing Millennials to make long-term ing) have already been shown to lead transportation and housing decisions to reductions in driving and vehicle that require less driving. ownership. Together, they could lay the groundwork for a new model of Lifestyle preferences mobility that is less dependent on private car ownership. • Several studies have found a genera- tional cohort effect among the Millen- Other steps that discourage driving nials—that is, today’s young people drive less than previous generations • Graduated driver licensing require- of young Americans, even when ments adopted in recent years by state economic and other factors linked to governments have likely played a small vehicle ownership or driving are taken but important role in causing young into account.