Peak Oil Task Force Report - City of Bloomington - State of Indiana

REVIEW OF THE CURRENT SITUATION: VMT & EQUITY
Automobile Dependency
A key index of oil dependency is car ownership. On average, in the United States, there are
755 motor vehicles per 1,000 people (the highest in the world until recently). 144 As with
the rest of the nation, residents of Bloomington and Monroe County are highly reliant upon
their personal vehicles. In Monroe County, there are approximately 672 vehicles per 1,000
people. 145 See Appendix IV.
Vehicle Miles Travelled: Around the Earth 112 Times a Day
Another indicator of our dependency is just how much we drive those cars. How much we
drive is commonly measured by vehicle‐miles traveled (VMT). VMT is the total number of
miles driven by all residential vehicles within a certain time period in a geographic area.
VMT is influenced by population, the number of vehicles per household, the number of car
trips per day, and the distances traveled.
In 2003, Monroe County residents drove an estimated 2.8 million miles per day. 146 This
distance is the equivalent of:
• Driving one car from the US
east coast to the west coast
933 times in one day.
• Driving one car around the
Earth at the equator 112
times in one day.
• Driving one car from the
Earth to the Moon 12 times
in one day.
144 Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development. See, William Pentland, “The World’s Top Car‐
Owning Countries,” Forbes, July 30, 2008.
145 Based on 2000 U.S. Census figures.
146 Bloomington Environmental Commission, Bloomington Environmental Quality Indicators Report,
http://bloomington.in.gov/documents/viewDocument.php?document_id=2987
Report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force
114