TRANSPORTATION - BTS - Bureau of Transportation Statistics

Income also has a major impact on the propensity to travel long distances. Those withincomes greater than $50,000 per year in 1995 made 5.6 long-distance trips per year, comparedwith 2.2 long-distance trips per year for those earning under $25,000 and3.8 long-distance trips for those in the middle income group [USDOT BTS 1997b]. Most of thegrowth in long-distance travel between 1977 and 1995 occurred in higher income groups[USDOC 1979; USDOT BTS 1997b].Keys to the FutureThe future of passenger transportation over the next 25 years will depend on a wide range offactors: demographics, immigration, social equity, affluence, and urban decentralization.The changing age profile in America will facilitate growth in both local and intercity passengertravel in the near term, but reduce growth over the long term (figure 5-18). As the babyboom generation passes through the ages when people travel most (in their 40s and 50s),passenger travel will increase. However, beginning in 2011, the eldest of this group reachesthe traditional retirement age of 65. After retirement, personal travel tends to remain the same,while work travel is reduced substantially. As people become increasingly physically andmentally frail in their 70s and 80s, all travel declines.Counteracting the aging population will be the number of new immigrants entering thecountry. Future population growth will result largely from immigration. Because mostimmigrants are adults, they have an immediate impact on the transportation system. Theseindividuals tend to use the transit system more than other sectors of the population because oflower income and because they tend to locate in urban areas. Transit use tends to decline thelonger an immigrant is in the country, and subsequent generations tend to adopt the sametransit profile as the rest of the population.Another possible source of travel growth is social equity, particularly growth in vehicleownership and, therefore, vehicle travel among racial and ethnic minorities. About 95 percentof white households have at least one vehicle, compared with about 88 percent of Hispanichouseholds and about 75 percent of African-American households. Increases in vehicle useamong these groups will be a function of vehicle cost, income, and geographic location.Cyclical and long-term changes in economic activity have a strong impact on the level of localand long-distance travel. Income growth generally increases the propensity to make morefrequent and longer trips. But increased affluence also tends to increase the value peopleplace on time, generally pushing them to faster means of transportation, such as the singleoccupantvehicle and (on longer trips) aircraft. The interaction of an aging population,smaller households, and time pressures may, in some places, influence people to live insmaller, higher density neighborhoods that have more potential for transit use and walking.On the whole, the dominant trend will still be urban decentralization, spurred by technologythat allows people to set up home-based businesses in order to work at home, or to havemultiple places of work—which will include private vehicles. Technology also will increasinglyallow employers to locate facilities near skilled employees and in places with spare roadand airport capacity. Increases in the share of workers who telecommute part or full-timeimply that the location and type of transportation necessary to support a given level ofeconomic activity will change. Increasing use of the Internet for the purchase of goods andservices will affect the nature and location of shopping travel, with increased freight deliveriesto residences.5-16