Is Urbanism Slowing the Rise of Car Travel?

by ERIC JAFFE, The Atlantic Cities
Early last week the State Smart Transportation Initiative, a sustainable transport program funded by the Department of Transportation, released some charts on the continued decline of vehicle-miles traveled in the United States. Overall VMT dropped 1.2 percent in 2011 from the previous year, reaching its lowest total since 2003, and per capita VMT fell 2.1 percent to levels not seen since 1998:
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The 64-mile-per-gallon question is why. The simplified and convenient answer is often gas prices, and with today’s New York Times reporting the "spector" of $5 a gallon fuel prices it may become a favored political one this election year. But an equally compelling reason is a rise in the embrace of sustainable land-use patterns. A brief analysis by SSTI found a weak connection between VMT and gas prices, and a rather strong one between vehicle miles and urban density:
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https://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/03/urbanism-slowing-rise-car-travel/1372/