U.S. Motorists Drove 4.7% Fewer Miles in June
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 13, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) — As summer vacation season began, Americans got out of their cars, driving 12.2 billion fewer miles in June than in the same month a year ago.
The 4.7 percent decline, which came while gas prices were peaking, was the biggest monthly driving drop in a downward trend that began in November, the Federal Highway Administration said Wednesday.
“Clearly, more Americans chose to stay close to home in June than in previous years,” said Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters.
Over all, Americans drove 53.2 billion fewer miles November through June than they did over the same eight-month period a year ago, according to the highway agency’s latest monthly report on driving. That is a larger decline than the 49.3 billion fewer miles driven by Americans over the entire decade of the 1970s, a period of oil embargoes and gas lines, the agency said.
Gas consumption was down, too. The highway administration said that motorists consumed 400 million fewer gallons of gasoline and 318 million fewer gallons of diesel fuel in the first quarter of 2008 than in the same period in 2007.
Ms. Peters said the decline in driving would mean less money for highway repairs and construction projects. The Highway Trust Fund, which underwrites the projects, is financed by the federal tax of 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents a gallon on diesel fuel.
“We can’t afford to continue pinning our transportation network’s future to the gas tax,” Ms. Peters said. “Advances in higher fuel-efficiency vehicles and alternative fuels are making the gas tax an even less sustainable support for funding roads, bridges and transit systems.”
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