US road travel continues decline but slower

US road traffic continued to decline in February and March but at a slower rate than through most of last year, according to FHWA data compiled from 4,000 count stations around the country. A 12-month moving total of distance traveled on the roads (in billion vehicle-miles traveled) was 2914 in March vs Feb 2917 and Jan 2919.

The to-March annual number is 4.1% below the 2007 Nov high of 3038. Average monthly decline in the annual number was 8.7 last year so the rate of decline this year at 3.3/month is less than a half the decline seen most of last year.

It remains true however that traffic overall is still down on the same time last year. March this year was 245.09b, 1.2% down on 2008-Mar 248.15b, and 5.5% below 2007-Mar 259.36b. Supposedly these are seasonally adjusted data.

The traffic drop regionally seems to correlate pretty much with the size of the housing bubble that has burst - worst in South Atlantic (heavily weighted by Florida) at 3.4% down, and in the West, 3.2% down (heavily weighted by California). Other regions are more or less level with the same period a year ago, suggesting a possible bottoming there.

A measure of the severity of the recession in traffic: you have to go back to February 2004 to find a 12 month moving total for US traffic lower than March 2009's 2914b.

TOLLROADSnews 2009-05-26