GreenCarCongress has some interesting tidbits of recent data: vehicle miles traveled is down and sales of cars surpass trucks, reversing long run trends. An interesting side effect of diminished driving and fuel use is that less money goes into the federal Highway Trust Fund. Because a small portion funds transit, this pulls the rug out from under alternative modes just when they’re needed. I immediately wondered whether the recent falloff in VMT is similar to what happened around the 1973 and 1979 oil price spikes. DOT’s Traffic Volume Trends data provides the answer, if you add historic archive data to recent reports:
