It is jarring when facts get in the way of beliefs, but if nothing else this blog is about facts (to the extent we can find and verify them). And there is no more strongly held belief among “mobility” (FKA “transportation”) analysts than that Americans are more dependent on the car to get around than are Europeans. My research feed almost daily surfaces an article about light rail in Belgium or scooters in New Zealand or gridlocked car traffic in LA. And in many ways this belief is absolutely correct: outside of NYC Americans do not use mass transit very heavily, our passenger-transport (versus goods-transport) railway system is very weak, and famously a single Texas highway interchange is likely larger than all of the downtown of Siena1.
But in at least one way (you knew I was heading here…) this belief is not true. For the following information I am indebted to the indefatigable Randal O’Toole, whose blog The Antiplanner is both highly opinionated and highly informed. I thank him for permission to cite his insights.
If you phrase the dependency question the following way, the answer is the reverse of what I at least expected:
“Measured by passenger-miles, in 2021, which location, the EU or the USA, saw a higher fraction of total passenger travel provided by cars2?”
The EU, at 79.7 %. The US that year was at 78.6%.
(The sources are as follows. For Europe, the EU’s Eurostat arm, specifically the report “Key Figures on European Transport, 2023 Edition,” released in January of this year but with data only through 2021. For the USA, the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ National Transportation Statistics report, specifically table 1-40. The 78.6% figure is my calculation from 1-40, though O’Toole comes up with 78%, a discrepancy which is modest and may depend on some small definitional issues, such as whether to count motorcycle travel. (I did.))
Now for the caveats!
We use 2021 because European figures are not yet out for 2022. And the numbers do change from year to year.
It is unwise to extrapolate too much from behavior during any of the pandemic years.
The metric matters, as always. Europeans may rely on cars as much as Americans in terms of percent of miles traveled, but Americans travel many more miles: probably 16,000 or so per person per year, with Europeans at about half that.
I would apologize for the incredibly boring chart, but in a way that is its point: these two bars are virtually indistinguishable. The urge to move around by car, in at least this sample of “Western” developed nations, seems amazingly constant.
But I, along with many others, get this fact wrong, deferring instead to our beliefs. My error is excessive extrapolation, which I criticize other analysts for engaging in. I extrapolate from the excellent subway system of Budapest, or the wonderful trains of Switzerland, to a whole continent, and that is a mistake. Once one gets out into the Continental hinterlands, cars take over as the leading transport mode, and I neglected to realize this.
Two closing comments.
First, don’t read into this post any policy positions. Personally, I would love the USA to have more inter-city rail options (I am not so sure of the cost-benefit equation when it comes to intra-city light rail), and I know we need much more frequent and reliable urban bus service, for workers of all income strata to get to their jobs. I am just reporting the facts here!
Second, I found it fascinating to see which European Union country was the most car-dependent (using the above metric). It is Lithuania, at about 92%. You might reply that this is just a statistical aberration: the country has only some 2.8 million people.3 But who is second on the list? Norway (population 5.5 million), at about 87%. There is an interesting irony here, that the European country that is the most green in terms of the type of cars they drive (about 4 out of 5 new cars sold in Norway are electric), is one of the least green in how much they drive (versus presumably even greener mass transit)4.
“The centre of Siena and a highway interchange in Houston are of similar size. The first is a home to 30,000 people; the second is a home to no one.” I don’t know if this is true but if you want to see the source, it is “Living with Beauty,” published in 2020 by the UK’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission.
Defining “cars,” as always, to include sedans, SUVs, light trucks, etc.
Most of whom, as far as I can tell from living in Northeast Ohio, have relatives in Cleveland!
Indeed, some Norwegian analysts have pointed out this phenomenon: when you motivate people to buy green cars (EVs), via massive subsidies (up to $25,000 or more per car, by some calculations), you not only get more green cars, you get more cars, period. Be careful, always, what you wish for.