Quick Hits From U.S. DOT’s TRB Panel

We've had a busy two weeks since the Transportation Research Board conference, and one thing that’s slipped through the cracks is passing on a few tidbits that came at the end of the TRB panel of U.S. DOT officials on January 16.

First, in response to my question about whether the dip in vehicle-miles-traveled had affected how DOT performs travel forecasting and, therefore, transportation planning: "Certainly, we have been observing that trend," said Polly Trottenberg, DOT's under secretary for policy. "One of the reasons that’s been posited is, there’s a generational change going on; younger generations are driving less, for a variety of reasons."

Those reasons include graduated drivers' licenses and new technologies like Uber and bike-share, she said. "It fits in to what we think the American transportation system needs to be, which is multimodal."

So does it affect their planning? Trottenberg says yes:

The flip side of the dip in driving is an uptick in transit ridership. It's hard to believe that in this context, some people still think transit isn't a high priority and shouldn't receive dedicated federal funding. At TRB, FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff said he thinks that the Republican effort to whack transit last year was a last gasp of sorts: