Auto trips in decline … and more good news from TransLink

Some important news here on this just-released travel survey by TransLink:

Metro Vancouver’s Travel Profile: Getting Greener

Two key travel studies support the idea that TransLink’s regional objective of reducing single-occupant vehicle travel to less than one-half of all trips by 2040 can be achieved.  The 2008 Regional Trip Diary Survey and 2008 Screenline Survey show an increase in the proportion of trips taken on public transit as well as more people sharing car trip rides….

 The Screenline survey … found that, of the 5.9 million trips taken on a typical fall weekday in Metro Vancouver, 3.3 million of those – 55.9% – were taken by a driver in a car. This “mode share” for “auto drivers” is a significant decline from 2004, when almost 60% of trips were taken by a driver in a car.

As “driver auto” trips have declined, the transit mode share has increased by 16%, while the population of Metro Vancouver went up by about 6%.  The number of trips being made on public transit is steadily increasing over the past 10 years, with a 12.5% mode share in 2008, compared to 10.8% in 2004 and 10.1% in 1999.  Also, the combination of all modes other than driving a car – transit, cycling, walking and riding as a passenger in a car – reached a share of about 44%.

 Changes in travel choice are helping the region to manage transportation more efficiently.  The rate of trips per person on all travel modes in Metro Vancouver declined significantly from a peak of 3.24 per day in 2004 to 2.65 in 2008.  This suggests people are combining more individual purposes into each trip, or “trip chaining.”  This finding takes on even more meaning when one sees that the number of transit trips per capita has grown by one-third over the past 10 years – from 60 transit trips per person per year in 1999 to 80. …

 More people appear to be willing to share the ride, too, as the percentage of people using private auto as a passenger has increased from 16.5% in 2004 to almost 18% in 2008. ….

More people who are being accommodated without increasing the number of vehicles. In other words, as more people share rides and opt for public transit, there is more road room left for goods movement around the Lower Mainland.  This positive trend is supported by the Screenline survey as it showed that truck volumes increased by 4% between 2004 and 2008 across critical points in the transportation network. …

More to come.