Transportation
Have We Reached Peak Road?
Paved mileage seems to have leveled off between 2008 and 2011.
We know about peak car and peak travel. The best recent data strongly suggest that per capita vehicles registered and vehicle-miles traveled topped out sometime in the mid-2000s. These twin transportation peaks may soon add a third to their gang: peak road.
Consider the numbers. At his Transportationist blog last week, University of Minnesota scholar David Levinson pointed out that Department of Transportation estimates of public roads and street mileage in the United States — paved and unpaved alike — leveled off between 2008 and 2011 (the latest year given, with data missing for 2009 and 2010). Levinson charted the plateau (the y-axis mileage is in thousands):