Recent Streetsblog USA posts about U.S. PIRG

Highway Boondoggle Case Study #1: Georgia’s Effingham Parkway

By Phineas Baxandall and Jeff Inglis | Sep 16, 2014 | No Comments

This week, U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group will release a report titled, “Highway Boondoggles: Wasted Money and America’s Transportation Future.” In it, they examine 11 case studies of some of the more wasteful, least needed roads being built in America right now. At a time when Americans are driving less and government traffic projections […]

Study: All Across America, Car Commuting Is Dropping

By Tanya Snyder | Dec 4, 2013 | 15 Comments

U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group are on a mission to explore the downward trend in driving. In a series of reports, they point to evidence that it isn’t just a temporary blip, but a long-term shift in how Americans get around. Today, the two organizations released a new report, “Transportation in Transition: A Look at Changing Travel Patterns in […]

Millennials Will Drive More As They Age, But Still Less Than Their Parents

By Tanya Snyder | May 14, 2013 | 20 Comments

At some point over the past few years, a lot of my friends started moving to Silver Spring and Takoma Park and Falls Church. These inner-ring, transit-connected suburbs of DC are still far less compact and walkable than the neighborhoods my friends moved from. So they bought cars. Why did they do this? They’re entering […]

U.S. PIRG: The Driving Boom Is Over But the Road-Building Binge Continues

By Tanya Snyder | May 14, 2013 | 14 Comments

The driving boom is over. After decades of steady growth, U.S. driving rates have stagnated and even fallen. Per capita driving is as low as it was in 1996. And yet, federal and state government estimates continue to predict inexorable growth, relentlessly building expensive new highways for drivers who might not materialize. A groundbreaking new […]

U.S. PIRG Report: Young Americans Dump Cars for Bikes, Buses

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 5, 2012 | 30 Comments

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group has been crunching the numbers on travel preferences among young Americans — and the news is not good for auto makers. The report — Transportation and the New Generation — is chock-full of nuggets like this: Driving is down: “From 2001 to 2009, the annual number of vehicle miles […]