Thursday, August 16, 2012

Baby Boom Population May Not Mean More Drivers After All

There's been a lot of talk lately about the baby boomers getting older, and how this is going to put a big strain on our social services and transportation services. There's concern that this huge population group is going to need special amenities to get around, such as larger, easier-to-read traffic signs, more public transportation and possibly even wider driving lanes and parking spots.


Sightline Daily says this may not be the case though because surveys say that driving peaks during middle age. At age 54, you drive about as much as you ever have, or ever will in the future. So while the baby boomers will indeed be a large part of our population, it's not transportation facilities we most likely will need to modify to meet their needs, but public transportation services and pedestrian facilities they will be utilizing most.

The full story, and the number of vehicle miles travelled by age, can be found at the link above.

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About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.