American’s and especially Michiganders are driving their cars and trucks less.

This trend isn’t all that recent. As the most recent Federal Highway Administration graph shows, the mileage has flattened during the past couple years and is now on the decline.

Comparing January 2008 to January 2007, the nation drove 1.7% less. Michiganders drove 4% less, a reduction of 350 million miles for one month. Comparing December 2006 to December 2007, Michigan drove 6.2% less or 525 million miles.

Given the recent gas price increases, this downward trend should only grow.

This is good news for bike shops and bike advocates. Why should we spend more money on expanding roads while the vehicle use is declining? Now is the time to invest in alternatives such as on-road bike facilities.

These trends are also good for SMART. Their April ridership numbers continued to climb and are now setting records.

The Suburban Mobility for Regional Transportation (SMART) is posting the highest ridership since its formation in 1967. SMART carried more than 44,000 passengers daily for the month of April. Weekend service on SMART is also at its peak. Overall, ridership on the Fixed Route system has increased more than 6.5% from this time last year.

Unfortunately there is a significant drawback to Americans driving less. Transportation funding relies heavily on fuel taxes. The less people drive (or the higher MPGs their cars get) the less money flows into the system to fund transit, roads, and trails. The funding mechanism is clearly broken.

The Governor created a Transportation Funding Task Force which is looking at alternatives. MTGA, TRU, and other groups are working with this group to ensure biking and transit funding is adequately funded, especially as more Michiganders switch to these modes.

While we’re not endorsing any presidential candidate at this time, it was great to hear Senator Obama recently highlight bike lanes during his recent visit to Portland, Oregon:

If we are going to solve our energy problems we’ve got to think long term. It’s time for us to be serious about investing in alternative energy. It’s time for us to get serious about raising fuel efficiency standards on cars. It’s time that the entire country learn from what’s happening right here in Portland with mass transit and bicycle lanes and funding alternative means of transportation.

Promoting bike lanes in Portland was a smart move since a large percentage of those listening to the senator were cyclists. From the Bike Portland blog:

In Portland, when 75,000 people show up on the Waterfront for any event on a gorgeous spring day, you’d naturally expect many of them get their on two wheels

One estimate puts the number of bikes at 8,000 on the railing above the river alone (that does not include the likely thousands of bikes locked to every pole, rack and tree in a one-mile radius!). After the event, bikes were reportedly bumper-to-bumper over the Hawthorne Bridge…

Today began the third annual Detroit Synergy bike to work day.  Today we had a great ride from Royal Oak to Campus Martius in Downtown Detroit.  Next Friday’s ride is from Dearborn to Campus Martius.

One of the riders today was going out of his way to ride with us.  His normal bike commute is from Royal Oak to Wixom.

Also, congrats to fellow bike commuter and Friend of the Clinton River Trail, Mark Pompetski.  He got some much deserved ink describing his bike commuting in the Hometown Life:

Three years ago, when Michigan’s perennial orange barrels sprouted along his route to work, Mark Pompetzki’s daily commute became even more of a grind than usual.

But prompted by a co-worker, Pompetzki found a way to take some of the pressure off the drive between Rochester and Southfield. He started riding his bike to work when the weather and his schedule permitted. He’s still doing it today, averaging one day a week.

Read the complete article

The 2007 bike and pedestrian crash results for the four counties in the MDOT Metro Region have just been added to our on-line database.

In summary, while pedestrian crashes have dropped, bicycle crashes increased by over 13%. As noted by SEMCOG, “traffic crashes involving bicycles are more severe than overall crashes.” In other words, they cause a much higher percentage of injuries. Bikes don’t have bumpers, crash cages, and air bags.

The only “good” news is there were 6 bicycle fatalities this year, down from 13 last year. Still, 23% of all traffic related fatalities in the Metro Region were pedestrians or cyclists.

These numbers only provide more justification for road agencies (like Wayne County and the Road Commission of Oakland County) to begin implementing best practices for safe biking. Agencies and municipalities need to create and implement non-motorized plans on how to reduce these crashes.  Road projects that increase bicyclist safety should be rewarded, not penalized as they can be today in Oakland County.

SEMCOG has released their 2007 Traffic Crash Report. The Michigan State Police should be releasing theirs sometime this month.

Today had two bike to work events sponsored by American Cycle and Fitness and Fox 2. One started in Grosse Pointe, another in Royal Oak. Both ended up a Campus Martius where a Trek commuter bike was raffled off to one of the participants. The weather was great as Fox 2’s Lila Lazaras led us down Woodward.

And a special thanks to Lila for noting how great it would be if Woodward Avenue had bike lanes.

Tomorrow is Detroit Synergy’s ride from the Royal Oak Farmers’ Market to Campus Martius. More ride details