Omaha By Design: Omaha, Only Better

May 09, 2012

what the what?

by Ken Mayer
I stumbled across a graphic the other day that caused my jaw to drop. No sex, no violence, just something I really wasn’t expecting:

This chart appears in a new study, Transportation and the New Generation: Why Young People Are Driving Less and What It Means for Transportation Policy by Benjamin Davis and Tony Dutzik of the Frontier Group and Phineas Baxandall from U.S. PIRG Education Fund.

Sure enough, it shows that the average American was driving 6 percent fewer miles a year in 2011 than in 2004.

People driving their cars less? That just doesn’t seem like a very American thing to do.

Turns out, it’s those crazy kids. From 2001 to 2009, the average annual number of vehicle miles traveled by 16- to 34-year-olds decreased from 10,300 miles to 7,900 miles per capita. That’s a decrease of 23 percent.

And it’s not just American kids who are doing it. Last year, the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute found that in the 14 countries they looked at, other than the United States, seven developed countries – Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Germany — showed a recent decrease in the percentage of young people with driver’s licenses. Vehicle-miles traveled have either leveled off or fallen in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain.

Furthermore, a March 2011 National Association of Realtors study reported that 62 percent of people ages 18-29 said they would prefer to live in a mix of single family homes, condos, apartments, retail shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, workplaces, libraries and schools – all served by public transportation. The Urban Land Institute survey last year likewise found that nearly two-thirds of 18- to 32-year-olds preferred to live in walkable communities.

It looks like the generation sometimes referred to as the Millennials (those born after about 1980) may not share their Baby Boomer parents’ love of the big house and car.

Maybe this is just youthful rebellion. Maybe it’s an effort to identify with grandpa and grandma. After all, grandparents and grandchildren tend to bond, it’s said, because they share a common enemy.

Kidding aside, these young people share some things with their grandparents that we Baby Boomers never experienced. Millennials could easily have been the same age on Sept. 11, 2001, as their grandparents were on Dec. 7, 1941. Or the same age during the current “Great Recession” as their grandparents were during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

These things have a tendency to sober you up, especially if you are a teenager or a young adult. The Millennials have been forged in a different fire.

I see this in my classes at UNO. Often my students remind me of my parents. Even business students seem to share the goals of sustainability and civic participation. They also collaborate far better than my generation ever could.

Age cohort aside, new forms of development also appear to be emerging. One is T.O.D. (Transit-Oriented Development), a type of mixed-use development near a train station. Many developers say this type of project is now one of the fastest-growing areas of the housing market.

This isn’t just on the coasts. Denver plans to break ground on its Belleview Station development in July, and Phoenix has projects in the works.

I kept this in mind as I looked over the new Transportation Master Plan for Omaha. Seems like some of the plan fits with the cultural change that’s coming and some of it, not so much. Certainly the idea of a better, safer city for pedestrians and bicyclists makes a lot of sense. Also the notion of project right-sizing to make sure the need for widening or turn lanes really exists before beginning a project.

I wonder though, what would happen if the City’s Millennial Generation continued to reduce the miles they drive, took more to bikes and public transit, and put more demand pressure on walkable communities like downtown, Midtown Crossing and Aksarben Village?

Let’s hope the next Transportation Master Plan will have to contemplate something heretofore heretical – living in Omaha without a car.