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Tucsonans have been driving a bit less each year recently, and if forecasts hold true, that could result in a 14 percent drop in miles traveled each day by 2040.
The prediction comes from a report by the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, known as SWEEP. It examined how regional transportation authorities in the southwest altered their expectations of daily driving habits in recent years.
Tucson's drop would result in 7.5 million fewer miles driven on area roads each day.
It's part of a trend, which started 9 years ago.
“Between 1980 and 2006, total driving steadily increased every year, it was kind of like clockwork," said SWEEP's Mike Salisbury. "Then, in 2006, this trend really started to change.”
Since then, Tucson had seen the average daily miles traveled in a car per capita drop by .29 percent each year.
Salisbury attributed the drop in miles traveled to the lifestyles of two different age groups.
The first, millennials who choose public transit or other means of travel such as bicycling or walking instead of driving.
The second, the growing number of retired baby boomers who no longer make a daily commute into work.
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