Louisville is among top third of most car-dependent U.S. cities, study says
Louisville drivers hit the road a lot, a new study shows. (Photo by Don Sniegowski.)
Some Louisville motorists complain about cyclists taking up too much of the road, but a recent study shows that Louisville is the 15th most car-dependent city of 52 metropolitans included.
In other words, we’re largely getting from place to place by automobile rather than by bike, TARC or foot, indicating there may just be too many cars on the road. The study was conducted by CompareCarInsurance.com. The study also shows that Kentucky is the 14th most car-dependent state in the U.S.
The most car-dependent city is Nashville, followed by Oklahoma City and St. Louis. At the other end of the spectrum, the least car-dependent city according to the study is the Seattle metro area, with New York coming in a close second.
But we’re still ahead of our neighbors to the northeast – Cincinnati is eighth most dependent, per the study, while Indianapolis coming in among the upper half in least amount of car dependency at No. 31. Our metropolitan neighbors to the west, St. Louis, were found to be fourth most auto-dependent.
As a state, Kentuckians average 12,684 annual miles driven, slightly above the Louisville average.
The study was based on the average number of annual miles per driver in each city/state. For comparison, Memphis came in just shy of 15,000 miles per driver, with Louisville at 12,480. Conversely, Seattle came in with a much more modest 8,400 and New Yorkers at 8,801.
To determine the numbers, researchers analyzed survey data from the Federal Highway Administration’s National Household Transportation Survey and the U.S Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
Interestingly, however, automotive transit is going through a shift nationally. According to data from the Federal Highway Administration, fewer than 26% of 16-year-olds in the U.S. were licensed drivers in 2018. In 1980, that percentage was 40.
The FHWA attributes the dip in those percentages to being a symptom of a general shift in American car culture. Auto sales have been declining for several years, and there has been an increase in other forms of transportation, such as ride-sharing, bikeshare, and scooters, a CompareCarInsurance.com news release asserted.
In addition, research shows that from 2010-2018, the share of home-based workers increased from 4.3 to 5.3 percent, while the share of car commuters decreased from 86.3 to 85.3 percent.
Still, compared to Western European countries, America is much more car-dependent, owing to factors like suburban sprawl, inconsistent public transit and areas of the country where it’s practically impossible not to get to work, school and other destinations without using a car.