Good News: April Travel Takes an Upward Hike of .6 Percent

Good News: April Travel Takes an Upward Hike of .6 Percent
July 8, 2009

Travel on all roads and streets throughout the United States was up 0.6 percent in April 2009—an increase of 1.4 billion vehicle miles from April 2008, according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHA).

This is the first increase over the previous year the FHA has reported since glassBYTEs.com™/AGRR magazine began tracking these statistics last July. (CLICK HERE for related story.)

Total travel for the month of April 2009 is estimated at 249.5 billion vehicle miles.

Travel also increased in all five regions of the United States for the first time this year.

Estimated Miles Driven by Region	Total Miles Traveled in April 2008	Total Miles Traveled in April 2009	Percentage Change
Northeast	36,565	36,572	0.0
South-Atlantic	52,985	53,257	+0.5
North-Central	55,040	55,112	+0.1
South-Gulf	49,070	49,444	+0.8
West	54,422	55,116	+1.3
Total	248,081	249,502	+0.6

*All figures are in millions except for totals.

However, cumulative travel—the amount of miles driven since the onset of the year—is down by 10.0 billion vehicle driven miles for 2009, a drop of 1.1 percent. By the end of April, it is estimated that 933.2 billion vehicle miles were traveled throughout the United States since the beginning of 2009—compared with 943.3 billion vehicle driven miles for the period of January-April 2008.

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