Lockdowns and the widespread adoption of remote work in the early days of the pandemic offered a rare glimpse of streets without the usual noise and air pollution from traffic. Four years later, though, both traffic and congestion exceed pre-pandemic levels across most of the US, according to a new report published Thursday by the transportation analytics firm StreetLight Data.
The total miles traveled by all vehicles, or VMT, jumped 12% between May 2019 and May 2024, reaching record levels.
The report also suggests that VMT is rising faster now than it was when driving levels first rebounded from the pandemic in 2021 — a worrying trend for advocates working to reform transportation, the largest contributor to US carbon emissions.
“To meet our climate goals and our public health goals, we want to ideally see some kind of stabilization,” said Emily Adler, director of content at StreetLight Data.
Vehicle miles traveled increased in almost every major metro area — as well as in most of the biggest city center neighborhoods. New York City’s urban core saw a notable increase of 14.7% daily VMT per capita and a 1.8% jump in traffic congestion. Those are the largest jumps among the urban cores of the top 25 metros the researchers analyzed. In June, Governor Kathy Hochul indefinitely halted the city’s congestion pricing plan that would have charged drivers entering lower Manhattan, reducing congestion while also raising revenue for the city’s aging transit system.
Changes in Driving Since Covid in Top 100 US Metros
Only 10 metros kept VMT, or the total miles traveled by vehicle, below pre-pandemic levels over the last five years.
Source: StreetLight Data
Note: Data shows percent change in average daily VMT between May 2019 and May 2024. All but one metro area — Poughkeepsie, NY — are shown on the map.
Across metropolitan areas more broadly, only 10 out of the 100 most populous have kept driving below 2019 levels. The Los Angeles metro ranks first, with a 17% decline in average daily VMT over the last five years.
Other areas among the top five are also in California, including the Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura area with a 16% decline and the San Francisco Bay Area with a 13% decline — though the study does not dive into potential reasons for the dips. San Francisco’s urban core — an area that has particularly struggled to recover from the pandemic — also saw a nearly 26% drop in VMT per capita.
“VMT data is an important indicator of how our transportation behavior has changed, particularly as we now get to an era of relative economic normalcy,” says Adie Tomer, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro who was not involved in the study.
But he says that to understand both the causes and implications of VMT changes, policymakers need to look at policies, infrastructure changes, and their influence on travel patterns at the neighborhood scale. Declines in VMT could be a result of deliberate urban planning and infrastructure changes to rein in driving. They could also be a consequence of remote work policies and population shifts, not only away from the metro area but within it.
Pre-pandemic research indicates that remote and hybrid workers are more likely to move farther from where they work, therefore netting more miles on days they have to go into the office. “We should continue to be concerned that a hybrid work environment — and generally an increase in telecommuting — will lead to higher VMT,” Tomer said. “Basically people will be driving, on the net, longer distances.”
Meanwhile, congestion rose above pre-pandemic levels in all but six metros, falling only in the San Francisco Bay area and in Albuquerque, New Mexico — both by less than half a percent, according to StreetLight’s analysis.
Though the overall data indicates a link between driving trends and gridlock, a decline in vehicle travel doesn’t always translate to a reduction in congestion: Despite seeing a large drop in VMT, Los Angeles still ranks first as the worst traffic-clogged metro area, with congestion levels remaining unchanged since 2019.
“Congestion is pretty stubborn,” Adler said, adding that tackling the issue requires localities to meaningfully pass policy and make urban planning choices to reduce car travel — as opposed to adding lanes to expand road capacity, which other studies have shown encourages driving.
The researchers also note that gross domestic product grew even in metros that saw a reduction in driving, suggesting that vehicle travel does not necessarily drive economic growth.
Tomer cautions that driving trends are just one “very important barometer of a complex environment.”
“This study does not give us the data we need to validate whether VMT and VMT per capita is correlated with metropolitan economic growth,” he said. “We need more variables and a more robust modeling environment” — including data on population changes, office vacancies, and the labor market.