US Car Fleet Shrinks For First Time in 65 Years

The U.S. automobile fleet shrank last year for the first time since World War II, according to new figures.

Earth Policy Institute (EPI) said automobile owners scrapped 14 million vehicles and bought only 10 million, shrinking the total number of vehicles on the road to roughly 246 million.

Lester Brown, president of the EPI, attributes the reduction to an uncertain economy and record oil prices in 2008, as well as urbanization and market saturation.

"The car promised mobility, and in a largely rural United States it delivered. But with four out of five Americans now living in cities, the growth in urban car numbers at some point provides just the opposite: immobility," Brown writes.

The Texas Transportation Institute reports that U.S. congestion costs, including fuel wasted and time lost, climbed from $17 billion in 1982 to $87 billion in 2007.

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