New data released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (U.S. DOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) show that U.S. driving reached 1.58 trillion miles in the first six months of 2016, beating the previous record of 1.54 trillion miles set last year.
The new data, published in FHWA’s latest “Traffic Volume Trends” report—a monthly estimate of U.S. road travel—show that more than 282.3 billion miles were driven in June 2016 alone, which is a slight increase over the previous June. The increase in driving highlights the growing demands facing the nation’s roads and reaffirms the importance of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, which is investing $305 billion in America’s surface transportation infrastructure—including $226 billion for roads and bridges—until 2020.
In June, U.S. drivers increased total mileage among all five regions of the United States. At 4.1%, traffic in the West led the nation with the largest percentage increase in unadjusted vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and continued a streak of consecutive monthly increases that began in October 2013.
At 2.4%, the Northeast had the smallest percentage increase in unadjusted VMT for the month.
At 8.6%, Hawaii led the nation with the largest unadjusted single-state traffic percent increase compared to the same month a year earlier, followed by Idaho and Utah at 5.1% each. At 2.4%, North Dakota had the nation’s only unadjusted traffic decrease for the month.
