WITH EVERYPLACE INCREASINGLY THE SAME AS EVERYWHERE ELSE, WHY GO ANYWHERE?:

A Road Less Traveled: Passenger travel in the industrialized world has been stagnant for nearly a decade, researchers say. (Melinda Burns, 1/02/11, Miller-McCune)

Amid the planes, trains and automobiles of the holiday season comes a surprising finding from transportation scientists: Passenger travel, which grew rapidly in the 20th century, appears to have peaked in much of the developed world.

A study of eight industrialized countries, including the United States, shows that seemingly inexorable trends — ever more people, more cars and more driving — came to a halt in the early years of the 21st century, well before the recent escalation in fuel prices. It could be a sign, researchers said, that the demand for travel and the demand for car ownership in those countries has reached a saturation point.

“With talk of ‘peak oil,’ why not the possibility of ‘peak travel’ when a clear plateau has been reached?” asked co-author Lee Schipper, who shares his time between Global Metro Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at Stanford University.