Back to the future: crowded freeways and tight budgets lead some to call for a return to policies from 1984

During the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, city officials scrambled for ways to accommodate the additional traffic as well as Angelinos’ normal daily activities. Today, the L.A. area is even more congested than it was in 1984, and some lawmakers are looking back to that time for ways to improve the situation. The strategies that have gotten the most attention are those that shift truck traffic to off-peak hours.

Has Motorization in the U.S. Peaked? Part 2: Use of Light-Duty Vehicles (Michael Sivak, 2013)

This study is an examination of trends from 1984-2011 in distances driven by light-duty vehicles in the U.S. The study concludes that because the onset of the reductions in the driving rates was not the result of short-term, economic changes, the 2004 maxima in the distance-driven rates have a reasonable chance of being long-term peaks as well.