younger americans driving less

Why aren't younger Americans driving anymore? (Links to article at Washington Post; opens in new tab, of course.)

From the article:

What’s happening? High gasoline prices are one obvious factor. The price at the pump has been lurching upward since 2005 and appears to be forcing people off the road... But that’s probably not the whole story. The correlation isn’t perfect, for one. And vehicle miles driven have continued to drop since 2011, even though retail gas prices have remained relatively stable (though still at a historically high level). The aging of the Baby Boom generation is a second big factor here. Americans over the age of 55 tend to drive less, so the fact that the United States is aging overall makes a difference. But another huge part of the story is that young Americans are driving much, much less. Between 2001 and 2009, the average yearly number of miles driven by 16- to 34-year-olds dropped a staggering 23 percent.

I've recently begun to think that the answers to our enviro woes won't be in simple conscience-based reductions, but in technological solutions and socio-cultural changes. Here's another thing that makes me oddly hopeful.