recession

Traffic on US roads in September at 232.8b VM (vehicle-miles) was down 4.4% (10.7b vehicle-miles less than 200709's 243.6b VM), the lowest September number since 2001 and down a full 5% from the 2006 Sept high of 245.1b VM. The 4.4% decline is somewhat smaller than the month-on-a-year-ago drop in August (-5.6%) but larger than that in July (-3.7%).

Weak global conditions, specially in the US and Britain are blamed for what Macquarie  - the reporting entity being Macquarie Infrastructure Management Limited - calls "subdued traffic results" in the September quarter. Even Macquarie's largest North American investment 30% of 407ETR in Toronto has traffic as measured by vehicle-km traveled below the same quarter last year, though only slightly - 1.1%. Daily trips are holding up but trip length is down.