Automobile trips grow far faster than population

FORT COLLINS — Fort Collins has become part of a national trend in which automobile use is growing at a faster pace than population.

A study conducted by the city’s transportation planning office determined that in Fort Collins, as in other cities across the country, vehicle miles of travel is growing 30 percent faster than the population.

Brian Woodruff, an environmental planner with the city’s natural-resources department, said reasons for such disproportionate growth include the explosion of the two-earner household in which a second wage earner also uses a car to get to work; an increase in the number of women drivers;…