Washington state has a success story to tell—and the Task Force concludes that the CTR Program played a major role in it. Our state has bucked a national trend by decreasing the rate at which people drive alone to work.

In the decade from 1990 to 2000, the percentage of drive-alone commute trips in Washington decreased slightly from 73.9 percent to 73.3 percent. This small change reduces, to a degree, the pressures to add highway capacity because of population and economic growth.

Washington and Oregon were the only states where the percentage of people driving alone to work decreased during the decade. Nationally, drive-alone commuting increased 3.4 percent during the same period.

In comparison, the drive-alone rate at worksites in the CTR Program since 1993 decreased even more than the state average. The drive-alone rate at these sites dropped nearly 10 percent, from 69.7 percent in 1993 to 62.8 percent in 2003.

• See companion article, "CTR Task Force submits 2003 Report to the Legislature."

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