For years, census data told a clear story: The number of cars in Seattle had pretty much stopped growing.
I wrote in 2021 that the city might have hit “peak car” because the total number of vehicles owned or leased in Seattle hadn’t changed since 2017, when the tally hit 460,800. After I wrote that column, the number stayed in the 460,000s through 2023.
But maybe I was wrong. Newly released census data shows the number of cars in Seattle jumped once again in 2024…