The calculator is a US extra mile (Parry) plus an EU average (CE Delft). This page is how much driving there is to multiply: United States, Europe, and Canada, from published tables. Canada usually sits between the two. None of these rows are averaged into a fifth pack.
Newman and Kenworthy spent decades putting the same definitions on cities. American metros lead the world in car kilometres per person. Canadian metros are lower. European metros are lower still — not because Europeans never drive, because the city is smaller at the same daily hour.
Kenworthy et al., 1990 cities
11,200 vs 4,500
US-city average about 11,155 km; Western European city average about 4,519. New York was 8,317 — the American outlier, still well above Europe. Stockholm was 4,638. Kenworthy ranks Canadian cities between Australia and Europe; US cities were about 2.2× Toronto’s car-km per person.
Newman & Kenworthy 1989
~4× Europe
Ten large US cities used nearly twice the gasoline of Australian cities, four times European, ten times Asian — after they argued price and income explained only about half of it. Land use did the rest.
Kenworthy, 2005
0.55 vs 0.90
US and Canadian city averages: public transport about 54–55% as fast as road traffic. European cities: 90%. Rail vs road in Europe was 1.28 — faster than driving.
Sources
1990 car-km: Cameron, Lyons & Kenworthy, Transport Policy 2004, citing Kenworthy et al. 1999. Ranking and Toronto: Kenworthy & Laube, Transportation Research A 1999 (US most auto-dependent, then Australia, then Canada, then Europe; US cities 2.17× metro Toronto, 2.41× the European-city average). Gasoline: Newman & Kenworthy, JAPA 1989. Speed ratios, 1960–2005: Kenworthy, Current Urban Studies 2021 Table 1 (American 0.54, Canadian 0.55, European 0.90 in 2005). Later work finds “peak car” in many of these cities after 1995; the US–Europe gap did not close.
Journey-to-work is only part of travel, but Canada and the US ask almost the same census question. Europe’s headline modal split is passenger-kilometres, including planes — not the same unit. Read the notes.
ACS 2024
69.2%
Public transportation 3.7%. Worked from home 13.3%. Census S0801. Transit was about 5% in 2019, before the pandemic.
Statistics Canada
2.3–2.6×
2016: 12.4% of Canadian workers on transit vs 5.4% in the US. 2021 (COVID): 7.7% vs 3.0%. Walk or cycle 2021: 6.2% vs 3.2%. StatCan compared the two files directly.
Eurostat 2022
72.2%
Of all passenger-km, including air (13.1%), coach (7.4%), train (7.0%). Inland, the car is a larger share. Lithuania 87.9% car; Austria, Netherlands, Sweden, France over 9% of passenger-km by train.
Sources
US: Census ACS commuting at a glance (2024 1-year). Canada 2021: 83.9% of commuters by car, truck, or van; 7.7% transit; 6.2% walk or cycle; 2021 Census key indicators. Head-to-head with ACS: The Daily, 30 Nov 2022. EU: Eurostat, people on the move 2022 and Key figures on European transport, 2024. Calgary is not Montréal. Houston is not New York. National averages hide that; they still rank.
Commute shares understate walking. National travel surveys count every trip. The US still sits with Canada and Australia at the low end; the Netherlands is the high end.
Buehler & Pucher
~10% vs >50%
About a tenth of trips in the US, Canada, and Australia. More than half in the Netherlands. Germany, Denmark in between — and still several times the US.
Buehler 2011
4× active
Germans make about four times the share of trips by foot, bike, and transit, and drive for a 25% lower share of trips — with car-ownership rates among the world’s highest.
Sources
Buehler & Pucher, TR News 280, 2012. Buehler, Journal of Transport Geography 2011. On Canada vs the US specifically: Pucher & Buehler, Transport Policy 2006 — Canadians cycle more, still far less than Dutch or Danish rates.
The calculator already notes the US federal gas tax is 18.4¢/gal. Other countries put a much larger wedge between the private cost of a mile and the social cost. That is one reason European cities can stay “one hour wide” on transit.
FHWA IN-1, Dec 2023
$0.47 vs $4.20
United States $0.47 (federal plus weighted state). Germany $4.20. United Kingdom $3.79. France $4.12. Netherlands $4.71. DOE figures, current exchange rates.
NRCan / Excise Tax Act
10¢/L +
Standing federal gasoline excise is CAD 0.10 per litre (since 1995). Provinces add their own. That is more than the US federal 18.4¢/gal and nowhere near German or Dutch totals. From 20 Apr–7 Sep 2026 the federal rate is temporarily 0¢.
Sources
FHWA Highway Statistics 2023, Table IN-1. Canada: NRCan, fuel consumption levies (10¢/L federal gasoline since 1995; provinces on top). Temporary 0¢: Finance Canada, Apr 2026. van den Bijgaart et al. (on the health page) use a similar US–UK gap when they raise the second-best fuel tax for inactivity.
These are different bags. Do not subtract them. The calculator already plots Parry and CE Delft; this is where Canada’s official study sits, and why the EU line is an average passenger-km, not Parry’s extra mile.
| Study | Place | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Parry, Walls & Harrington 2007 | United States | Marginal cost of an extra vehicle-mile. On the calculator. |
| CE Delft Handbook 2019 | EU-28, 2016 | 12.0 €-cent per passenger-km with congestion. Average, not extra mile. On the calculator. |
| Gössling et al. 2019 | EU passenger-km | About €0.11/pkm external for cars (2017€). Different bag than Parry (infrastructure and parking land are large). |
| Transport Canada Full Cost Investigation | Canada, 2000$ | National social costs of transportation on the order of CAD $24–40 billion, of which urban congestion on light vehicles is more than $5 billion. Not a ¢/mile table. |
| Litman / VTPI | “Typical North American” | Victoria, BC. Compilation, not a Statistics Canada microdata file. On the calculator. |
Sources
Parry and CE Delft: estimates.json. Gössling, Cohen & Llerena, Ecological Economics 2019. Transport Canada, Estimates of the Full Cost of Transportation in Canada (2008). Background methods: Zhang, Boardman, Gillen & Waters, UBC for Transport Canada, 2005.
Europe is not one place. Canada is not Toronto. A 1990 city database is not 2024 NHTS. Passenger-kilometres (Eurostat) are not commute shares (ACS, Census of Canada). Fuel tax is not the full social cost — it is the part that shows up on the receipt. The honest ranking still holds: US cities drive the most, European cities the least among this set, Canada in the middle, and the ¢/mile on the calculator is mostly about the extra American mile in an American land-use pattern.