A truism is basically something that doesn’t have to be stated: everyone knows it’s true, whether agreed with or not.
A truism back when I was on Council (1986-2002) was that ‘You can’t get people out of their cars.’  No  matter that our planning and transportation policies were based on support for the ‘alternatives’ like transit, cycling and walking,  most elected representatives assumed that those could, at best, only slow the rate of growth in the number of cars.
Some were openly sceptical, and most would have opposed anything that seemed to force people our of their cars, but so long as they could vote in principle for things like cycle paths without having to raise taxes or take space from vehicles, there would be support.
They would certainly not have believed that there would be a dramatic decline in the use of the car within a couple of decades in places where the alternatives were practical, or that the next generation would have a distinctly different take on the necessity of owning a car, or that technology would change behaviour so significantly that we see something like this:

Riding with Strangers

SideCar Is the Best Thing to Happen to Hitchhiking Since the Invention of Thumbs

The first time I used SideCar, a new app-enabled car-sharing service that began in San Francisco and started operating in Seattle four months ago, I was excited by the fact that the driver was not only a complete stranger but he also owned the car. I was entering the stranger’s private space…. With SideCar, private space becomes connected with public space.

More here from, appropriately, The Stranger.
U-Pass, I think, has also fundamentally changed the young generation’s perception and expectations of transit.  It has done for the bus what previous generations tried to do for the car: make the next trip seem to be free.
So now the results are coming in – a trend I have referenced many times before with a variety of data:

Among Americans 16-34, transit use is up 40% since 2001. Biking up 24%, driving down 23%

Along with this chart:

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However, it’s clear that most of our elected leaders still don’t get it.  They’re operating on Motordom memes that have informed decision-making on transportation for most of their lives.  (Namely: we love our cars, we won’t give them up.  Therefore, always plan for expansion.)
And so, therefore, repetition, repetition, repetition: Driving is declining, and may well continue to so in the developed world.  It would be unwise to base your planning, capital requirements and taxes on the expectation that vehicle miles travelled (VMT) will grow as it has in the past.  The data is saying something different.
Here’s a summary of summaries in a Washington Post blog:

The Frontier Group has the most comprehensive look yet of why younger Americans are opting out of driving. Public transportation use is up 40 percent per capita in this age group since 2001. Bicycling is up 24 percent overall in that time period. And this is true even for young Americans who are financially well off. Here are five big hypotheses:
–The cost of driving has gone up.
–The recession.
–It’s harder to get a license.
–More younger people are living in transit-oriented areas
–Technology is making it easier to go car-free.

With this update:

Also note that the decline in driving isn’t unique to the United States. Several other wealthier Western countries have seen a decline in driving rates, though often for slightly different reasons. Here’s a great collection of papers on the broader global trends. And yes, fast-growing countries like China and India are offsetting the decline by increasing their driving.