Arthur Charpentier ⏚ 🇨🇦 🇯🇵
"The concept is called induced demand, which is economist-speak for when increasing the supply of something (like roads) makes people want that thing even more. Though some traffic engineers made note of this phenomenon at least as early as the 1960s, it is only in recent years that social scientists have collected enough data to show how this happens pretty much every time we build new roads." https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/
What's Up With That: Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse

The concept is called induced demand, which is economist-speak for when increasing the supply of something (like roads) makes people want that thing even more. Though some traffic engineers made note of this phenomenon at least as early as the 1960s, it is only in recent years that social scientists have collected enough data to show how this happens pretty much every time we build new roads.

WIRED
Apr 23, 2023 at 9:19pmWeb
Show threadCoach Pāṇini ®Apr 23, 2023
@freakonometrics @briankrebs Check out #strongtowns
Show threadLindi 🚂Apr 23, 2023

@paninid @freakonometrics @briankrebs

So, I'd love to see what would happen if we had more public transportation options available...

Show threadtlDrewApr 24, 2023
@lindih @paninid @freakonometrics @briankrebs having lived in Austin, which decided in the 1980s not to expand highways and SoCal, which seems to constantly expand freeways, I experienced traffic in both. Neither has decent public transit. One potential is the way we fund transportation (at least in SoCal): 30 year plans revised each year, but annual funding for projects based on taxes.
Show threadFirefighterGeek Apr 24, 2023

@freakonometrics My issue with this being taken as an absolute is that population is going to grow whether you make more room for traffic or not. Adding big roads may direct that growth to where the roads can be used, but not building roads doesn't mean less growth.

Getting rid of traffic works if you have truly workable alternatives, and most places in the US do not at present.

Show threadDavid J. AtkinsonApr 24, 2023
@FirefighterGeek @freakonometrics That is because their is no forcing function. What are the incentives to decentralize mega cities?
Show threadFirefighterGeek Apr 24, 2023
@meltedcheese @freakonometrics forcing economic decisions has a brutally terrible track record, unfortunately.
Show threadDavid J. AtkinsonApr 24, 2023
@FirefighterGeek @freakonometrics Every economic decision is forced somehow or nothing would change. Look at how #COVID has changed attitudes towards remote work.
Show threadDavid J. AtkinsonApr 24, 2023
@freakonometrics I used to live in the CA SF Bay Area. The commuting #traffic is horrible. 45 minutes to go 10 miles. I participated in a strategic planning study for the Bay Area transportation organizations. Nobody knew about “induced demand.” I told them to tear up two lanes of highway into Silicon Valley. As expected, this was not received well. I wish I had a pic. Ha! They thought I was nuts but it is really their inability to think themselves out of the box they are in.
Show threadmizblueprintApr 24, 2023
@freakonometrics
I bought a book back in 1970 named "Super Highway, Super Hoax" by Helen Leavitt. Found it at the student bookstore when I was in architecture school. The number of people entering cities did not change, only the number of cars. Meanwhile, the transit systems in many urban areas were dismantled, and "The High Cost of Free Parking" (Donald Shoup, 2005) describes the resultant tragedy of the commons.
Show threadklausfiend has movedApr 24, 2023
@freakonometrics This tracks ... the 405 freeway is 12 lanes across in some parts of Los Angeles, and regardless of how big they make it, it's always at a dead standstill every workday between 4 and 7 PM.
Show threadDavid J. AtkinsonApr 24, 2023
@freakonometrics @klausfiend I was once stuck going uphill on northbound 405 near the Getty. Right next to me was Eddie Murphy. Beautiful sports car, top down, beautiful S. California day …but he was going nowhere. I wanted to say hello but he was supremely angry and yelling into his phone. The 405 will do that to people.
Show threadklausfiend has movedApr 24, 2023
@meltedcheese @freakonometrics Pretty sure the 405 exists just to break hearts ... I remember one Wednesday, I drove to the west side to hang out; there was a fire that day in Agoura Hills or something like that, and at 5 PM, the 405 was a parking lot. Hung out, went for pints, 4-5 hours later, it was STILL a parking lot.
Show threadklausfiend has movedApr 24, 2023
@meltedcheese @freakonometrics oh, and then there was the time there was a drive-by _on_ the 101, and they had to shut down the freeway for hours to collect evidence, nobody on, nobody off ... LA has a special and very dysfunctional relationship with highways.
Show threadDavid J. AtkinsonApr 24, 2023
@klausfiend @freakonometrics I had the exact same experience as well as many variations during my 23 years in LA. I learned that 4am was the sweet spot for driving across the city. Too late for the bar crowd, too early for rush hour. If I had an 8am flight out of LAX, I left home in Pasadena at 4am. Any later and I would surely miss my flight.
Show threadJoe  Apr 24, 2023
@freakonometrics , more bicycle paths.
Netherlands are a good example...
Show threadSpace InvaderApr 24, 2023
@freakonometrics after I first learned about this phenomenon I’ve seen it everywhere and it drives me crazy.
Show threadPHolder  Apr 24, 2023
@freakonometrics There was a recent YT video that kinda debunks this https://youtu.be/zOYLiTj4vag?t=437
The Two Big Economics Lies You Still Believe | Economics Explained

YouTube
Show threadLarry HApr 24, 2023

@freakonometrics
The phenomenon was observed by Lewis Mumford earlier…

In 1955, urban observer Lewis Mumford wrote a series of essays in the New Yorker titled “The Roaring Traffic’s Boom,” in which he memorably compared a highway planner widening a congested highway to “the tailor’s remedy for obesity — letting out the seams of trousers and loosening the belt. [T]his does nothing to curb the greedy appetites that have caused the fat to accumulate.”

From: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-28/why-widening-highways-doesn-t-bring-traffic-relief

Why Widening Highways Doesn't Bring Traffic Relief

U.S. transportation authorities have spent billions widening urban freeways to fight traffic delays. What makes the “iron law of congestion” so hard to defeat?

Bloomberg
Show threadTomMay 14, 2023

@freakonometrics

It’s true for network throughput increases too.

One textbooks we used called it “the turnpike effect.”