3 HN users recommended this explainer3 months2022–2024score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN commenters link it as a clearer explanation of induced demand for people who have not studied the topic.
CityNerd Ray Delahanty explains induced demand and what happens when freeways are widened. He walks through the economics of supply and demand applied to traffic and asks how much new traffic appears and whether congestion returns.
“Anyway, Ray explains it better than I could and he agrees that the term is bad” (HN, 2024)
The problem is that "inducing demand" for people who would otherwise take public transit doesn't actually increase efficiency. Putting more cars on the road is not necessarily a net benefit. See this video from CityNerd for more details: [this video]
Details on why induced demand does not increase efficiency.
Books are not a finite resource? Obviously there is a finite number of trees but there are enough for it not to be a bottleneck. Land on the hand is a finite resource, especially in large, urban cities. There is no way to design a highway or other car infrastructure that will meet the demands of any reasonably sized city without dedicating an unreasonable amount of land to cars. Anyway, Ray explains it better than I could and he agrees that the term is bad: [this video]
Better explanation of induced demand, agreeing the term is bad.
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