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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like a variant on the "induced demand" theory that people who are opposed to road building always trot out.

Well, we’re not going to roll it out.

But it’s not really a theory so much as an established fact that the only way to reduce traffic is to have viable alternatives to driving.

Only because noboby is willing to pay for all the roads a city needs. Freeways in very rural places are never congested because we outbuilt demand.

Des Moines needs Huston levels of freeway to meet current demand. Which is why nobody is willing to pay for it.

No city has enough space for all the roads everybody need to get everywhere by car. You'd pave the entire city and it would still not be enough.

But, of course, the people saying "better streets would only make people drive more" are stupid. It's just that the people insisting one can do everything by car are also stupid.

You can go up and down and find plenty of space.

of course that is even more expensive.

Or you invest on something that uses less space for the more fixed routes people do. And let them use cars on the more diverse routes...

That is the affordable answer.

> But, of course, the people saying "better streets would only make people drive more" are stupid.

that's right, better streets and more parking area will deter car use.

The only people saying that are sarcastic. cut it out, it isn't halping anything.

what people want is to do things. They want better streets and more parking because they think it will help them - induced demand proves they are right. If you don't like it then work on a real answer, great transit for example (not the transit for people with 5 DWIs that we are trying to punish - which is what all most people see, no wonder they don't want it.)

we have pretty good transit in Europe. it's America that worships cars. just one more lane.

Europe has a lot more people in cars than on transit. in general the cities are somewhat petter but there is a lot of room to do better. not that you are wrong but you need to do better not focus on butting down the us.

yes, I wouldn't want to upset any American snowflakes! America good. Great success!

Who said anything about America? Take a look at yourself: Sweden, Spain, Italy, France, Germany - each does some really good things that are not repeated in other countries. That list is not exhaustive, but there is a reason each country is on the list, do you know what you have to learn because they are better than you (unless one of them happens to be you). Then look at the larger world - what are your learning from Chile, South Korea, Japan... Again not an exhaustive list, but each country has significant things they are doing better than you. Even in America, New York city, or Seattle, have things to teach you, but no you have to look down on America and so won't learn the good instead, you just want to feel better than us because of the bad things.

I can do both. learn from somebody and laugh at their follies.

> Who said anything about America?

> better not focus on butting down the us.

If you have ever not gone somewhere because “there's too much traffic” or chosen to go to a store because it has easier parking than an equivalent alternative store, you've experienced the rudiments of induced demand.

Generally it isn't traffic but it takes too long so you don't even consider it. if we had telleportation I'd have lunch in a Paris café but that would mean 8 hours to get there so I don't consider it.

We'd still have induced demand even if we had teleportation, the bottleneck would just be the capacity of venues, restaurants, and retail businesses.

You wouldn't consider casually popping into a Paris cafe if the wait was always 4 hours or you had to have a reservation months in advance, which would be the case if travel time was a non-factor for everyone

We might end up with less because we realize we already overbuilt and restaurants were depending on local captivity.

It is, but in both cases it's not a good reason by itself to reduce investment in supply (roads or GPUs).

One is indeed an example of the other

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