120K views · Jan 20, 2022 · 14:54 · 3 HN recommenders · 3 mentions · discussed 2022–2024
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.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters link it as a clearer explanation of induced demand for people who have not studied the topic.
“Anyway, Ray explains it better than I could and he agrees that the term is bad”HN comment, 2024
“See this video from CityNerd for more details”
Details on why induced demand does not increase efficiency.
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
“Anyway, Ray explains it better than I could and he agrees that the term is bad”
Better explanation of induced demand, agreeing the term is bad.
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
“Have you read anything or watched anything about induced demand”
Explains induced demand for those who have not studied it.
Have you read anything or watched anything about induced demand or did you just read the expression and figured it all out by yourself? this video
