I was thinking about induced demand, and I wondered why the argument as it’s made against cars/the expansion of highways isn’t also applied to things like busses. Does it not occur to the same extent?
I was thinking about induced demand, and I wondered why the argument as it’s made against cars/the expansion of highways isn’t also applied to things like busses. Does it not occur to the same extent?
It does. It does with every mode of transport (except for really rare and really weird cases).
The difference is in terms of scalability. Public transit like trains and buses are a lot more scalable than cars. A city that entirely uses public transit would be a lot more cost and space efficient and would be a lot better for the environment compared to a city that entirely uses cars.
The “induced demand” argument is primarily used against the “just one more lane will fix the traffic bro” argument. The complete argument goes as follows: Building one more lane for a given road won’t end up reducing private automobile traffic. In fact, it would induce demand for travelling using private automobiles, thus increasing the demand for road space, thus making the road reach capacity a lot quicker than expected. Is it technically possible to design a city around cars, such that all its inhabitants can drive to their destinations? Sure. The costs (financial, environmental, health, etc.) however are huge. We don’t want to pay these costs. Most individuals are not aware of these costs and are misled into believing that these costs are a lot less than what they actually are.