induced demand
Streetsblog California
Confirmed: Non-Driving Infrastructure Creates ‘Induced Demand,’ Too
Widening a highway to cure congestion is like losing weight by buying bigger pants — but thanks to the same principle of "induced demand," adding bike paths and train lines to cure climate actually works.
January 8, 2026
Feds Warn Congress That Americans Need to Drive Less to Survive Climate Change
"The U.S. will not be able to decarbonize the transportation sector without addressing increased demand," a recent DOT report wrote. So why are so few transportation leaders doing it?
July 29, 2024
Freeway Fighters: ‘Stop the Highway-Expansion Madness,’ New Coalition Demands
"Endless highway expansions are pulling our country into an environmental, budgetary, and public health crisis," the letter states.
February 6, 2024
Study: Two-Thirds of Americans Know Highway Expansions Don’t Cure Traffic
"The public is way ahead of the elected officials, and it's way ahead of the transportation officials in [talking about] the kind of future they want to see."
June 29, 2023
So Much for ‘Carmageddon’ (Philadelphia Edition)
More capacity generates more travel, more sprawl, more pollution, and ultimately more congestion. It’s time to get off this treadmill.
June 13, 2023
Biden’s First ‘Mega Grants’ Contain Some Mega Wins — And Mega Fails
A new federal "megagrant" program will fund major safety and transit projects that have been at the top of sustainable transportation advocates' wishlists for years ... along with business-as-usual highway expansion projects that could negate those mega-gains.
February 7, 2023
Three Reasons Why Congestion Decreases When Cities ‘Delete’ Road Lanes
Elon Musk's insane comments about induced demand once again force advocates to debunk common congestion myths that powerful, but often ill-informed, people continue to promulgate.
May 13, 2022
Induced Demand Is Hard to Explain – But It’s Crucial to Get It
For the last fifty years, road builders have tried to solve congestion by building more lanes, and it hasn't worked. Yet they still don't connect expanding capacity with increasing congestion.
March 2, 2022
New ‘Induced Demand’ Calculator Shows Exactly How Much Driving Your City’s Highway Expansion Will Encourage
A new calculator shows the real impacts of proposed highway expansions in their communities — and the experts behind the project hope that transportation agencies will someday be required to use it, too.
October 20, 2021
I-5 Authority Pushes to Exempt Widening Project from Mandated Equity and Environment Evaluation, Asserts Widening Freeway Cleans Air
I-5 JPA "Metro's recommendation for a holistic, equity based examination of the project regarding induced demand and greenhouse gas emissions... is an academic debate" not pertinent to this $5B highway project.
March 12, 2021