> If housing in the SF Bay area suddenly became more attainable, I wouldn't buy 3 apartments just 'cause. But that's equally true of the highways too. If you w

> If housing in the SF Bay area suddenly became more attainable, I wouldn't buy 3 apartments just 'cause. But that's equally true of the highways too. If you widen a freeway, I'm not going suddenly commute to and from work an extra 3 times each day just 'cause. > when you make driving easier or cheaper, people will do more of it because they can. Not really, not anywhere near the amount people claim. This is a common misconception made by miscounting traffic on freeways past capacity. They mistake failed trips as non-existent ones, and then mistakingly claim "new traffic" was created when failed trips stop failing. It's like saying "if you make hospitals easier or cheaper, people will get more sick because they can". You could even support that false claim, by measuring patients in hospitals. "We had a 100 bed hospital last year, and it was full. We built a second 100 bed hospital this year, and now it's full too. Clearly building hospitals is a bad idea, because it just makes more sick people". This obviously isn't true, people were still sick before, they were miscounted because they weren't in the hospital (it was full). Just like how new freeways don't create new traffic, they serve existing traffic that was miscounted before because it wasn't on the freeway (it was full).