More lanes are built. More people move in and select their jobs and housing based on being able to drive between them in 30 min. Congestion returns. Red queen r

More lanes are built. More people move in and select their jobs and housing based on being able to drive between them in 30 min. Congestion returns. Red queen race. We're applying a linear solution to an geometric problem. The underlying argument behind induced demand is if you spend $XX million USD on widening a highway from 6 lanes to 8 lanes and now capacity has gone up NNNNN people per hour, that can be a worse investment than spending $XX-YY on million commuter buses going down an HOV lane to get the same NNNNN capacity boost, or maybe spend the same amount but get NNNNN+MMMMM boost. We should optimize for people per hour, not cars per hour. Work from home gets us another step further: instead of moving office workers bodies downtown so they can sit at a desk, why not eliminate the commute entirely?