> When it comes to roads, why is increasing capacity to resolve the capacity problem always automatically dismissed?
There's a large body of evidence [0][1] indicating that adding road capacity does not alleviate congestion. In the short run, one tends to see immediate rises in traffic on the new infrastructure. Over a longer period, the amount of traffic utilizing new infrastructure increases until all added capacity is being consumed. This is known as induced demand [2].
Congestion pricing [3] is a more economically viable manner of reducing congestion on shared infrastructure, but it comes with its own set of concerns [4].
There's a large body of evidence [0][1] indicating that adding road capacity does not alleviate congestion. In the short run, one tends to see immediate rises in traffic on the new infrastructure. Over a longer period, the amount of traffic utilizing new infrastructure increases until all added capacity is being consumed. This is known as induced demand [2].
Congestion pricing [3] is a more economically viable manner of reducing congestion on shared infrastructure, but it comes with its own set of concerns [4].
[0] https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/11/californias-d...
[1] https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/nyregion/congestion-prici...