For critics of widening projects, the prime example of induced demand is the Katy Freeway in Houston, one of the widest highways in the world with 26 lanes.
Immediately after Katy’s last expansion, in 2008, the project was hailed as a success. But within five years, peak hour travel times on the freeway were longer than before the expansion.
Matt Turner, an economics professor at Brown University and co-author of the 2009 study on congestion, said adding lanes is a fine solution if the goal is to get more cars on the road. But most highway expansion projects, including those in progress in Texas, cite reducing traffic as a primary goal.
“If you keep adding lanes because you want to reduce traffic congestion, you have to be really determined not to learn from history,” Dr. Turner said.
Ideally we’d reduce demand by providing better and faster alternatives to driving. Increasing the price of gas and adding tolls only prices the poor out of using the roads, which is a less than ideal solution, especially if there aren’t any alternatives. At some point people are going to work just so they can afford to go to work.
When I lived outside of Chicago I would take the Metra train into the city. It took about an hour, but driving in traffic could take 2-3 hours (at 4am with no traffic it would take 20 minutes to drive). Everyone person riding the Metra was one less car on the highways leading into and out of the city, and they were all savings hours of time doing so.