Adding more road capacity is like buying larger pants to lose weight.
Traffic congestion tends to maintain an equilibrium. As traffic volume and conjestion increases, delays discourage additional peak period trips. If road capacity increases, peak period trips also increase until congestion again limits further traffic growth. It’s called the Law of Induced Demand. Therefore, congestion is actually a good thing in that it limits travel during peak periods and encourages people to travel during off-peak times or use alternative modes of transportation. More or expanded roads in Jackson Hole would make our situation much worse and continue to degrade the ecosystem while diminishing the natural and scenic values that the Comprehensive Plan promises to maintain.
Compiled here are several references to help people understand how more roads or more road capacity actually increases traffic congestion.
City Lab: More Roads Mean More Traffic
Victoria Policy Institute: Generated Traffic and Induced Travel
Brookings Institute: Why Traffic is Getting Worse
Wired: Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse
CityMetric: Does Building More Roads Create More Traffic?
NPR: More Roads Pave Way to More Traffic
Transport Policy Institute: The Principles of Induced Demand
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.