Thank you.

How does that work if 88% of Americans currently drive to work?

Here’s the 2005 census data on how Americans get to work:

77.0% Drive Alone
10.7% Carpool
4.7% Mass Transit
3.6% Telecommute
2.5% Walk
0.9% Other Means
0.4% Bike
0.2% Motorcycle
0.1% Taxi

Also: I never said that “failure to adequately build mass transit and bicycle facilities is okay.” What are you talking about?

You really ought to go back and *read* some of the studies on induced demand. That’s one thing that those “egghead professors” have that you don’t — knowledge.

And drop the faux populism.

Bureaucrats often cite “induced demand” as an excuse for not further expanding capacity, which is one reason why population growth has far exceeded capacity expansion.

I have a hypothesis of my own, called “induced congestion.”

When you expand highway capacity at a lower rate than population growth (while providing no acceptable alternative), the only possible outcome is more congestion and misery (unless everyone stops commuting or moves away from the area).

Increases in VMT are largely due to sprawl development and, as you note, population growth. But mostly sprawl. Population growth in NE Ohio, for example, has been relatively static and has even gone down in some spots, but VMT has increased significantly. That’s because we’ve built a transport infrastructure and encouraged a development pattern that makes people drive more. You say that increasing VMT is a reason why we need to increase roadway capacity. Yet, widening highways doesn’t help to reduce VMT. It does the opposite. So, you’ll add another lane, VMT will increase again and you’ll call for yet another lane.

Likewise, high population density doesn’t automatically necessitate more roadway capacity for private automobiles. NYC, the most populous city in North America, would never be able to move millions of daily commuters in and out of its central business district if they were all dependent on transporting themselves via private automobile. A growing population is not a justification for increasing roadway capacity. If we followed your “thinking” to its absurd logical conclusion then we’d pave all of NYC to provide the necessary road capacity and parking to serve its 8 million residents and save them from the traffic congestion they’d generate every time a fraction of them wanted to run out and purchase a quart of milk.

Stick to name-calling and outrage, Judd. Maybe go sit in some traffic and slam your fist into the dashboard a few times. Leave policy and planning to the Eggheads.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand