Re:Why Carmaggedon never comes – Seattle edition
by TeMPOraL on Saturday January 19, 2019 @04:10AM
(#18946115)
Equilibrium is traffic jams. What we want is for roads to be underutilized, because 100% utilization is a synonym for gridlock. A saturated solution, in chemical terms.
I like the term "latent demand" more, because "induced" sounds like demand was suddenly created, whereas "latent" implies it's already there, but can't be fulfilled just yet. A saturated solution with more soluble material waiting at the bottom of the flask. If you add a drop of solvent, a little bit of material from the bottom will dissolve - just like if you add another road, you'd only eat into the latent demand.
But the fix to this problem isn't "don't build new roads because induced demand". It's "build even more roads", up until you eat up all that demand, in the same way you could add more and more solvent until you dissolve all the remaining material, and then some more, to keep the solution unsaturated.
I like the term "latent demand" more, because "induced" sounds like demand was suddenly created, whereas "latent" implies it's already there, but can't be fulfilled just yet. A saturated solution with more soluble material waiting at the bottom of the flask. If you add a drop of solvent, a little bit of material from the bottom will dissolve - just like if you add another road, you'd only eat into the latent demand.
But the fix to this problem isn't "don't build new roads because induced demand". It's "build even more roads", up until you eat up all that demand, in the same way you could add more and more solvent until you dissolve all the remaining material, and then some more, to keep the solution unsaturated.