For example, the major highways through SW CT were completed by 1940 & 1960 respectively. The population is about 2x what it was then, and most families now have 2 cars instead of 1, as both spouses work whereas that wasn't as much the norm 90 years ago. So you have 2-3x the demand on essentially the same lane capacity built when my grandmother was my age.
Along with this there's also been practically zero expansion of mass transit in the area.
So damned if you do, damned if you don't in a way. We all just put up with it taking longer to get to/from work, visiting family out of state, etc. One area where our lives truly have gotten worse, and I'm not nostalgia pilled generally speaking.
It's easy to imagine that this growth will continue to fill any capacity thrown at it, but that can't hold true ad infinitum, especially that peak car happened in 2017:
https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter1/the-setting...
The Braess paradox is also mostly dead in the age of real-time traffic information. Anyone taking an Uber can see for themselves the sometimes weird paths they take - all because it's truly faster this way with real-time data.
Cars are more durable and last longer than cars as recently as 2000.
Product cycles have also widened such that a 5yr old car looks closer to the latest models than old&dated.
The suburbs act as a relief valve for city housing costs.
Otherwise we see a continue out-migration from urban coast blue states, to less urban, cheaper red states.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218...
That said, a lot of uses are not limited by that. As least in the US, the vast majority of HVAC for example is limited by the actual desired temperature, not the cost of it. (Some people are cost limited, it not most)
Driving is similar. Build a new freeway that allows new speeds, and people are no longer as time limited on their commute, and can easily double or triple or more their vehicle miles. (In which setting, it's called induced demand).
A 20% efficiency gain in either of these are extremely doable by either insulating homes better, and by building new energy efficient homes inside of existing cities, rather than allowing sprawl. We should ideally permit far more people to live inside cities. Right now we have tight legs maximums on the mount of housing allowed inside of cities, but practical zero limits on building energy inefficient single family detached homes far away from necessary life amenities like grocery stores, jobs, schools, and child care.
A simple political change to remove caps on infill housing and establish limits on new homes far away from others would do far far more than work from home or social networking. People still need food and real human contact, unless you're a single person loving like a hermit.
I do think that a low carbon future demands more imagination from us, a re-envisioning of prosperity, which is already underway. Working from home is one example, as is gaming and electronic social networking.