Bigger roads does cause traffic to get worse
Commuters in metropolitan areas know what it feels like to be in daily bumper to bumper traffic. The author of this article writes about how he remembers growing up in Los Angeles and dreamt up ways of improving the condition by adding more lanes to enable more people to pass. This common idea that many people share is what we went over explicitly in class in that creating more options of travel actually hurt the score of each individual using the system in a way that is still a Nash equilibrium in that any other ‘move’ or lane choice would still take more time and therefore induce a greater cost to the individual. The author also cites a source that analyzes the effect of changing parking prices on the congestion experienced in the city, noting that about 30% of the traffic in the central area of a city is due to people driving around looking for parking. In fact, when introducing a system which assigned a greater cost at the more demanded times, more parking spaces opened up and since the cost went down during less demanded periods, the new system actually saved the motorists money.
This idea that assigning a cost actually causes less overall cost comes directly from our lectures and Braess’s paradox in that in reality constricting a consumer will cause them to make choices overall better for them as well as the other individuals. It’s also exceptional in that it’s not a utilitarian idea where one person is taking all of the cost and the benefits are distributed to the rest of the people. It’s very astounding that essentially herding people causes them to make choices that benefit not only them but everyone as a whole.
Article: http://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/