This week and next are school holiday.
* On Monday, I literally cruised to work. Streets were not far from being emptied of the usual traffic jams that I have to filter through every single day on my bike
* 2 days later (Wednesday) and I cannot really make the difference with a normal Wednesday […]
"Expanding the road network is not the answer to alleviating congestion, as evidence shows that expanding road capacity actually induces growth in traffic volumes."
#InducedTraffic
#GalwayCityRingRoad
www.connachttribune.ie/news/traffic...
"The R332 links the N17 Tuam bypass with the N84 at Kilmaine in Co. Mayo.
Traffic on the route has more than tripled since the Tuam bypass opened, rising from about 860 vehicles a day in 2017 to roughly 2,800 in 2018."
That's a 226% increase.
#InducedTraffic
www.con-telegraph.ie/2026/02/04/c...
“The phenomenon is known as induced demand. The result is an endless cycle in which congestion leads to highway expansion, which invites more trips, which brings back traffic…The pattern is so inevitable that economists have dubbed it the iron law of congestion.” #InducedTraffic
I oppose this extension of Prince of Wales through ecologically sensitive land. It's a huge spend for some convenience and we can't afford it. Quit promoting #CarCulture. #InducedTraffic #FundTransit #yqrcc
In a sense, this is not news.
TII has occasionally acknowledged the fact of #InducedTraffic.
However, when it comes to choosing demand management over road expansion, they have said that such measures are in the political arena.
TII are quite happy to keep building roads, regardless of outcomes.
Does any @news.rte.ie reporter ever challenge Government ministers and officials in State agencies regarding their grandiose claims about road construction and transport?
Do they ever go back and check the news archives and departmental reports?
Do they ever read the research on #InducedTraffic?
The Age story: ‘Trojan horse for sprawl’: The giant freeway set to redefine Melbourne. The 100-kilometre outer ring road is not high on the public’s radar, but the government has spent millions securing its path, and internal documents reveal it was urged to finish the first stage by 2031. https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/350m-spent-buying-land-a-call-for-urgency-but-no-sign-of-melbourne-s-mega-road-20250703-p5mc7w.html (Paywall)
#Melbourne already has more motorways than many cities of its size. The massively expensive $26b North East Link is known as "the missing link" ... it sounds kinda final, but just as that one gets built, there's always another one being planned 🙁 #InducedTraffic
Image downloaded from Google Earth showing the massive amount of land area used solely for the storage of cars. Some of the largest parking areas serve major retail centres, clustered around the ring ring road which was opened in 1987. Planned as a bypass of the city, the ring road was instead used to enable construction of numerous large traffic generators, such as surface car parks, tax-incentivised multi-storey car parks, retail parks, business parks, car-dependent suburban sprawl on the west side of the river and car-dependent industrial development on the eastern edge of the city.
Archive photo (perhaps a decade old) showing a zoomed-in view of one area of the city, the harbour, with large parking lots. Some is surface parking. At least two are multi-level car parks.
As is nearly always the case, @news.rte.ie didn't come back five years later to do a news item on #InducedTraffic. One is unlikely to find in their archives any report or analysis about the massive growth in traffic-generating car magnets that followed in the wake of RR 1. That's not their style.
As shared by @brenttoderian.bsky.social via X:
“It means you spend a lot of money now for a very short-term benefit"
“I guess for $300 billion dollars we were hoping for something a little more dramatic”
#JevonsParadox isn’t a death metal band. It’s #inducedTraffic
Search for ABCTV show “Utopia”
"I drove to Galway on Good Friday to spend the Easter break at home. Along the way I prayed that traffic wouldn’t be too bad, hoping I might be over the bridge before I got caught.
Wishful thinking."
Wishful thinking indeed.
Be careful what you pray for.
#InducedTraffic #ClimateEmergency
@independentgalway.bsky.social Is there any hope at all that our print and broadcast media will proactively examine the phenomenon of #InducedTraffic?
Or are editors and journalists only interested in new road construction projects and ribbon-cutting razzamatazz?
2014: Cork City suburbs "swamped" with #InducedTraffic caused by "flyovers" constructed in previous years.
Solution: more roads.
"The N40 Southern Ring Road Demand Management Study prompted renewed calls for the release of funding for a western access road."
www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20...
TII is administratively, institutionally and culturally incapable of terminating its addiction to road construction as the "solution" to traffic congestion.
They know full well that the phenomenon of #InducedTraffic exists, but they are 100% incapable of changing direction.
bsky.app/profile/cosa...
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.“ (and a lot of money)
Attention cities & states — remember this as you reconsider EVERY single massively expensive freeway and road widening project you’ve been working on for years, but very likely need to cancel in light of the #CimateEmergency, and the fact that they don’t actually work. #inducedTraffic #ClimateCrisis
Populist FF & FG politicians in Galway have been demanding a second ring road for decades.
The proposed #N6GCRR is projected to increase CO2 emissions by 49% versus the Do Nothing option *regardless of whether EV targets are met*.
Why? Because of higher vehicle km travelled due to #InducedTraffic.
Via @linpoonsays.bsky.social on CityLab @bloomberg.com
"Conservative lawmakers have long blamed bikeways for #Toronto’s traffic tie-ups [...] and many suburbanites who commute by car have argued that adding a driving lane would relieve gridlock."
#ONpoli #bikeTO #TOpoli #bill212 #inducedtraffic
Good news from Switserland: the Swiss people understand what #InducedDemand is !
Lewis Mumford explained us in 1955 that
"Adding highway lanes to deal with traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity."
#JevonsParadox #InducedTraffic
www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-po...
What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders?
Highway expansion makes traffic worse and increases greenhouse gas pollution. And reallocating road space to create bus lanes can speed up car traffic. #InducedTraffic #TrafficEvaporation
Most cities and regions didn't lock in GHG reductions in transport sector by painting in bus lanes, and creating bike and roll lanes and pedestrian areas. Opportunities for easy #trafficevaporation squandered. Highway expansion continues. Predictable, and predicted, results. #inducedtraffic
Video from YouTube Channel Build the Lanes on #induceddemand / #inducedtraffic
youtu.be/x0zZfMgQ94I
#urbanism #onemorelane
From CTV News : #Ottawa councillor fires back at province over bike lane restrictions
People in the vox pop thinking that more car lanes = less traffic 🫠
@bikeottawa.bsky.social
#bikeott #inducedtraffic #onpoli
Via CBC News: #Ontario tables bill to give it veto power over bike lanes
youtu.be/Vyt9_ny0dZY
#onpoli #bikeTO #inducedtraffic
"Even after the Nazis’ defeat, their ideas about car supremacy lived on." www.the-berliner.com/politics/roa... #Berlin #climateaction #climate #inducedtraffic #A100Stoppen
CJV member @ericdoherty.bsky.social asks a simple question in today's Province Letters: "Why spend billions to make traffic congestion worse, and make it more likely that more towns like Jasper will burn?" theprovince.com/opinion/lett... #bcpoli #InducedTraffic
