Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Network Roundup

What If We Supplied Hamburgers the Same Way We Supply Roads?

The concept of "induced demand" for road space essentially means that new, or widened, highways will entice more drivers onto the roads, negating any congestion-reducing benefits of the new road.

false

But induced demand doesn't just apply to roads. Broadly speaking, it's an economic concept that goes something like this: If something is free, or low cost, people will consume more of it.

Here's an analogy, courtesy of a commenter at Greater Greater Washington, that gets to the heart of the matter:

Let's give everyone free McDonald's hamburgers. Let's put 10,000 hamburgers a day on a table in front of the Capitol (or wherever).

What would happen? People would take and eat the hamburgers, and once word got out, all 10,000 hamburgers would be taken very quickly every day. We may thus infer that because people need food and they really seemed to like those burgers, McDonald's hamburgers are an important public good.

A city planner might notice a problem: those 10,000 hamburgers just aren't enough. They get taken very early in the morning, so not everybody has a chance to get a hamburger. The obvious solution—because burgers are a highly-valued public good—is to provide more free burgers. So the city planner starts to provide 20,000 hamburgers a day.

You can see where this is going. People start going out of their way to get the free hamburgers, and planning their day around that trip. The city has to keep providing more and more free burgers—eventually millions a day—to keep satisfying the demand for free hamburgers.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Kaid Benfield at the Natural Resources Defense Council's Switchboard blog says advocates for sustainable cities should be careful not to parrot buzzwords like "vibrant" so often they become meaningless. Walkable Dallas Fort Worth attempts to quantify the economic value that bustling sidewalks bring to a city. And Strong Towns wonders whether we're seeing a fundamental shift in the way people view and value car parking facilities.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Talking Headways Podcast: The Architecture of Urbanity

Vishaan Chakrabarti on goldilocks density, defining urbanity, the ennui of young architects and much, much more.

October 10, 2024

Thursday’s Headlines Are Nonbiased

Human cops disproportionately stop Black drivers, while automated cameras don't show the same bias, according to one recent study.

October 10, 2024

Bike-Friendly Campuses Can Inspire the Rest of Car-Centric America

A first-ever national summit will explore what makes a college or university bike friendly, and how higher ed can help create a better transportation culture in cities, too.

October 10, 2024

L.A. City Council Committees Approve Road Widening Reforms

The city Bureau of Engineering proposal should minimize road widening at future private developments, but there are several widening situations it does not address, including BOE's own road widening projects.

October 10, 2024

A Father Speaks: Here’s Why The Speed Limit Must Be 20 MPH Everywhere

At an event on Wednesday, no one was more eloquent than the spotlight-avoiding father of the boy for whom Sammy's Law is named.

October 9, 2024
See all posts