Fascinating that this has generated so many answers, from so many different perspectives.
Induced demand is a terrible name for the real issue here. Perhaps the "one more lane fallacy" would be better. The "one more lane fallacy" is not universal, it only applies in cities and other densely populated areas.
Imagine you are sitting in a suburban traffic jam, getting slowly more and more annoyed. It's easy to imagine adding marginally more road capacity would put an end to traffic jam. That thought is the 'one more lane fallacy'. That, admittedly attractive, idea is wrong because adding more capacity leaves the traffic jam exactly the same, with more lanes and more cars in them - because of induced demand.
The kicker is that in a densely populated area, there is often no realistic prospect of adding enough road capacity to end traffic jams, simply because of there is not enough space. I suspect that in most cases, road building achieves political support through the expectation of ending traffic jams. Nearly always, this expectation will not be met. This is the essence of the induced demand problem - it is not as obvious as is sometimes made out.
So, even if you are die hard driver, if you want to reduce traffic jams, you should advocate for other people to use transport methods that are more space efficient than driving. Of course, you might want to live in an area dominated by constantly congested roads, in which case, induced demand isn't a problem.
Induced demand is a terrible name for the real issue here. Perhaps the "one more lane fallacy" would be better. The "one more lane fallacy" is not universal, it only applies in cities and other densely populated areas.
Imagine you are sitting in a suburban traffic jam, getting slowly more and more annoyed. It's easy to imagine adding marginally more road capacity would put an end to traffic jam. That thought is the 'one more lane fallacy'. That, admittedly attractive, idea is wrong because adding more capacity leaves the traffic jam exactly the same, with more lanes and more cars in them - because of induced demand.
The kicker is that in a densely populated area, there is often no realistic prospect of adding enough road capacity to end traffic jams, simply because of there is not enough space. I suspect that in most cases, road building achieves political support through the expectation of ending traffic jams. Nearly always, this expectation will not be met. This is the essence of the induced demand problem - it is not as obvious as is sometimes made out.
So, even if you are die hard driver, if you want to reduce traffic jams, you should advocate for other people to use transport methods that are more space efficient than driving. Of course, you might want to live in an area dominated by constantly congested roads, in which case, induced demand isn't a problem.