[MajorLOL]

>If you have a narrow street, less people drive, and thus there is no issue getting an ambulance through.

Huh? If you limit supply, demand goes down?

Your logic would say that the solution to Los Angles traffic problems is to close half the lanes and wait for people to sell off their cars?

[nchammas]

Relevant reading:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_destruction

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_traffic

[hx87]

> Huh? If you limit supply, demand goes down?

It works for cars, since there are acceptable alternatives (biking, walking, carpooling, Uber, etc). It works less well for housing, as leftist NIMBYs often advocate, since one alternative (homelessness) is very unappealing, and the other (living somewhere else) just exports the problem.

[bryanlarsen]

Yes. To decrease demand, you limit supply so that the price goes up. This can work dramatically if you increase price high enough that alternatives are cheaper.

In the case of transportation, price is measured in time and convenience as well as dollars.

[MajorLOL]

So we want to shrink our road infrastructure to drive the cost up in terms of pollution, fuel costs, time and convenience? This way less people will drive. I would propose that you are forgetting that you are going to price transport into the hands of the wealthy and business who will effectively rent-seek to loan cars or taxi people who cant afford a car around.

The idea of shrinking our roadways to discourage use of vehicles is challenging in a practical sense and it just cleaves off another aspect of life for business and the wealthy to enjoy without plebs interfering with the roadways they paid & still pay for.

[st3v3r]

Kinda, yeah. Keep in mind, this is traffic, not selling goods. "Supply and demand" economics doesn't really apply in the same fashion.

If you widen streets and add more lanes, then more people drive, until they've filled up that street's capacity. But they don't really stop driving.