[AnthonyMouse]

That's not really a difference. Using a road isn't free even when there is no toll; you still have to pay for fuel and vehicle maintenance. It costs less when there is less congestion, like housing costs less when there is more supply, which puts you at a different point on the demand curve because of the lower price or higher convenience.

The fallacy is the assumption that the resulting increase in demand can never be met by any increase in supply. You need more supply to meet the demand at the lower cost than the demand at the current cost; that doesn't imply that the demand at the lower cost is infinite and can never be met.

The real question is, what's the best way to do it? But that's context-specific. If you could satisfy road congestion by building a single new subway line because all the traffic is really going between two points, maybe that's better than adding eight more lanes to the highway, even though that would also work. Whereas if you would only need to add one lane to the highway, but the traffic then branches off in every direction so the alternative would require eight new subway lines, maybe the extra lane is what you want.

[rcpt]

When there's no toll I can drive right onto as many roads as I want and never pay a dime. Sure, my car isn't free, but that's a sunk cost. One could even argue that the more I drive the better deal I get.

Housing? Doesn't matter if it's San Francisco or Iowa, if I want a place to rest for a night I need to pay.

[AnthonyMouse]

> When there's no toll I can drive right onto as many roads as I want and never pay a dime. Sure, my car isn't free, but that's a sunk cost.

Do you somehow have access to free fuel or electricity?

> Housing? Doesn't matter if it's San Francisco or Iowa, if I want a place to rest for a night I need to pay.

You want to ignore the fixed cost of owning a car but not the fixed cost of owning a home?