Is Induced Travel a bad thing?
Induced travel can have both positive and negative consequences. Travelers who change their tripmaking behavior to use a new highway facility do so because they perceive some benefit. This benefit may be a reduction in total daily travel time or trip cost, the value associated with a new or different destination activity (e.g., shopping at a location with more variety or lower costs), or the opportunity to make a trip at a more convenient time. Many of these “users benefits” can be quantified, and are used to justify the costs of a particular highway project. On the other hand, each user of a highway facility contributes to increased congestion on the facility. As congestion grows on the new facility, the overall user benefits attributable to potential travel time savings may decline. In addition, increased VMT due to new or longer trips can result in air pollutant emissions and noise above the levels that would occur without the additional vehicle travel. These environmental impacts m
