Single correct option
Summarise the passage in one sentence:
Urban planners have long assumed that wider roads reduce congestion by increasing capacity. Yet study after study documents the opposite pattern: cities that expand road capacity tend to see traffic volumes rise to fill the new space within a few years, a phenomenon researchers call induced demand. The roads are not failing to solve congestion because they are poorly built; they are failing because more road space simply changes how many people choose to drive, at what times, and by what route.
Urban planners have long assumed that wider roads reduce congestion by increasing capacity. Yet study after study documents the opposite pattern: cities that expand road capacity tend to see traffic volumes rise to fill the new space within a few years, a phenomenon researchers call induced demand. The roads are not failing to solve congestion because they are poorly built; they are failing because more road space simply changes how many people choose to drive, at what times, and by what route.
- A. Poorly built roads are the primary cause of urban traffic congestion worldwide.
- B. Expanding road capacity paradoxically fails to relieve congestion because the added space itself changes travel behaviour and induces new demand.
- C. Urban planners have recently abandoned the idea that road capacity affects congestion at all.
- D. Induced demand is a theoretical concept with no empirical support from actual studies.
Show answer and solution
Answer: (B) Expanding road capacity paradoxically fails to relieve congestion because the added space itself changes travel behaviour and induces new demand.
The passage states road expansions fail 'because more road space simply changes how many people choose to drive' — the phenomenon of induced demand — matching B. Option D directly contradicts the passage's claim of repeated empirical documentation ('study after study').
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