Induced Demand

A three-part forensic series introducing the Road Subsidy Multiplier to quantify how every dollar of highway expansion generates more than one dollar in future public obligation — revealing the compound fiscal trap that standard infrastructure cost-benefit analysis is designed not to calculate.

Examines the political economy of highway investment persistence, the cost of retrofitting car-centric design, and the RSM-adjusted comparison between road and transit as competing infrastructure investment strategies.

Documents the empirical relationship between lane-mile additions and vehicle-miles traveled, demonstrates how induced demand is systematically excluded from DOT cost-benefit models, and applies the RSM formula to documented highway expansion cases.

Constructs the deferred maintenance liability embedded in US road infrastructure and introduces the Road Subsidy Multiplier by tracing the gap between gas tax revenues and the true 20-year lifecycle cost of road pavement.