When a city is facing increased traffic and it wants to relieve congestion, it can choose from a number of possible solutions. These options generally fall into two categories: (1) improvements to the road infrastructure; or (2) changes to affect driver behavior.
Improvements to the road infrastructure are relatively straightforward: either build additional lanes on existing roads or build new roads. Changes to impact driver behavior are a bit more complex. The city could build HOV lanes, hoping to reduce the number of cars on the roads (a popular strategy that isn’t really as effective as it’s promoted to be). Or it could build out more public transit systems, and encourage residents to use them rather than their cars (another popular strategy which doesn’t really work as well as its proponents claim).
There is another option as well: do nothing, and as the road infrastructure reaches a breaking point, people will simply move away from the city, thereby reducing congestion. This strategy brings about some other less satisfactory consequences, of course.
I’m not writing an article about handling a city’s traffic congestion, however. I’m writing about Bitcoin and its congestion issue.
