Hacker News: NomNew

Reflections on Vibe Researching

NomNew — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:30:38 +0000

Article URL: https://joshuagans.substack.com/p/reflections-on-vibe-researching

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47683155

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Guns and Butter: The Oldest Trade-Off in Economics Is Back

NomNew — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 02:38:02 +0000

Article URL: https://www.mondayeconomist.com/p/guns-and-butter

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47670112

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

The Mortal Consequences of Free Trade – How NAFTA Shortened Lives

NomNew — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:45:10 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nominalnews.com/p/the-mortal-consequences-of-free-trade-nafta

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47627253

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

With Less Immigration, Urban Growth Slowed in 2025

NomNew — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 23:49:51 +0000

Article URL: https://substack.com/home/post/p-192182908

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47549912

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Federal government employees are not ok

NomNew — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:07:51 +0000

Article URL: https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/federal-employees-are-not-ok

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47531443

Points: 6

# Comments: 1

New comment by NomNew in "Why Expanding Roads Fails to Reduce Traffic Congestion"

NomNew — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 01:37:43 +0000

And also - thanks for the comments and questions!

New comment by NomNew in "Why Expanding Roads Fails to Reduce Traffic Congestion"

NomNew — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 01:37:21 +0000

Ah, I see. The key question the authors look at is what is the impact of adding a lane to VKT - this they found one-for-one growth. They control for many other factors that may have led to the growth over the observed time period (population being the big control).

The broad question is what would reduce congestion - currently, on the margin, adding a lane will not reduce it. I imagine that hypothetically adding many lanes may reduce congestion, although there may be city driven bottlenecks that don't make this feasible at all.

New comment by NomNew in "Why Expanding Roads Fails to Reduce Traffic Congestion"

NomNew — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 22:26:52 +0000

I'm not sure I see the nuance in the two issues you point to. The paper looks at how adding new lanes changed congestion on these roads. The results found no change in congestion, as shown by VKT growing the same amount as the increase in road capacity.

A driver, besides the cost of the car and fuel, faces a time cost. An extra lane will reduce the time-cost, assuming no new vehicles enter the road. But if time costs fall, it's in effect 'cheaper' to drive. So previous car trips that were not happening, because the time-cost was too high, are now occurring. The amount of extra car-trips is such that we are back to the same time-cost as before the road expansion. That's why VKT ends up growing one for one with road expansion.

New comment by NomNew in "Why Expanding Roads Fails to Reduce Traffic Congestion"

NomNew — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 16:16:34 +0000

The study looked at what is the source of extra traffic. In most cases it was individuals living in the area doing more car trips.

Basically, an extra lane temporarily reduces congestion. The main cost of congestion to road users is time. Since now it's faster to travel, you're more likely to do an extra car trip. You continue taking extra car trips, until the cost in time is the same as pre-road expansion.

The question then is are the extra car-trips valuable.