#NarrativeTips: Explaining Induced Demand (or why building more roads is a really bad idea)
We had a chat this morning at work about induced demand in the context of a lot of money being allocated to building or expanding new roads int his budget. The simple equation being More Roads = More Cars = More Carbon Pollution = More Climate Disruption. Yet it is an area, as one of my colleagues put it, where some people in politics, and the public, remains kind of impervious to this reality. Why?
From a framing perspective, we would say there is a lot of power and money behind narratives that make the case for roads and cars. These frames and narratives maintain cultural mindset that transport = roads and cars. Certainly we found this in our research with the public- a kind of gravitational pull towards thinking about cars and roads when the word transport is used. This black hole of thinking is made larger by those who want us to continue to invest in them.
There is also a frame in which cars are positioned as a better and easier transport option, including by people who advocate for electric cars. When what we know is they can be, but only to a point and only for a small segment of the community. For many people, when everything is accounted for, they are pretty crappy way to travel in terms of ease, health, mental health, pollution, safety.
So what can we do? What framing solutions exist?
💡 Scaffold new mental models for transport - show, and tell all the non car ways that many people move around, and the physical structures that support these.
💡Explain induced demand instead of just saying that there will be lots more cars. For example use a short explanatory chain 1)Explain the initial factor- investment in roads, 2) note the the domino effects- more people drive- 3) Explain the outcome- more carbon pollution and more climate disruption 4) explain the solution- investing in public and active transport. Keep the facts short.
💡Use explanatory metaphors - for example you might like to explain that building roads to deal with too many cars in a limited space, is like buying more buckets when your house is flooding, instead of just turning off the tap.
Induced demand is a bit trickier as you want to explain that your solution is actually creating even more of the problem you want to solve - anyone got any thoughts on a good explanatory metaphor for that? Though sometimes metaphors are not as helpful as just a good plain language explanation!
There is more evidence based advice in The Workshop messaging guide on how to talk about opening our streets https://lnkd.in/g3yZ9Akf
