Therefore, removing lanes does not make it worse? The title doesn't pass a simple smell test. This analysis looks to try to describe no reduction in overall transit time, not what the title says.

The demand fills capacity is not a good rule of thumb either, from an economist's perspective. Shame on you. Many multi-lane highways are rather empty, why? Many roads are basically never used, why?

Lanes (transit corridors) are a river of money (funnels). When you have populations that are exchanging goods, jevon's paradox fills lanes to increase capital velocity that scales beyond the average value of infrastructure. Infrastructure cost is balanced against a perceived value, which is always skewed toward the larger (poorer) part of the population.

In this case, it's not a paradox at all that capital self-generates demand for this space. This also explains why some corridors are emptied as capital flees a locale.