What science is being ignored? Traffic expanding to fill capacity is not a bad thing, that is efficient use of capacity?
This causes all kinds of problems, has all kinds of causes, and is generally a disaster all around, but at the very least we shouldn't deliberately make it worse by also artificially juicing demand in one of the main fossil-fuel-burning sectors of the economy (any more than we already are). Every petroleum-powered mile not traveled (and energy is to a certain extent fungible, so in principle this also applies to electric cars burning "free" solar energy) is a win for human civilization.
This isn't hippy-dippy environmentalism, just soulless Chicago economics: mispriced commodities do real damage to a political economy, and in the globalized era, there is effectively only one political economy anymore.