Ending the Ceaseless Cycle of Car Dependency

Despite recent examples to the contrary in cities like New York, Copenhagen, and Wolverhampton, UK, "there remains constant misconception about closing streets to cars: chaos and congestion are imminent," says Pedro Madruga. "All those cars will just end up somewhere else. On other streets, in other neighbourhoods."

Madruga reviews the recent literature on the effects on congestion of both eliminating space for automobile and adding lanes for traffic and finds that "1) building more roads doesn't mean alleviating traffic flow but instead could even make congestion worse; 2) closing a street down to cars improves pedestrian and cycling share and the overall number of cars will be reduced, thus less congestion throughout the city."