http://www2.cege.ucl.ac.uk/cts/tsu/publications.asp?StaffID=33

1. 2002 Disappearing traffic: the story so far
Have a look at page 4 for a list of road closure effects.
Some were involuntary, such as bridges falling down.

2. 1998 The summary of the full study:
Traffic impact of highway capacity reductions: assessment of the evidence

Another cute example of closure *improving* traffic is Times Square. Broadway knots up the entire traffic pattern in Manhattan; closing it at all the intersections with north-south streets speeds traffic up. And people like it, too!

http://district5diary.blogspot.com/2009/05/octavia-blvd-disaster-is-finally-being.html

Albuquerque, NM has recently established a very successful train service between the town of Belen, NM to Albuquerque, to Santa Fe. The plan/ hope is to continue this train service south from Belen to Las Cruces, NM and then on to El Paso, Texas, thereby reducing the traffic on Interstate 10 (the hiway between Las Cruces and El Paso). The last step for train service will be extending the train north from Santa Fe to Denver. A great plan - train travel from El Paso, Texas all the way to Denver, Colorado, backed by the governor of NM and the public.

Unfortunately, that same governor (*not* the public) has also approved *$5 million* for a *study* to widen Interstate 10 (parallel to where the train racks would be), the main hiway between Las Cuces,NM and El Paso, Texas.

C’est la vie.

One block has already been converted from the wide pedestrian walkway to a little two-way road lined with three-foot high lights. The metal awnings were long ago removed, as were the trees that lined either side of the walkway. Those original trees - which would have been very large by now - were relocated to a park, replaced by new trees that are beginning to provide shade now.

Altho very attractive, it seems rather counterproductive to the nation-wide push to get cities to plant trees to absorb CO2 and, by the shade that trees provide, to help in the reduction of energy needed for air conditioning, to encourage people to walk by reducing roads for motor vehicles, to encourage vehicle-free, open spaces in the centre of the city (as has recently been done in the middle of New York City) so people can gather and relax in a traffic-free environment.

I appreciate this article and the comments by other readers and I’m sending this website to my city council in hopes that they might reconsider their current plan, but I fear it won’t help; many local citizens and market merchants have contested this plan - sadly, to no avail.

The key to understanding transportation dynamics in North American cities is to recognize the location: North America. The car is king.

VERY important is to notice a key phrase in the original article: 1) tear down badly designed freeways; 2) provide the alternative. Without public transportation, a thorough redesign of pedestrian and bicycle routes, any freeway tear-down may face failure, and create a worse world than otherwise.

Where the car is king, we have built spaces that are so spread out that it is very difficult to provide the alternative. Some of the new subdivisions are ugly and impossible to walk around. Pedestrian amenities and bike paths are pasted on after the fact, with the basic geography set by the automobile. So people who drive think that everything is fine; everyone else is left literally on the side of the road. Any city that experienced growth after the Second World War is left with these landscapes. Folks who drive see an economically advanced society as having recently paved roads, lots of businesses that are accessible to the auto, lots of shiny cars in paved sales lots.

Folks who do not drive, who live in the centre of cities and get around on their feet or on two wheels prefer a tighter community with small shops, more concentrated development, more eyes per acre for public safety, police on foot, on the beat. Per acre a pedestrian economy is MUCH more complex, much richer, much more capable of facing an economic downturn than acres of big box blandness. Freeways do not serve the centre of the cities; they serve the folks who live in the suburbs. For these folks, tearing down a freeway seems to be the very opposite of economic growth, even if the positive benefits are legion, the economic studies show positive growth, and folks who live in the centre are happier.

Vancouver, BC has horrendous traffic; much of the “blame” for this is the fact that citizen groups blocked the development of large, centre of city freeways in the 1970’s. It now has one of the most beautiful, walkable downtowns, but getting to the sprawling suburbs and into downtown from the sprawl is shear hell. The rapid transit system is barely capable of handling the traffic it gets, very underdeveloped for a city that size (2 million in Greater Vancouver). The tight core’s business is dependent on the surrounding sprawl…

BUT… Where the rapid transit stations have been built in Vancouver and area, there is a corresponding development of much denser housing. So build it, and they WILL come. Don’t build the alternative, and they certainly won’t…

Another thing: development that is based on the automobile does not allow alternatives: too spread out for comfortable pedestrian use, too dangerous for bicycle use, and way too spread out to make transit economically feasible without large subsidies…

Subsidies? Data from the 1990’s tells of a $7000.00 US per year subsidy for each car driver, for the cost of roads, accidents and uninsured drivers. (What is it now?) This does NOT include the cost of cleaning up the air pollution caused, or the cost of dealing with the pollution caused by crushing and “recycling” old cars. I personally would like to see my 7K used for rail, engineered bicycle lanes (bank them curves and let me fly!), pedestrian and future development, which may include radical ideas like tethered lighter than air craft (whaaaatever - let’s use our inventive little brains to, well, invent…), wind powered superlight vehicles, skateboards with wings, something that will allow our economy to grow, rather than stagnate with a bankrupt auto/freeway/big box model…

Cheers.

I also want to give a shout-out to the town planners of Breezewood, PA. They refused to allow a junction for the PA turnpike, so if you’re getting on the pike, you have to leave the highway and drive through the city. It’s a bizarre place, made up entirely of chain restaurants, motels and gas stations, but it is definitely recession proof!