The Up Side of Traffic Snarls: Getting People out of Their Cars

I know, I know, school's out, so there is less traffic on the roads, but the rather speedy amelioration in Montreal's center city traffic snarls these last two weeks is remarkable. There are many, many construction road repair projects under way, festivals which shut down streets for a weekend or a week, plus emergency repairs to bridges which haven't been properly maintained. Voices raised were loud and angry.

Yet this morning walking around the Plateau along streets which had gridlock a few weeks ago when construction forced a detour around a heavily-used intersection, I was amazed at how smoothly traffic was moving. Maybe people have turned to other way to get around, which is what Jane Jacobs and her friends noted when they refused to let cars run through the park in Greenwich Village which Robert Moses and the city of New York wanted 60 years ago. There certainly are more bikes on the road, and in the area affected by bridge repairs, additional trains appear to have become popular.

Of course, discouraging cars is exactly what a lot of European cities are doing. The New York Times has a interesting story on this: "Across Europe, Irking Drivers is Public Policy." And as one blogger notes; "If you're in a traffic jam, you are the traffic jam."

Certainly, Monteal may be doing