I was in London recently, and I noticed that there weren't too many vehicles, and even though roads had only one or two lanes per direction, there wasn't any traffic in the city center. I asked some locals why that was, and they said that the tube from the suburbs was fast and frequent, and it was expensive to bring your car into the city. I hope the streets of NY will calm down, and then they can even start closing lanes and turning them into larger sideways, bike lanes, or trees.