The traffic may reduce, but as with water flowing through a pipe it still needs to go somewhere, so reduce shelbourne to 1 lane each way and watch Cedar Hill and Richmond and Foul Bay increase, not to mention all the money that will be spent on closing side streets.
I dont have a problem with reducing to single lane but there are certain streets that need to remain as arterial roads while others could be considered for bike lanes etc. Why not put bike lanes on Richmond and Cedar Hill Rds? Make cedar Hill 1 way and take the other lane for parking and bikes....just a thought.
This is true to a point. Dissipation throughout the street network would occur, but this would be beneficial so some extent.
More importantly, closing those lanes up would only happen as a trade-off to bike lanes and transit lanes, which have WAY, WAY more capacity (wider pipes) than vehicular lanes.
Therefore, the ultimate goal would be a modal shift, meaning more people cycling, walking, transiting, as those methods become more convenient, efficient, viable, etc.
Wide roads or wider roads will never solve traffic problems.
Traffic is a symptom of insufficient mobility options and poor land use.
Evan(makevictoriabetter dot com)