Traffic Calming . . . By Drowning Traffic In The Bathtub Or Shanking Traffic With A Rusty Shiv

If you want to create a pedestrian mall, then by all means, create a pedestrian mall — people should drive less and walk more — Yay! Woohoo! — you just made Gary Numan cry again! But if you do create a pedestrian mall, please, please, please don’t call it a “traffic congestion reducing measure,” because closing streets cannot possibly reduce congestion — no matter how much you want to repeat the lie:

The city plans to close several blocks of Broadway to vehicle traffic through Times Square and Herald Square, an experiment that would turn swaths of the Great White Way into pedestrian malls and continue Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s effort to reduce traffic congestion in Midtown.