[takno]

The approach in the UK is increasingly to regard the gridlock as an educational opportunity, whereby drivers learn to leave their cars at home and take public transport. combined with decent public transport investment, heavy road calming on non-main roads and progressive removal of parking spaces in town centres it's really having a very positive impact for everybody except the people who bizarrely still choose to sit in the gridlock.

[omginternets]

Fair enough, but that tells you that the solution is not "just provide public transportation". That was my point and, I suspect, the original commenter's point as well.

[serge2k]

This type of attitude is part of what drives people to take residential streets.

[takno]

while this clearly does happen, urban residential streets in the UK are usually much narrower and invariably reduced to a single lane by parked cars. They are also less often in a grid pattern which supports rat-runs, and most problem rat-runs have been identified and either blocked or traffic-calmed to death 20 years ago.