Toronto

It does highlight how the entire argument around 'fixing congestion' needs to be re-framed. If the goal is just to ensure that cars can drive quickly through the city then the only way to guarantee that is to reduce the number of people who want to move around the city by tanking the economy and ensuring nobody wants to live or work here anymore.

If the argument is re-framed to 'improve the quality of life for people moving around the city' then suddenly options that move more people in a more pleasant manner become more palatable, even if that improvement comes at the expense of personal vehicles moving slowly. IMO nearly every lane with a streetcar track should forbid personal vehicles, and more of our overly wide roads in the outer suburbs should convert a lane in each direction to a dedicated transit lane, but as long as the focus is on improving car speeds and reducing car trip times these options are dead in the water because they'll make 'congestion' worse.

I wonder if it's some anchoring effect technique. Suggest taking a hot dump on the economy and suddenly bike lanes don't sound so bad to a lot of people by comparison.