I agree with your sentiment.
I think it all stems from this strange idea, we should keep traffic flowing.
So, parked cars in the high street slow traffic, lets make it No Parking.
But now Rolebama (and others) find there are things that he got from the shops difficult to carry around as they shop so they look elsewhere, and now the complaint is the traffic is moving but no one stops at the shops.
The shops overheads are fixed, and with fewer sales each ticket price has to carry a higher % of the overheads, even more reason to shop elsewhere.
But we used to buy fresh food = frequent shopping, now because we have to travel further to get it, we buy food in large batches, and pay more in packaging to keep the now stale food looking fresh.
And, because driving down the high street got easier, more drivers use that route, so now we are back with congestion!
What the powers that be don't understand or al least appear not to understand, is congestion is inevitable, in the long run.
If the number of new road users is uncontrolled, any number of new roads, extra lanes, etc. will always fill to congestion.
Congestion is not all bad, I think congestion reduces the opportunity to break the rules, it certainly reduces the need to be able to drive, and the need to make choices, I have not found any stats cut and sliced to prove or disprove the point.
We set off with motorised vehicles as a means of transportation, they were a tool, we could use it or not but now the tool is using us, we almost have no choice.
