Yes, creating congestion on purpose, along with dangerous physical obstacles, makes people "calm." And even more calming is the delay it introduces to emergenc

Yes, creating congestion on purpose, along with dangerous physical obstacles, makes people "calm." And even more calming is the delay it introduces to emergency responses. Because when your dad's having a heart attack, I want the the paramedics to drive languidly up a lane and over picturesque mounds of asphalt and around "bump-outs" and wait for an immobilized column of traffic that can't pull out of the way because a lane has been deleted and replaced by a concrete berm or a field of plastic bollards. Ah, a paradise of virtue!