If your city is up to capacity on traffic flows what can you do?

If your city street is packed with cars like image (1) you might think that the 'disused' cycle path might be a waste of space. 

But you would be wrong - As figure 2 shows the actual density of a 4 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic is quite low. Figure 3 shows what this look likes as a bus, but for this blog figure 4 looks 'quite' but infact it's the same capcacity ( number of people ) is the traffic jam in figure 1. So which would you prefer to be in ?



(Photo credit: Phil Sheffield, Tampa Tribune )