http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/10/06/does-closing-roads-cut-delays/

The above article talks about cleaning up traffic and helping it speed a long by closing roads. Now you may ask why this would happen, by all means wouldn’t closing a road just make things more congested and slow everything down? Well according to Braess Paradox, the opposite in fact occurs. The theory behind Braess Paradox is that if a new road was opened that looked as though it would make the trip between destinations A and B a little more faster, every one would take it. This would then make the trip longer and cause people to make it harder on themselves than if they had just taken the regular route.

In the above article,  Hyejin Youn and Hawoong Jeong, of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and Michael Gastner, of the Santa Fe Institute, all looked at the congestion of major cities in the world. Through testing they realized that a few streets that had been opened in New York City and others actually inhibited traffic from flowing in a better and more natural manner.