Working with Braess' Paradox

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/nyregion/25bway.html

Braess' Paradox states that alternate routes may be detrimental to the overall delay in a system. However, New York is testing to see if they can achieve the inverse: does closing some roads improve overall traffic? Closing roads not only redirects traffic into a (hopefully) more optimal position, but it also may induce a change to reduce road traffic into foot traffic, as evident in the article's picture, because people become more inclined to use a closed off road in New York (try walking down a busy one) to get from place to place. What exactly will happen to the overall congestion has yet to be seen, but it is an interesting real world application of our social networks topics.