This article in the online Arts Journal.com hits the nail right smack inthe centre - and its is even more true for Europe.
Of course nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing will ever happen to congestion until transportation planning is linked more closely with land-use planning. This is ancient planning dogma, strenuously resisted by land-use libertarians, but the years have not been kind to the notion that anything-goes growth creates economic value. It can for awhile, but we should be looking at why so many 30-year-old communities are stagnating. The evidence is only more abundant that value-free growth is at best an extremely costly way (in terms of public services like schools, and in terms of the environment, and, yes, road congestion) to make urban America. This doesn’t mean everything must be planned to death; I think there are means to less simplistically expand cities without sacrificing their potential future value. Dealing honestly with the implications of road policy is one of them.