alt Hacker NewsIn Seattle, local residential streets are often designated as "stay healthy" streets, where bikes and pedestrians have right-of-way. You can drive a car there, but it will be slow (intersections are narrowed to discourage fast driving). Cars take parallel streets if they're going more than a block or two.
I haven't checked the statistics but it seems to work. There's one near me that's packed with bikes during coomute hours, and I think the cost to the city was negligible.
This is more in the direction of what I'm talking about. I think it's a pretty good model and affirms not contradticts what I'm saying because you do have to sacrifice drivability (unless you can just add streets like this - but I assume not).