Less cars but no less traffic

The state of Washington has been known for its pro-environment views and laws, so it was interesting to see what actions the city of Seattle has taken to support their environmental goals.
Examples include:

• The One Less Car Challenge, in which people give up the use of one car for a month. The city not only provides information on alternative transportation methods, but free use of Flexcars when necessary.

• Reduce minimum parking spaces for certain areas.

• Connect all bike trails within the city.

• Increase the number of bike racks on public transportation vehicles as well as provide more free racks to the public.

• Development of “Green streets” and giving pedestrian traffic priority when developing land use.

[Update:]

Autoblog reader (and former Seattle resident and now SoCal jetsetter) jamie provided the following additional tidbits (and commentary) about Seattle:

• All the traffic lights are set for 29 mph.
  

• Bus lanes and free bus fare. (It's really a pain to sit in rush hour traffic, so the city fathers opened bus lanes so that bus patrons could "fly" by the disgruntled masses in traffic jams. Result: many new bus patrons. Another thing they are trying is "free fare" bussing, supported by a penny tax at the pump. Needless to say, something for nothing is quite a hit about town!)
  

• Express lanes. (It sure would be nice to commute from,  say, Orange County to L.A., without a bunch  of on-and off-ramps slowing down traffic. In Seattle, Interstate 5 has express lanes (2 lanes each direction) down the center divider with only ONE exit per city. That would work soooo well on Orange County and L.A. freeways.)