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Are we going to magically assume the traffic just vanished?
People and goods still need to be moved from one part of the city to another, as well as from other parts of the country and even internationally. Way too many of these "fuck cars" people naively think you can just wave a magic wand and make the transport of goods and people just disappear. Something would need to be done to solve that. Was an underground highway built? Alien teleportation? A fleet of magic carpets were made available that run on unicorn farts that allow people to get around?
Eh, you don't need a highway through the heart of the city for that.
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A lot of cities in Europe are actively discouraging people from taking the car to get to the city center. Either by requiring a permit to enter, making it very convoluted to get to your destination by implementing one-way streets and having a few big roads made to take on traffic, outright banning older cars with bad emission, or a combination of the above.
This is typically balanced with park & rides outside the city center, from where you can easily take public transport into the city.
Suppliers are still allowed in and are able to do so because less cars are driving there.
The city I live in has recently implemented such measures. Lots of people were complaining beforehand. But after a few years, there's not less people making it inside the city, no massive congestion, better air quality,...
Edit: not saying this is necessarily the case here. From other comments, it does seem they moved traffic underground. But my reply is still valid to your comment.
You can see in the top picture(1990) that there are very few cargo trucks. It looks like mostly consumer traffic. The most likely altenative is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Düsseldorf_Stadtbahn massive public transport system they've built since 1988.
Are we going to magically assume the traffic just vanished?
It's an underground highway. Out of sight, out of mind. I imagine they probably also improved the overall road design, like Seattle, Denver, and Boston have done (or are doing) with their projects to bury highways below-grade.
It's called land-use planning. It can be done well or poorly! There is no contradiction here, a city can invest in beautiful, walkable recreational space without compromising the ability for industry and commercial entities to operate in that city.
Some cities have issues today because of a lack of long term planning. Or financial needs/constraints. But many are simply dealing with the slow march of time, and how decisions that made sense 20, 50, or 100 years ago don't make as much sense today.
For example: it should be obvious that greenhouse gas emissions are a larger concern now than they were 100 years ago. Individuals can't realistically act on environmental concerns if the place they live doesn't facilitate their action.
They built a tunnel for the traffic which is a pretty typical strategy for these kinds of projects.
Which is basically what I said at the bottom of my post. But first off tunnels don't work everywhere, are incredibly costly, and local roads would still be needed to let buildings downtown have access.
You should start !suckcardickstheytastegreat or something
Or maybe the number bus and tram lines increased, and the train systems expanded. "One person, one car" is a mentality we should all be saying "fuck that" to.