I like your idea, but that’s not what the article says
Needlessly wide roads should be torn up and replaced with boulevards of new housing
Only housing is mentioned.
No, not just housing is mentioned but a boulevard and you cannot overlook that very important word and say the article only mentions “housing” because that is a seriously bad take on this article. By definition a boulevard is wide. It wouldn’t be a boulevard if they made the road narrow by building houses on the road rather than by the side of the road, so while the article doesn’t explicitly say it, by calling it “boulevards of new housing” implies that the thoroughfare does indeed remain wide, and becomes tree lined rather than car-lined.
The Cambridge English Dictionary defines a boulevard as:
“A wide road in a city, usually with trees on each side or along the centre”
(And not only is a “boulevard” mentioned in the article, the article also includes a picture of what a part of Rochdale would look like. The housing is on the side of the road, and some of the car lanes have been converted to pedestrian/cycling space, and trees are added).
