‘Creating chaos’ (From York Press)

The intention is to justify congestion charging, note pedalling paul/Paul Hepworth's support for this.

http://www.yorkpress
.co.uk/news/5006469.
Should_we_pay_to_dri
ve_in_York_/

Oh no, confusion reigns again.

There are any number of organisations (called statutory undertakers) who have a legal right to dig up a road. This may be at zero notice in an emergency, or otherwise with appropriate notice to the Highway Authority.
Each year Councils receive thousands of notices from statutory undertakers advising of the intention to dig up roads. Many of these give less than a weeks advance notice.

When large-scale works are planned which involve a road closure, other than an emergency, a few months notice may be required. In these cases the statutory undertakers are required to let local people know in advance. Where traffic disruption is likely, stautory undertakers must display signs alerting motorists at least seven days before the closure.

Local Authorities usually issue licences to eg install temporary lights, and will bill the utility company for any temporary Traffic Regulation Orders that are required.

There's a rail industry equivalent that I've heard of called "Possessions"

Simple fact is this: York's roads are at or over capacity for most of the day. One closure throws everything down the pan.... And the closure doesn't even have to be in York - when the A1 was closed between Bramham and Wetherby a few months back, traffic was diverted along the A64, A1237 and A59, and brought pretty much the entire northern half of the city to a grinding halt.

There is too much traffic for too few main roads. Some projects such as the James Street link road have eased traffic problems in some areas (although having at-grade junctions, with traffic lights, causes other issues)... and if you look carefully at a map you can see there had been plans for an orbital road for the north side of York: starting at Water End and going up Water lane, Kingsway North full length, intercepting Wiggington Road and using what is now part of the Nestle site, with a crossing over the Foss to connect in roughly to Elmfield Avenue. Likewise there had been ideas that Fossway would connect right through to Malton Road so as to link that with Haxby Road (which could have been used to connect with the Kingsway North idea). Sadly these ideas, along with others such as making Gillygate look more like Lord mayors Walk (houses on one side only) so as to align directly with St Lenoards Place, never really made it.
Other problems arise with the general topography of York... mainly the river and the East Coast mainline - there are only a very limited number of places these can be crossed.