One passage. One question.

This is one of the six questions a MeritCue student practices today. Reading and Writing counts twice toward National Merit, so this is the section worth training.

Each spring the harbor town closes one downtown bridge, and the morning backup stretches for blocks along the parallel avenue. This year the transit office added bus lanes on that avenue, hoping the lanes would mitigate that crush. The office was frank about the limit. Two other bridges would stay shut until fall, so some delay would remain. A week later the average wait fell from twenty minutes to twelve, which the office treated as progress rather than a cure.

As used in the text, "mitigate" most nearly means

Tap one choice.