Engineering brilliance, or possible traffic nightmare?

AiR said:
Screw the intersection, look to the right. Grids, grids and more grids. Must feel like a prison.
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Like most of America really... all these nice square intersections make it too easy.

The original and still the best:

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2 motorways, 2 A-roads, numerous local roads, 2 railway lines, 3 canals and 2 rivers.
 
AiR said:
Screw the intersection, look to the right. Grids, grids and more grids. Must feel like a prison.
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It's San Antonio, so yes, in more ways than one.
 
Whats wrong with San Antonio? They have a huge pair of boots Google tells me :D
Inner city looks nice, but staring down the neverending street would make me depressed.
 
Spectre said:
I always wondered - with the Big Dig, what, exactly, are they going to do when the slight bit of added capacity they built (because they destroyed the old road, remember) gets overrun right about, oh, now?
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You mean, oh, a few months after it opened? Well, they certainly didn't start taking public transport, that's a whole 'nother barrel of half-decomposed fish. From an informal guess based on the number of times I go into Baahston (which is pretty frequently, at least twice a month) - traffic is exactly the same as it was before the Big Dig. Although there's less congestion in the city proper, Route 93 heading into Boston from the South is still a nightmare. If they really wanted to improve traffic flow, they'd tackle the whole damn highway.

Funny how you mention that it's non-union contractors. I'm not even sure Rhode Island has a bidding system anymore, because all of our roadworks get done by the same company. (Yes, they're union.) They're working on some bridge-replacement project right now, and I shudder to think at how much it will cost at the end.
 
Yep, down in Providence they are replacing bridges with more bridges. Bridges going over bridges, bridges off of bridges, RI loves bridges. It's a f-ing mess trying to navigate.
 
That's not logical, that's efficient, a marketer's dream, the most people in an area as is humanly possible, and by the looks of it, in as identical looking houses as possible. U S A! U S A! U S A!
 
NYC is such a prison :p

Also please explain how one image of one part of one city sums up a very large and diverse country.
 
Yall are lucky. I live close to San Francisco. This little thing caused tons of traffic when it opened, and still causes mile long backups.
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The easter section of the Bay Bridge is being replaced, so they diverted the end of the bridge to make room for the new bridge to link up to Yerba Buena Island, while allowing traffic to continue to use the old bridge. The old section is on the left. The new curve is on the right. They had to put in rumble strips going both ways and radar-speed readouts to remind people that curves can't be taken at full throttle. This curve seems to be really hard for most of the locals. It blows my mind.

I hope we don't get a diverging diamond here. People will die.
 
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If it's late at night you could go full throttle by using all the lanes.
 
Crazyjeeper said:
Yes, because logically laid out streets are just so stupid. :rolleyes:
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It's not stupid, it's easy to plan, quick to build. But oh so utterly boring and plain. Nothing that breaks the monotony, endless streets carrying on into the horizon, bordered by the same houses forever. Thanks to Google, I can feel how it would be like there, and I get minor agoraphobia by roaming the streets on my computer screen. Reminds me of british lane housing, identical interlocked brick houses that just go on and on and on. Makes me feel trapped, looking for a way out.
 
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Then just browse through Boston and get lost in it's maze of one way streets.
 
Haha, in fact I had a quick look around at US city planning and Boston was my favourite! Felt homey :)
 
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There is nothing appealing to me about a city without a logical grid system, the boring can be made up for with architecture. Driving in Boston, particularly the areas of Cambridge where I have family, can be a nightmare.
 
Topgearfanatic said:
Then just browse through Boston and get lost in it's maze of one way streets.
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Boston is cursed with the layout of your average old European city. It just sort of...grows in a tangled mess. I quite enjoy driving in Boston, but that's because I enjoy getting lost. (That being said, I always leave an hour earlier than I probably need to when I drive there, because I get lost frequently.) Cities are good for getting lost in, if only to find a good restaurant or an interesting shop purely by chance.

In terms of knowing where you're going, it's a freakin' nightmare.
 
AiR said:
It's not stupid, it's easy to plan, quick to build. But oh so utterly boring and plain. Nothing that breaks the monotony, endless streets carrying on into the horizon, bordered by the same houses forever. Thanks to Google, I can feel how it would be like there, and I get minor agoraphobia by roaming the streets on my computer screen. Reminds me of british lane housing, identical interlocked brick houses that just go on and on and on. Makes me feel trapped, looking for a way out.
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It can be like that in the cities, but out in the suburbs, I'm used to residential areas looking more like this.
 
sonza68 said:
It can be like that in the cities, but out in the suburbs, I'm used to residential areas looking more like this.
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That's an ideal neighborhood, lots of room (even more since it's America and cars there have been huge forever), snaky paths rounded off by a nice roundel so you can turn around without having to do a three-point turn! Nice! Those roundels also reminds me of Tranquility Lane! :thumbsup:
 
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