question to the subject

[aromorisy]

Which city do you think is the craziest to drive in?

[nc73]

London. Tiny roads and confusing roundabouts...not to mention the traffic. Driving in America is a breeze even with the traffic.

[momisery]

I have lived in several states, to me the worst is Atlanta GA. They do not have the roads to carry the traffic. And I have lived in CA, AZ, SC,IL, WI, IA, GA, and now MO. But it could be related to the part of town you live in too..

[AngelinaCat]

I can agree with Atlanta. Houston is TAME in comparison, and out there the freeways have themes. When I lived there, I had a different music tape for whichever freeway I needed to take.

[OHBOY]

Which city do you think is the craziest to drive in?

Within the US: Atlanta, GA, especially throughout a rainstorm...much worse than driving in a blizzard 'up north'...ALWAYS breathe a sigh of relief to make it out of THAT madhouse...

Outside of US: Bangkok, Thailand, ...some experience....life certainly has a different value...

[Flamingo]

New York City

[justbroke]

Lyon, France! Or Madrid, Spain!

They drive 60km/h on an 12' wide road, that has parking on both sides!

[TooMuchCredit]

The brilliant thing they did in Atlanta was taking 1 foot off of each existing lane and whatever they had in the median and putting in the HOV lanes. If the roads were straight and flat, it might not have been a big deal, but you get a semi in those lanes and they take up the whole lane. The HOV lane would not be so bad if it had it's own set of left hand exits, but you have to cross 4 to 6 lanes (and in a few places more) to get to your exit. Totally defeats the purpose. And since all that separates them is a double white line, if there is an accident, the HOV lanes backs up too usually. They should have spent more and done it the way they did in VA with 2 lanes separated from the rest of the freeway going one direction in the AM and the opposite in the PM.

They had a good plan on I-75 to the NW of the city - add a rail line, separated HOV lanes AND separated toll lanes for trucks. Was supposed to be 23 lanes I believe (not sure why it was an odd number, maybe the rail only counts as 1?). They've downsized the plans a bit an removed the truck lanes. Big mistake as they should add those to all the freeways. They should almost put a ban on trucks during rush hours.

There were big plans for commuter rail throughout the state connecting to Atlanta, but the governor decided it would be too expensive and opted for express buses - um, if traffic is not moving, the buses won't be very EXPRESS! Good ole Gov. Sonny went to Europe recently and changed his tune on rail, but now with the economy it'll be years before it gets off the ground.

I get to start commuting 37 miles each way M-F starting in January. I am NOT looking forward to it.

[momisery]

For a small town I would say Springfield MO does a horrible job. They do not use their loop detectors very well, and the lights are not in sync. They have a one good road that runs through town from Springfield to Republic that is loaded with traffic. The other one is the James River and it is a freeway that is plugged up too and goes the same direction and that is it. The 413 has a ton of lights not in sync, once you hit the 60 MPH area they have turn offs with no pull outs for the turning traffic. So, you 60, then your stopped for someone trying to turn. The few turn outs they do provide allow for 3 cars, at 60.. honesty??? Recently they spent our tax dollars building a sort of loop thing on the 44. The idea was to speed up traffic and stop side impact wrecks. The side impact stopped simply because their isn't any side traffic that can cross thru now. So they are patting themselves on the back for the decrease in side impact, and not mentioning that the rear ends have increased, and the traffic has changed to the next cross over the 44 because you can't get thru the 13 anymore. They hope to build 2 more, the only place that built those before here was someplace in FRance and they built one and decided it was too costly and did not work well. I hope our tax dollars didn't spend a ton on those blueprints.. lol All in all thought the grid they have here works great sort of the Phoenix has a grid too.... Much better than the cross paths, sideways street layouts in Columbia SC a town of about the same size as Springfield.