Worst City Planning

[MidwestSimGeek 0]

Minneapolis-St. Paul used to have some really bad spots, particularly with getting from the south suburbs into the city proper. US 169 through Bloomington, for instance, was finally upgraded to limited-access from expressway. Prior to the upgrade, 169 was freeway for several miles south of the Minnesota River, did a crossing (the only one for several miles in either direction), and then dumped everybody right into a bank of stoplights! I suppose the delay on this one had much more to do with financing, land acquisition, and environmental-impact studies than with poor planning... but it was still a pain in the posterior.

Troubles we still have include the I-35 / MN 62 commons that someone mentioned on the Lame Highways thread, where the otherwise north/south 35 tees in to share an east-west route for all of about a mile... and the fact that MSP doesn't preserve its "old" Minnesota River crossings as alternate routes. For those unfamiliar with the area, this river is a huge obstacle. It runs just south of the second-ring suburbs, east-west across the entire metro. Yet the only crossings are major freeways which are multiple miles apart, with the old crossings that they replaced put into complete disuse. (No more Lyndale Avenue crossing after I-35W was built, no more Cedar Avenue crossing after MN 77, no more Vernon Avenue crossing into Savage after the Bloomington Ferry Bridge was built... and then when the new 169 freeway went up, they closed THAT, too!) Since our suburban sprawl is out to a good four or five rings to the south, this leads to a huge bottleneck as everyone in Apple Valley and Lakeville tries to cross one of the three bridges in a 15-mile stretch to get to Bloomington and Minneapolis.

It would be really nifty if there were some surface-street bridges for major routes that roughly align on both sides of the river -- I've always dreamed of a Nicollet Avenue bridge into Burnsville, and hooking up Normandale Boulevard with Scott County 27 in Savage. This would not only directly cut traffic on the freeway bridges, but would also have a secondary decongesting effect (as local north-south traffic wouldn't have to clog up the east-west routes by doubling back to get to the freeway bridges.) However, the expense would be huge... and there are environmental concerns with building across the vast marshy expanses that line the Minnesota River... so I don't imagine it will happen anytime soon. It's back to Simworld for me, where I can change these pipe dreams into digital realities.

EDIT: I forgot my hometown... don't get me started on good old Prior Lake.  We're that fifth ring of suburbia, and consequently are just starting to get huge growth.  Prior Lake is bisected by MN 13 (2-lane 55 mph south of town; 2-lane 45 mph through town; and 4-lane 55 mph north of town) and Scott County 21 (which comes in straight west from I-35 as 4-lane 55 mph, cuts through Prior Lake, and then curves around to head north.)  21 will soon be extended to dump directly into US 169, so people coming from the far south metro will be very likely to use it as a 35 to 169 link to go to office towers in the heavily developed west metro "edge cities."  This is all well and good... until you see what happens in downtown Prior Lake proper.  21 (still at a decent 50 mph) continues through a stoplight with 13... right into a four-way stop with the main downtown surface street ONLY 300 FEET after the stoplight!  Any fix here is going to be bitter medicine indeed.  Leaving it as-is will be a traffic disaster after they expand 21.  Making the stop a two-way would bisect the heart of downtown, sabotaging active efforts to preserve what little traditional on-street downtown culture still remains in Prior Lake.  Rerouting 13 would be impossible, as everything is built up... unless you put it on Franklin Trail, which WAS the 13 route a long time ago but is now a 30 mph local street lined with homes (a wide one, but a residential street nevertheless.)  Angry residents will make that impossible (and it wouldn't do much to help the downtown, either, since it's far enough away you wouldn't see it from that route.)  Doing some kind of overpass would result in huge land-acquisition costs and assessments, which would probably also destroy our little downtown (not to mention, in our age of high regulation, we'll never again see the little "shoehorned" urban interchanges that make life a little easier in many of our nation's older cities.)  To the north, things are too built-up to reroute 21, but you could send it further south before starting its northwestward curve... e.g. bring it in south of Prior Lake and then run it north on an expanded Scott County 17, which eventually hits 169...  but then people IN Prior Lake would complain about losing access to it (not to mention the multiple governmental agencies and huge expense that would be involved.)  In short, we are completely hosed.

[screamingman12 30]

(Fredericksburg is now considered a commuting suburb which is a 40 mile ride on I-95 alone just to get to the beltway)quote>

Yup, I live there, and to put it mildly, I-95 in rush-hour is hell. There have also been editorials in many of the newspapers I read about how inadiquate the VRE (Virginia Railway Express) is, and the common consensus is that it's not Amtrak's fault or VRE's fault, it's CSX's fault, the company that owns the railroad line from Fredericksburg to DC. However, no one seems to realise that if you use it more, it'll get better, BTW, has anyone noticed that cities with adiquate mass transit systems seem to suffer less from traffic congestion,(With exception of Toronto). I didn't see anyone mention Portland, Organ, for Example.

[nanumea 0]

The E-39 between Kristiansand and Grimstad really suffers from bad planning. Ever since the first roads were laid,it has been a two-lane road, and even as traffic has increased, only minor upgrades have been made. Finally, they decided to upgrade the stretch (30-40 km I believe) and upgrade all of it to a four-lane motorway.

The funny thing is that just seven years ago, the E-39 in Kristiansand were "upgraded" from a standard two-lane road to a mix of two and four lanes. It starts with the road from the airport, the onramp makes the E-39 four-lane, an offramp 500-700 m later makes it a two-lane, and an onramp 700-1000 m later makes it a four-lane road through downtown (to all of you who advocates motorway through downtown: it is pobably the biggest mistake ever made here).

As the E-39 is being upgraded, the city have not yet decided what to do with the road to the airport, even tough it has just as many cars per day (about 8000 a day), so it is still a crappy road from the fifties barely enough for all the cars and trailers.

I'll be leaving next year for studies - hopefully I will be able to walk home from the airport in a couple of years.

There is a CJ recreating Kristiansand; though not perfect, it was this CJ that made me make the move to the more aesthetic aspects of SC4, and not looking on my cities only through my "economy glasses" (however, they are needed now as I'm making my Socialist Republic - even Das Kapital is on my desk now).

[Socorocks 7]

::sigh:: this forum got really boring really fast. here we were, intellectually debating and exchanging thoughts, and now we're back to griping about freeways. Good day

[Tarkus 6,932]

Originally posted by: Socorocks ::sigh:: this forum got really boring really fast. here we were, intellectually debating and exchanging thoughts, and now we're back to griping about freeways. Good dayquote>

Agreed . . . freeways are important, but not the whole picture . . .

Regarding your challenge to describe my ultimate ULD community . . .  my personal idea of planning is what I call "New Suburbanism".  I think that the idea that New Urbanists have come up with regarding use mixture is actually a pretty good one . . .

Ultimately, I think that office space, commercial (office and service) and residential ought not to be spaced out as much as in traditional suburbanism, such that the offices are 10 miles away from the residential areas . . . it needs to be closer than that (.5 to 2 miles) in many situations.  I am in favor of strip malls as well, but not in these massive formations that go on for miles. 

Basically, the New Suburbanism I support involves neighborhoods that cluster residential and commercial uses into a relatively small space, but in much lower density, such that people aren't stacked on one another.  The goal is that it is possible in many situations to walk/bike to one's work, but should the residents choose to drive, the road system will be usable because the densities are low enough that it won't be clogged.  Roads would be built to adequate widths before development, in a primarily hierarchical system with some grids mixed in. It would accomplish some of the goals that New Urbanists want, but it would be "disguised" in a suburban package that could be acceptable to the masses.  Basically, while it strives for some of the same goals, it also strives for decentralization as opposed to centralization.  I think that it would ultimately work even better if perhaps alternative sources of energy were used to power the vehicles, and the vehicles that people drove were more efficient (i.e. no stretch Hummer limos). 

Regarding the Portland situation, the problem is not the developers.  The problem is Metro, a regional governmental body that handles land-use planning for the tri-county area of Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties.  Metro has a lot of control over where developments and zoning goes, particularly in unincorporated areas.  And they've failed miserably, in my opinion.  They've appropriated New Urbanism for their goals of turning Portland into LA, which many of the higher-ups seem to think is a good model.  Several of these administrators also want to create traffic congestion, because they believe it actually increases "livability".  I'm not just talking about creating traffic congestion in residential areas, either . . . some supposedly want to "narrow" some major thoroughfares.

The light rail line, from what I know about it on the west side, it basically follows an old freight rail line that they bought--it was basically a cheap way out.  And it follows a really random path, and almost completely avoids the Tanasbourne and Bethany areas, which really could have used additional transit.  Metro and the county have allowed those areas to become overbuilt since the mid-1990s, tripling their population density without improving infrastructure.  In a few situations, they did actually build some new infrastructure, but it's so poorly built, it actually makes things worse. 

There's this one intersection in a primarily commercial area at Tanasbourne in which the two roads are eight lanes and six lanes, respectively, which is controlled by a massive traffic signal.  It would have worked fine, but then on the six lane road, they put another signalized intersection 300 feet away by a Target store, and they didn't time the lights right, so, as a result, traffic backs up so much on the six lane road that it often completely blocks the eight lane road.  Recently, in that area, they've basically thrown in a whole bunch of high-density, New Urbanist-style developments, but there's very little transit in the area (the light rail line is 2-3 miles south), so it entirely defeats the purpose.  It's just a huge mess--it's "smart planning" used stupidly.

There are a few areas where they actually did achieve some success, but they've recently begun overbuilding them, throwing that success out the window.

Sorry for the long-winded post . . . I just have a tendency to be "detailed" . . .

-Tarkus

[SamJam 9]

Originally posted by: Tarkus Basically, the New Suburbanism I support involves neighborhoods that cluster residential and commercial uses into a relatively small space, but in much lower density, such that people aren't stacked on one another.  The goal is that it is possible in many situations to walk/bike to one's work, but should the residents choose to drive, the road system will be usable because the densities are low enough that it won't be clogged.quote>

That's a point I've made many times in the past--mixed zoning in smaller areas. Trouble is that if the density is too low, it triggers urban sprawl. Cities make a lot of money from building/zone permits, so they won't make a case for style with the developers. I've had the pleasure of talking with some city officials in my hometown of Oshawa, ON, who have said that there is very little-to-no interest in building small plazas... and money talks. Metropolitan Oshawa has a population of about 280 000, and an annual growth rate of 10.2%--so the subdivisions are growing like weeds. In the newest areas small plazas do not exist, only "big box" outdoor malls. Traffic is horrible at main intersections and there is nothing council can do to control the development other than to avoid it altogether.

Roads would be built to adequate widths before development, in a primarily hierarchical system with some grids mixed in.quote>

That's not generally how road construction works. It's not cost-effective to build a wide road before knowing how much traffic will use it. The only roads which are widened first are the ones which already existed there (country roads, or concessions where I'm from) and there is an anticipation of traffic being added to existing traffic. Otherwise, narrow collector roads in newly developed areas are built with bigger boulevards in case future widening becomes necessary. Even though developers are responsible for the construction of new roadways, those roads are downloaded to the city upon completion and I don't know of any city that would be willing to pay for the upkeep of a large, under-used road.

...some supposedly want to "narrow" some major thoroughfares.quote>

I've seen this before. It may not be an issue of creating traffic congestion, but rather an attempt to push vehicles onto alternative routes. In older areas where streets are more or less running in straight lines, alternatives can be found which won't affect travel time. This is especially effective when the narrowed road is in a mainly residential area and nothing is gained by the heavy traffic (unlike commercial areas, which can thrive from it). Other roads wouldn't suffer much from the increased traffic because it would be thinly spread out along various routes.

The light rail line, from what I know about it on the west side, it basically follows an old freight rail line that they bought--it was basically a cheap way out.  And it follows a really random path, and almost completely avoids the Tanasbourne and Bethany areas, which really could have used additional transit.quote>

It may have been a cheap way out, but sometimes plans like that work. As I said recently, the Yonge subway line in Toronto was put in place during a time of low or even non-existant population, and the areas grew up around the stations. I Google-mapped a pic of some areas: http://www.speedyshare.com/199887822.html ...and within these "hubs" people both live and work, and traffic is quite acceptable. The upper-most hub, Yonge and Eglinton, has crossroads of merely four lanes each, and parking in the curb lane for each. The only real traffic that uses the roads is through-traffic. Although the two areas in Portland you mentioned may have been overlooked for transit, perhaps the new (and cheap!) rail line will encourage growth along it and draw some traffic (cars or otherwise) away from the other two heavily developed areas.

There's this one intersection in a primarily commercial area at Tanasbourne in which the two roads are eight lanes and six lanes, respectively, which is controlled by a massive traffic signal.  It would have worked fine, but then on the six lane road, they put another signalized intersection 300 feet away by a Target store, and they didn't time the lights right, so, as a result, traffic backs up so much on the six lane road that it often completely blocks the eight lane road.  Recently, in that area, they've basically thrown in a whole bunch of high-density, New Urbanist-style developments, but there's very little transit in the area (the light rail line is 2-3 miles south), so it entirely defeats the purpose.  It's just a huge mess--it's "smart planning" used stupidly.quote>

OK, that's dirty. Doesn't sound like "smart planning" went into that at all, but I'm sure you'd be able to see dollar signs in the eyes of the council members that approved it all. I find it hard to believe that any city planner would ever see road widening, even those sizes, as the one traffic solution. Brutal.

Sorry for the long-winded post... I just have a tendency to be "detailed"quote>

Don't apologize. Big posts are the most fun to read, and the most worthy of generating a response... like I just did! Whoo-hoooo!

[sc4portugal 10]

Everwhere in Portugal exept for Downtown Lisbon

[p4p3rc1ip 2]

Manchester, UK. Now, I know it's a great city and generally well built, but there's one thing which makes me laugh...

They had to stop building the sliproad [offramp] that you can see in the bottom right because at last minute they figured it would end facing the wrong way on a one way street!

[zachos-prague 0]

to p4p3rc1ip: Yeah... that's funny thing

[MadTV_Freak 0]

I have to agree with people on the DC things, we have really bad traffic, and, unfortunately, I have to deal with it everyday. One particularly route in DC that is a nightmare is the Southeast Freeway (I-395), this was originally supposed to be I-95, but then plans were canceled and unfortunately, people are now using this as a shortcut when going from Maryland to Virginia or vice versa. With the DC area being 2.5 million, you can imagine thats not good. Also, the Southeast Freeway has multiple exit ramps, and sometimes, one side of the highway can become very confusing for one driver, as you can see in this pic.

The other bad thing about the Southeast Frwy is that it ends on Pennsylvania Avenue, a 6-lane avenue, so you can imagine the headaches that creates

[DOXXP29 5]

MTVF, you must've taken that picture on a Sunday when traffic was light! : ) At rush hour, the traffic is backed up into Virginia. This is one of the major clusterfreax. Even worse than Pennsylvania Ave is the other end where it ends at New Your Avenue, a ONE WAY three lane road riddled with traffic lights. Something like 5 lights between the exit and North Capitol Street. (3 blocks!) I look at the maps from the '60's with the proposed highway system that never happened and weep! (www.dcroads.com still has the original plans if you want to take a walk down memory lane)

[Sir Gawain 1]

Originally posted by: packerfan386 The Beltline (U.S. 12, 14, 18) in Madison,WI is getting really bad, one can not even get from one exit to the next in under 10 minutes, during rush hour. Also Northport drive and Packers Avenue, in Madison,  are some of the worst in the state I've seen during rush hour(outside of Milwaukee). And don't even get me started on Clairemont Avenue (U.S. 12) in Eau Claire,  Wisconsin.quote>

I drove up to Eau Claire on the weekend of the 3rd. Clairemont wasn't THAT bad, although it wasn't great for a town of only around 60k. I am comparing this to Chicago traffic however.

Chicago is surprisingly rather well planned when it comes to traffic. I am not saying it is perfect, but for the most part, traffic seems to flow ok.

[MadTV_Freak 0]

Originally posted by: DOXXP29 MTVF, you must've taken that picture on a Sunday when traffic was light! : ) At rush hour, the traffic is backed up into Virginia. This is one of the major clusterfreax. Even worse than Pennsylvania Ave is the other end where it ends at New Your Avenue, a ONE WAY three lane road riddled with traffic lights. Something like 5 lights between the exit and North Capitol Street. (3 blocks!) I look at the maps from the '60's with the proposed highway system that never happened and weep! (www.dcroads.com still has the original plans if you want to take a walk down memory lane)quote>

 

The link didnt work for me, however, I have seen some old plans for DC highways before.  I remember in one particular pic, there were plans for an Outer Beltway, this would have been for people who were traveling on I-95, and they wouldn't mix with local traffic.  Well, obviously, thats not the case today. I-495 is overwhelmed with local traffic, travelers, and truck drivers. Im just waiting for the Wilson Bridge project to be finished. With me being around Fort Washington & Oxon Hill, I travel into DC by using I-295 (Anacostia Freeway), so this might ease some congestion.

[Goldfish4209 9]

Little Rock's burbs are growing like mad along cantrell/highway 10, a 4 lane road. At one point, there used to be 2 traffic lights in a row, which was really bad. Now there are 3, just because of some @$%# shopping center that got built. As you can imagine, traffic gets really backed up:

Every day I have to drive through that. On the other side, everything flows pretty quickly. They seriously need to build a bridge over that.

EDIT: The pic's out of date.

[UltraGIR XL 3]

I'd say Detroit-- it's designed well, but operating far from it. The city itself is very well planned, even with its lack of mass transit (As the Motor City, all roads is to be expected.) The city does have a very small, ineffective monorail, though.

We used to owe good traffic flow to the "Michigan left" in our avenues, where we can make left turns unto the lane going the opposite way, our mile-road-system, ring-like suburbs and numerous highways.

Michigan, however, has destroyed its own road system. Our economy is in the hole right now, so the state's deploying thousands of construction projects. Detroit's under constant construction, rendering everything useless: there's only ONE way north and south and ONE way east and west. The suburbs suffer the most, I'd say. The bus system conencteing the satellite cities and downtown is poor, at best. It's poor city planning on the part that it has no mass or rapid transit to depend on in case of road problems.

[DOXXP29 5]

MTVF, try www.roadstothefuture.com. You live in Ft.Wash/Oxon Hill? I live on the border off of Kerby Hill.

[SamJam 9]

Originally posted by: UltraGIR XL ...well planned, even with its lack of mass transit (As the Motor City, all roads is to be expected.)quote>

Yeah, when the city is based on the automobile you can bet they want as many of them to be used as possible.

Mind you, I like Detroit's road & freeway setup--the roads are on a grid and the freeways don't use the typical "ring" pattern that so many U.S. cities have. I've only been there once, and that was passing through (using highway 75 via Windsor, as I recall) and the only slowdown I remember was due to an accident. Coming back home, we used local roads (thanks to my "insane" idea to see some of the city) including Michigan Avenue, which was darn near empty. Traffic was never an issue for me, but that was just one day.

[SC4Noobie 5]

Originally posted by: Tarkus

Originally posted by: Socorocks ::sigh:: this forum got really boring really fast. here we were, intellectually debating and exchanging thoughts, and now we're back to griping about freeways. Good dayquote>

Agreed . . . freeways are important, but not the whole picture . . .

Regarding your challenge to describe my ultimate ULD community . . .  my personal idea of planning is what I call "New Suburbanism".  I think that the idea that New Urbanists have come up with regarding use mixture is actually a pretty good one . . .

Ultimately, I think that office space, commercial (office and service) and residential ought not to be spaced out as much as in traditional suburbanism, such that the offices are 10 miles away from the residential areas . . . it needs to be closer than that (.5 to 2 miles) in many situations.  I am in favor of strip malls as well, but not in these massive formations that go on for miles. 

Basically, the New Suburbanism I support involves neighborhoods that cluster residential and commercial uses into a relatively small space, but in much lower density, such that people aren't stacked on one another.  The goal is that it is possible in many situations to walk/bike to one's work, but should the residents choose to drive, the road system will be usable because the densities are low enough that it won't be clogged.  Roads would be built to adequate widths before development, in a primarily hierarchical system with some grids mixed in. It would accomplish some of the goals that New Urbanists want, but it would be "disguised" in a suburban package that could be acceptable to the masses.  Basically, while it strives for some of the same goals, it also strives for decentralization as opposed to centralization.  I think that it would ultimately work even better if perhaps alternative sources of energy were used to power the vehicles, and the vehicles that people drove were more efficient (i.e. no stretch Hummer limos). 

-Tarkus

quote>

Tarkus, theres a few problems with your "dream" community. The com/res mix would need to be controlled far to carefully, and this would lead to development problems. Stores don't want to be near areas with little traffic (car and ped) and offices need to be in accesible areas. Also, if you want America to walk or bike or use an electric scooter or whatever, the distances gotta be very close. My school is 1 mile away from me, but I dont walk or bike, because I have a saxophone, and a bag packed to the exploding pt, and I bought most of my textbooks so I wont have to take em home and back to school. If I didn't, I would have to carry 4 + books extra. I imagine people walking or biking to an office would need at least a laptop bag, and some misc stuff, like an iPod, or a few files. Close distances in dense situations encourage walking much more. I personally don't know someone who wouldn't walk 4 or 5 blocks to work. Also in dense situations allows more accesible MT, of all kinds, except kinds that cannot be elevated (besides busses) Some light rail wouldn't work, but elevated light rail would. MT is a massively important part of new urbanism. ULD would be too spread out to use MT profitably, or even just to cover the costs. A don't want a bus to go 2 miles before the first stop.

Another HUGE problem is land useage. New Urbanism aims to use land more effectively. Your plan is counterproductive. A plan like your's would reduce car useage (hopefully) but it would use even more land to house the same amount of people. How about low density new urbanism? Take a look at it in Adventures in new urbainsim by Louisville in the CJ's section, and also Eureka! - Planning for the future. It shows you don't need highrises to make new urbanism. We need to get denser to reduce problems, not visa versa. I hope you found this useful.

-SC4noobie (mocking! lol)

[KingSimCity 3]

All those cities are nothing compared to laredo, texas. The city planners all have a change to change the road bigger instead they just wait ontill the whole road is fill with traffic. The worst planning in the city is the downtown area. When its the hoildays the traffic is a nightmare like LA on the freeways.

[ledge69 0]

LA gets my vote, I remember as I flew into the place and just could'nt believe how it sprawled on and on with no sence of thought.

In the UK there are reasons for some bad planning it just can't be helped however some towns have been ruined by the measures brought into improve them. Telford, I never saw the town as it seems justa series of A roads and retail parks everywhere we drove.

[Archangel9 28]

Wow, this has gotten fairly intense.... Well, I am surprised no one has mentioned...

NEW ORLEANS

I dont beleive it is the "Worst City Planning", but it's bad. I mean, the levees weren't built to withstand the pressure that was needed, not to mention the fact that they were in desperate need of repair or replacement. For a city that is built below water level, there should have been more plans for what happened with Katrina...evacuating the city took way too long, not to mention the fact that many were stranded because they couldnt get out (old, disabled, tourists, pets even)

Had the hurricane shifted just slightly, and the eye gone over the lake, it would have been cataclysmic for the city. And the thousands stranded there.

Then again, if that hurricane had hit any city, it probably would have ended in equal disaster. I mean, it would take weeks, if not months, to fully evacuate a city such as LA, New York, Mexico City, Tokyo, etc, where the populations are in the tens of millions.

Other than that, Im not sure what else i can say about New Orleans, as I have not got enough knowledge of the city prior to Katrina, like traffic, or if civic buildings are close enough to residential areas, blah blah etc (all that urban planning jazz) but in the aspect of disaster prevention, New Orleans was very awfully planned (to sum up, evac/levees)

Id also say Thunder Bay, Ontario is poorly planned. Until the 70s it was 2 port cities, Fort William and Port Arthur, and they merged to form Thunder Bay. There are streets that are named:

John Street (a major street in the city)

John Street Road (Just off John Street)

Red River Road

River Road

Syndicate Ave, which turns into

Simpson St. which turns into

Ft William Road which turns into

Water Street

This is all one continuous road, a major road in the city....the street name just changes like 8 times .llol

Another one is May street, which turns into

Memorial Ave,then

Algoma Street S[outh] then

Algoma Street N[orth]

Then there are streets such as Brodie Street, that are Brodie Street S (of course, just "Brodie Street" Is labelled on the street sign) that end at a building (in this case, the Victoriaville mall) then resume at the other end of the building as Brodie Street N....terribly annoying

Then theres the closing of the hospitals, and the building of one big "Superhospital" project....basically solving no problems...theres still the same amount of beds and doctors, just, in one building (and theres a shortage of doctors in this region)

there is also the unemployment and homelessness, which is occurring from the closing of Aboriginal reserves near Thunder Bay, so many aboriginals have begun to move into thunder bay, and the major mills are closing, losing many jobs

The hospital thing? They are doing that with thepublic high school system too....closing community HS's and building a super HS...so many students are being transferred to Catholic schools by parents who want their children in the community schools

Bahhh i could keep ranting about Thunder Bay i hate it here so much im from Eastern Ontario, cant move back there though because..well...lol lets just not go into my personal life anyhoo sorry for the massive post....

BAD PLANNED CITIES!!! THUNDER BAY

[LivingInThePast 364]

Well, I think having a light rail on an old freight line is a generally good idea. But then, for the inside city, you should add subways, convert road ROWs to GLR, and the other freight line ROW to a new road. Funny how things work out.

[hamsterTK 93]

Well, I think having a light rail on an old freight line is a generally good idea.quote>

I think it depends on whether the old freight corridor is a feasible location for LRT. In some cases they will choose a old freight line to save money but its awkward location impacts its usability.

But other times it works out fine.

[LivingInThePast 364]

Specifically, I'm referring to Dallas. In Dallas, they tore up the Plano RR, yet near the old Dallas High School, it has a lane of traffic running on each side with the GLR in the middle.

[Wilfried Webber 22]

Suburbs can be pretty annoying.

I'm currently living in an older type of European suburb (in Szczecin, Poland) which was begun around 90 years ago and mostly extended in the 1930s (the city was German until 1945) and then later from the 1970s on again until now.

The suburb is situated in the south-west of the city and surrounded by avenues (dual carriageways) on the east and north. This should be enough, actually.

It has a rather classic street network structure (mostly like a grid, though not exactly, I call this therefore "semi-gridded") and a rather low population density.

Most houses are single-family homes, with some being two-family or row houses. However, a small part of it is medium-density with six-storey housing blocks.

There is also a light industrial (actually, I wouldn't even call it industrial - it's rather dirty commercial services ) area on the inside of the suburb (!) and a huge shopping mall on the other side of the northern avenue (This is, however, NOT the reason for the traffic problems I'm going to describe!).

We've got some small shop or office here and there in almost every street. This might be uncommon in the US and many other suburbs in the world but in Poland there is almost no suburb where you couldn't walk for shopping (So being forced to drive to a mall in order to buy the most basic things is also NOT the reason for traffic problems, as this problem doesn't really exist over here.).

And nevertheless, you get stuck in traffic when trying to leave this suburb during the morning rush hour because any connection to the outside (i.e.the surrounding avenues) has a far to low capacity. One lane is just not enough.

Oh yes... You might think there's no mass transit... Of course, there is! There are four bus lines and one tram line, and they're pretty busy, too!

THE REAL POINT IS that there's exactly ONE intersection which everyone, both drivers and mass transit users, have to get through. There is no way round this intersection. They are now converting it to a roundabout which will surely make things better. However, the actual problem [of being forced to get through it] will remain untouched.

Now, THAT'S what I call a bad planning. They had so much time to find a solution to this problem, or to build an additional road so there would be at least a second way out of the suburb. They didn't.

The missing road becomes even more obvious if you know that once you got out of the suburb, there is almost no congestion. I almost never have to wait long at stoplights or roundabouts on my 6.9 km (4.3 miles) long way downtown...

[Ron Swanson 1]

I must say that where I live, Billings, MT, one of the fastest growing areas in the Northwest minus Boise ID. Its about 101,000 and 182,000 metro. Anywhere in Montana, cars are it. Montana has a very large landmass and it is nearly impossible to get anywhere without a car. In my city, pedestrians are an afterthought. Although a city wide bike path is going to be built over the next 10 years, which will be nice, but it will be more for recreation than commuting to work.

I-90 runs around the city, not through, although the old highway does run into downtown which is nice. Traffic is starting to become a problem, especially on the west end. A two-laned called Shiloh runs from Highway 87 to I-90. It is heavily used not only by commuters, but also by huge trucks moving freight and construction trucks as well. The plan is build 11 (yes 11) freaking roundabouts on the road, where there is only one roundabout in about a 15 mile radius. I think the ol' traffic light would be just fine. The idea is that traffic will continue to move without stopping, but I think in the long run this is a poor idea.

1300 new housing projects are going up in the next 20 years and a new highschool and mall are to built off this road. The suburb development is booming right now and the city is quickly growing west into the neighboring town of Laurel. Highway modifications plus the completion of 32nd to Zimmerman now connetcs highway 87 to I-90 as well. The city is headed in the right direction with a new baseball stadium project just passing and a large resort starting construction this spring. Downtown was once nice, but fell to crap, but is now being revamped and new businesses are taking over old run down buildings and making them nice again. New commercial development off the new innerchange is extremely well planned with landscaping being the concern. Creeks, trees, bike paths, parks, wide parking and streets have all been built and are a great way to go, as opposed to the mass of Wal-Mart and Best Buy's crammed to each other just a couple miles away. Overall, this city has extreme potential, but if they don't plan better, this city could be in real trouble real soon.

To see more on it. Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billings%2C_Montana

[ben_1986 0]

From a traffic point of view: I would say Paris is the worst city. I've driven around Paris a couple of metimes (A1 -> A86 -> A10 to Bordeaux/Clermond Ferrand) and it always took s at least 4 hours to do it (one time it took us actually 2 hours to do 10 kilometers).

Off course London is pretty bad either (around Heatrow), although they have at least a proper ringroad.

[RushHourFreak 1]

I would say that S

[Tarkus 6,932]

Well, I figured I'd probably get back to responding to this thread.  Some people have posted some interesting comments I'd like to consider.

Particularly, I'd like to respond to SC4Noobie's comments.  One question I'd like to look at is the idea of urban sprawl.  A lot of New Urbanists seem to think it's the devil.  Yes, low-density suburbia may take up more room, but the fact of the matter is, people aren't sardines.  I look at some of the residential buildings people posted from Hong Kong, etc., and I wonder how anyone can live in such cramped quarters. 

And yes, low-density suburbia may cause traffic problems and pollution.  But that's only if the roads are poorly laid out.  Theoretically, if you have less people living in an area, you should have less traffic and less pollution.  Also, if we ever break our dependence on oil and moved to an alternative source of energy for motor vehicles that pollutes less (ethanol, hydrogen, etc.), that will also offset many of the supposed "inadequacies" of low density.

A lot of the New Urbanist communities around here basically try to knock off NYC--they build all these faux-Brownstones (mainly, three stories).  Honestly, I'm not particularly keen on that architectural style myself, so that's probably part of my aversion right there.

And the fact of the matter is, if you're carrying a bunch of stuff, mass transit isn't really that suitable of an option.  Nor is walking or biking for that matter.  A car is the best option.  The fact of the matter is, people in low-density communities can carpool.  Cars also allow more independence of movement, independence of time, independence of thought.  (I'm even still saying this even after dealing with car problems all of this morning . . .)

As far as mass transit and the distance between stops, I think a lot of the problems with mass transit ridership is that mass transit tends to be slow, and that is usually because of the number of stops.  I've actually beaten a Tri-Met bus walking over about 10 blocks in downtown Portland.  (Admittedly, I tend to walk fast.)  Going with my theory about lower population density creating lower traffic density, logically, it would be possible to have much higher speeds because the roads would not be clogged.  In an "ideal" New Urbanist development with people walking all over the place, the speed limits would generally have to be quite low so you didn't run over the pedestrians.  And if people don't use mass transit when it is available, the mass transit becomes a nuisance to other vehicular traffic. 

As far as those two CJs you suggested, I do think they are quite interesting to read and well put together.  But I do really think that one's preconceived notions about things do tend to affect how they play SC4, and how things end up working.  People who don't like low density tend make inefficient low density cities, and people who don't like high density and mass transit tend to build inefficient high density cities with inefficient mass transit systems.  (I actually use very little, if any mass transit in SC4, by the way, and my largest city ever has a population of 115,000.)

The fact of the matter is, there's a certain threshold at which increased density becomes overkill.  Look at chemistry and physics for instance.  You can't "breathe" water (like one would air) because it is liquid.  But, if you decrease the pressure on the water enough, it can, in fact, become a gas (even at room temperature) and thus, becomes breathable.  If you build a community to dense, its residents will "drown" (or become encased in ice if you really overdo it).  This is probably an extremely corny analogy, but I hope it gets my point across. 

Some of this probably sounds like a load of malarky (some of it probably is, I'm a bit tired--the Edit Post button may come into play later).  But, of course, this truth is a matter of opinion.  Feel free to disagree.

-Tarkus

[hamsterTK 93]

As for Hong Kong, ive never been there, but from what I understand, while the older poor stuff might be pretty packed, the modern middle class high rises like bixel is batting are supposed to be really nice. Someone who's from there Id like to hear their take on that.

As for outwalking the trimet, I can ride my bike in the same time it takes me to drive to work. Its nothing special actually when your driving in town over shorter distances.

Anyways, whatever you think, some people like different lifestyles and its a capitalist country and if local planners want to do something that promotes economic development then whats wrong with that?