Worst City Planning

[TekindusT 3,809]

@Cobraroll: These two Norwegian cities are interesting examples, could we see some pics of this situation?

[saltandsauce 0]

slums or shanty towns don't count because they weren't planned, this is the worst planned cities

any mediaeval town or things inspired by/built in the 60s qualifies in my books

[biloxisean 0]

I know Mississippi is the poorest state in the USA, but Biloxi/Gulfport where I live has some of the worst planning I have ever seen in a city. Not enough major roads, the grid system in Gulfport is a nightmare, and I think it is the only state the the 2nd largest metro is not connected to the largest metro with an interstate. All roads leading north all end at US49, which causes major gridlock at rush hour. It was worse when US49 was the only road to evacuate during Hurricane Katrina.

[gabe1337ness 0]

Ottawa, Ontario. Canada

for those who live there know what I'm talking about.

[ThomasSimpson 466]

In Surrey, England, we don't have a massive number of motorways, besides the M3 through Guildford and the M25 on the border with London. There's a lot of traffic on smaller A-roads. Near where I live there's a crossroads that gets traffic jams everyday, long queues and it's not in the heart of the town either.

Because London is such an old city, one of the first industrial cities in the modern world, there's a lot of higgledy-piggledy planning and design.

[ilikehotdogsalot 308]

Thomaskrules: I've always wondered, what is an A-road and a B-road?

[Cobraroll 138]

Originally posted by: TekindusT

@Cobraroll: These two Norwegian cities are interesting examples, could we see some pics of this situation?quote>

You're welcome. This is Sandvika:

And here is Drammen:

http://www.videoarkivet.no/pro/Admin/innhold/skjermbilde320/02_1008.jpg

Google Earth should also give you an idea of the situation. Both cities are located at the western coast of the Oslo fjord (or use the search function).

[iowndiscti 141]

i would say that the city with the worst city planning is Detroit, simply because they did everything backwards here. firstly the freeways and highways are adequate enough to support the population, but they have not been repaved or upgraded in the past 50-60 years. this leaves pot holes the size of elephants in the middle of a 3 lane 75 mph road [ not a good ideal unless you wanna see some die]. secondly they zoned Detroit incorrectly, the ratio for residential way outnumbers the amount of jobs that we provided via commercial and industrial. they is very little commercial in Detroit. in fact, the only shopping mall actually within city limits is Eastland [ which is like 20 miles for anyone living on the west side] and the CBD is way to small for this city. Thirdly, they planned way too many major roads, in Detroit, Michigan its a major road one every 16 blocks give or take, which is way to many for a population of only 800,000 people

my second nomination is Los Angeles because , they don't have rail [ subway or elevated] mass transit, they can have it cause of the earthquakes. so this leaves a city of 4,000,000 people completely reliant on cars.

[Road55 0]

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>

The intersection near my house is BAD. It is near Madison. There have been two deaths there last year. Horibly planned intersection.

[saltandsauce 0]

city of Glasgow, everything built since 1948

HUGE public housing projects (we call them schemes) with no jobs, shops and schools etc. were built 10 years after the housing was built. the Drumchapel estate is enormous.

the city used to have overcrowded areas like the Gorbals which were inhabited by the Irish immigrants. there were plenty of jobs available in factories, steelworks and shipyards nearby (manual labour, badly paid along with high crime (stabbings) and decrepit housing. this was demolished for an industrial estate and the residents were moved to new towns on the outskirts of town where you had to get your groceries from a VAN.

i'd say post war Glasgow wins hands down for bad planning for mass unemployment, replacing old decrepit housing with new decrepit housing and the slicing of the city by the M8 motorway through the city (the only city with such a thing in Britain)

[bhiggins 20]

Well two cities that i think have VERY poor urban planning along with poor control over the futures of light rail and the controlling of suburban sprawl and section 8 housing are definitely Atlanta Georgia and Cincinnati in my opinion. Try driving through Atlanta Georgia's I - 75 through downtown, just try, I will laugh when you get stuck in traffic for an hour in many times the same exact spot. All those Southerners care about is ''Ohhh, lets have a freeway with 20 lanes on each side, that'll make the area so much more attractive and easier to go through...!" No no no, just stop. Atlanta Georgia's plans to widen the 75 corridor have almost all failed, along with their single - laned HOV lanes, very poor planning on their part. Almost never looked into light rail, that would be a better thing to put in the middle of a freeway rather than unused, neglected, crashes on Northside Dr due to poor maintaining eyesores. Having a light rail system going from Northside to Southside would make traffic much calmer. Although admittingly... Atlanta has some pretty sexy combined buses (Buses that look like two are connected together) and actually a decent bus service... Now, Cincinnati is just a fail. 75 runs through basically the main part of the city and goes out into the suburbs eventually, basically like almost any other cities interstates. Now I may be the only one noting that the section of 75 from the Ohio River to 275 is only three lanes on each side... And that there is a traffic backup that can go on for 10 exits even on a Sunday. Yes, its about time, they plan to widen it to 5 lanes on each side, good job. But, that still doesn't make up for the major problems that come with every widening project for ANYWHERE. I don't care which city it is, but take Atlanta, having one 20 lane interstate going through basically the main parts of the city and having normal 3-6 laned ones on the outskirts... Hmm... Which one should i drive on, 20 laned because it will be better right...? No, people are much more attracted to a wider interstate more than a less widened one due to the thought that maybe it will even be able to get them where they need to go with no delay... No, Cincinnati and Atlanta are great examples of that example, compared to the main interstate being 75 in both cities, the other interstates (excluding I-85) are far less used compared to it. And is it just me to notice this, but doesn't having I-75 run through a city make it a traffic nightmare, just seems like it, could be wrong, except i get stuck in traffic just about at any point on that unmaintaned piece. What we really need to do before randomly widening an interstate is look into the benefits of light rail, that could maybe cut traffic down by im saying at least 5%, which is great if you think about it. But yeah, when i become a civil engineer and i work in your city, the same mistake will never happen, i promise you

[Alex_Bervoets 91]

In the Belgian city of Gent we have a one way street with a dead end... Don't go in there by car

The person who came up with that idea knew something of bad cityplanning!

[TowerDude 2,186]

LA is a mess! evrything goes through a central spine! it should be even

[kricsmark 0]

Well you see, I live in Budapest (Hungary), and dare I say, the last time this city was planned at all was around 1900. The parts of the city from those times are grand. Large avenues, going circular and straight to downtown, good looking buildings from a better age, palaces, streets going in a perfect grid.

That was i the early 1900s. But since then, cars appeared, but the streets didn't get any wider, so the downtown is now riddled with barely any parking space and confusing one-way streets that make every normal individual rage after the third turn. And of course, the buildings were beautiful at the beginning of the century, but after WWII, socialism kicked in, and their priorities weren't exactly maintaining the high-class downtown. So now an entire district of downtown is practically a ghetto, with derelict buildings, minorities left and right, and so. In the socialist decades, city planning went pretty chaotic. There's practically no classical middle-class suburbs, because there's large housing complexes full of not-so-middle class inhabitants scattered across them. The first subway was built in 1896, it was practically for show, going under the grandest avenue leading to a large square with museums and the city park. Then, in the 70s, two more subway lines were built. They're useful, but... Well, they are just subways. And only one of them was renovated, the oter one still smells of the 70s...Then came the last two decades. Since the socialist regime's end, the mayor of Budapest is the same guy, and... I don't even know why, because he did not contribute anything to the city. The roads are in a terrible condition, new developments go uncontrolled everywhere, and they just make the city look even more chaotic, there's trash and traffic jams everywhere, and until a couple years ago, there was no highway going around the city, so interstate traffic went straight through downtown.

But regardless, I like living here.

[edman2012 33]

I live in suburban chicago, and I wont call it the worst since I don't pay enough attention to the trasportation system, but I hate how on weekends it would be impossible to go to the city via 290(even assuming no construction of course) plus for some reason I hate looking at the rusty bridges over 290...it seems like texas' transportation sux but I still love how their highways and nice newish highways and bridges look like unlike chicago's rusty ones...

[Albatross Domain 2]

 Most of those pics you posted are slightly OLD, that interchange is completed, however the interchange I-35 @ N Walters is Awesome, in regards to the south entrance of Ft Sam Houston... but Loop 410 at Broadway/ Nacodoches is still a mess, same for N Foster Road south of FM-78 .

[saltandsauce 0]

i still think Glasgow wins, when it built it's mass of housing, they forgot to put SCHOOLS in. and places for shops to go in

[x493x 446]

I'd have to say LA is pretty bad. Back in the day they used to have rail service all over the city (like Chicago or Vancouver for example) but then GM came and bought the railway. They closed it down so that more people would buy their cars. And there you have it, a traffic nightmare, more cars than the city was designed for.

[ziemz 9]

I believe the worst city planning is in modern subdivisions. Narrow, dead end, and confusing windy streets puzzle me. why build those when you can have a grid pattern that is easy to get through. Another bad planning issue are the interstates. if it wasn't for them Chicago and LA wouln't have stand still traffic and people would be more inclined to use mass transit. (just thinking about the structures destroyed by those massive parkinglots depresses me)

[nerdthisname 1]

Heck, the worst city I've seen is my home city, Concepción, Chile (Yes, the one with the earthquake). I mean its a huge crap load of ass sh**. All the metropolitan area is 1 million hab. and there are insanely highways. The center, Concepción is just pure grid block. Most of the streets have 2 LANES!! And not to mention the crap load of trucks and busses. At the end, end of the center there is an avenue, but it's a huge piece o' crap load of traffic lights. Red, green, red, yellow, green, red, red, yellow, green, etc. Not to mention the idiot who think it was better reducing one tram of street to ONE LANE and extend the pedestrian way.

Not to mention a highway, which placed in one far end of the city, with a limit of 70 kmph one a roundabout in the most used intersection. Heck it was a plain roundabout, then to "solve" the problem, they placed  an overpass with a roundbout!! Not to mention other highways with traffic lights.

Also, someone with mad engeneering skills decided to make a busy intersection between 2 avenues a stupid roundabout which you have to go back to go foward and you can't go foward to go foward

[paulmc 391]

Maybe you want to ride in Sao Paulo in therush hour....

But it's not bad always like that.. sometimes the cars take a rest..

When city floods ...

Make us a visit ( if you haven´t helicopter bring your own boat) lol

[marakh 4]

Thomaskrules: Where abouts in surrey do you live because i live in epsom

Ilikehotdogsalot. In england there are Motorways, and A (M) Roads and other A roads and B roads. Basically The A(m) roads are where it isnt worth it to make a motorway so they make a dual carraige way ( two lanes either direction) normally. The A1-20 are mostly dual carraiges but for alot of A roads they are 2 dual carraiges sometimes and normal ( 1 lane either way ) sometimes. However A road really means the old road or primary road or someting like that, so, when i went on holiday to cornwall. I drove along an A road which was basically a two way one way road with turning places so people can go past each other. LOL

B roads are generally smaller and less used and i think goes from B1-5000 or something like that (i definetley remember going on a B4087. These are smaller but some can be dual carraigeways in certain places. (in towns or cities) but most are small windy country roads.

Also Cities in england are different to cities in other parts of the world

For example the 'village' of st davids in the far south west of wales is classified as the smallest city in the world due to its negligible population. In england all a city needs is a cathedral. When i went on holiday i passed throught the 'city' of st asaphs in northern wales for example

If you want to know more about the subject please pm me or check on wikipedia. Im sure they have a lot of information about it there!

[ZackAttack 0]

I keep hearing LA LA LA LA But none of you guys state or explain why?

Just some pointers, I have noticed someone said that to many highways is a bad thing, could be!

My theory about poor LA is that we have too little free ways and a lack of mass transport system, about the highways just picture that almost all of them are built to head north and there is NO west to east highways, we got the 101 highway and 5 (which is the same of 101), even thou that there is a highway right in the middle of the downtown but the problem is IT'S the only one.

LA haves too many county's all around it you have the OC, Riverside, San Bernadino (I think I left one out) anyhow if I am going to travel from my home in Anaheim, OC to Santa Monica, LA it would take me almost 2 hours on the highway and another 2 just on ordinary roads (that's nuts).

Now since most claim that orange county is the better version of LA think again! if I want to go to the beach it takes me an hour on the bike, 40min on the bus and 30min in my car (please remember that there is no highway, only avenues), the best time to do so is kinda weird, since all streets are on the green wave system if you end up in the "RED" wave your late for at least 10min max, some might say that 30min is not that much just picture that in a highway you could get it in 10min or less!

Sorry about the long post! but the bad news that LA is not the worst city planned neither any of the cities you guys said are the worst of the worst (Just picture a city that's over 10,000 years old and is still populated one is 10,000 B.C and the other is almost 8,000 B.C) they are the cities in the middle East which goes from Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq (I left Jordan out because it's not that populated) I'll make a thread next week with some pics :-)

[Bepi-Nomdus 0]

Well, here in Zurich, we have the Nordring-Zurich ( means in English Northern beltway/ring road). You have 4 major interchanges, a 3.3 km long, 4 lane (2 lanes in each direction) tunnel, 4 exits and another tunnel all within something like 20 km I guess. 2 of these interchanges are only about 1 km apart from each other. During rush hour, traffic gets pretty bad especially around the tunnel. They sometimes close the tunnel for a few minutes and then open it again for a few minutes in order to prevent traffic jams around Zurich. In this process, they obviously forget that Switzerland doesn't only contain Zurich, resulting that pretty much the whole A1 between Zurich and Bern gets gridlocked (Which really needs to be widened as well, but hey, I live in Switzerland for 10 years now and I have never seen them not working on the highways around Bern)

Luckily tough, they are building a new tunnel. It will be 3 km long and has 3 lanes towards Bern and 2+2 lanes (2 collector lanes, 2 express lanes) towards Zurich. I'm wondering if it will help but I don't think so.

[GoolyBG 0]

hm North American cities are with the worst urban planning in my oppinion because of the late age in which they were built. They didnt have the time to accustom to the rapid urbanisation. Also from just esetetical point of view they are boring all streets are perpendicular no curves no nothing. They somehow look like rapid building out and up and than a sudden snap "wait how are people supposed to move around".

[Slashback 136]

^ You're onto something...

- And welcome to Simtropolis!

[adjasi 0]

Hm... I will try to nominate two cities for the "trophy"...

LARGE CITY: Los Angeles, CA. Freeways everywhere. Lack of mass transit. And, in a larger socioeconomic sense, they haven't re-adjusted to the changing population of their area or the fact that they're now surrounded by about 30 miles of suburbs in every direction that now contain the middle classes that USED to reside closer to LA around 40 years ago. Physically, it still looks the same as it did in the early 80s except for parts in the direct "Downtown" area... which, compared to Vancouver or Boston or SF, isn't really even a downtown.... and even then, it's all just dense commercial skyscrapers. There are few areas that have any sort of density AND are built for people other than immigrants. And, while the gigantic port of Long Beach and the similarly large LAX should be utilized for the region's continued growth products, they've both been somewhat neglected. Plus all the crime and unemployment at the moment. I would compare the situation to what was plaguing NYC in the 70's and 80's. The problem is, Los Angeles may not have the same "natural benefits" of history, mass transit, parks, and major corporations that helped drive NYC's renaissance.

SMALL CITY: Albany, NY. (I would recommend having Google Maps open for this one.) This is a quite biased entry, considering I used to live in the area. And, today the future there looks brighter... that is, compared to everywhere else in the country. So, really, this is based on its history: namely, the projects in the downtown Albany area and those planned for the downtown area in the 60's and 70's. Albany has held the capital of NY for quite some time, usually occupying a comfortable position as the center of eastern Upstate NY near the confluence of the Erie and Champlain Canals with the Hudson River. It's never been the biggest city, but by the 1950's it was comfortably large and had a remarkably vibrant downtown. However, that changed when a succession of mayors, governors, and politicians decided that Albany needed to "appear" bigger, or grow further from its roots, or something. First: The Empire State Plaza. I would suggest that it is the best example of the ideas of "urban renewal" as they stood in about 1970. They basically demolished about 30 blocks of ethnic neighborhoods just south of the city center to build a concrete-and-high-rise version of the National Mall to hold most of the government offices for New York State. Legend has it that it was inspired by Governor Rockefeller's woe at having an unimpressive city for the Duchess of Something or Other's visit. And THEN... they built an expressway (South Mall Artery) from its parking garages to the elevated riverfront expressway (I-787, in itself a poor idea for the fact that it is a 30-foot tall concrete wall between Albany and the Hudson) and a large bridge across to Rensselaer; which was GOING to have an extension of that highway bisecting it as well despite being a town of about 10,000 at its height. In addition to that plan, there were also plans for a "Mid-Crosstown Arterial" providing a route from the intersection of I-90 and US-9 to US-9W near Hoffman Park less than a mile west of I-787 and less than two miles east of a semi-expressway, NY-85, that was constructed. Also, another access road for the downtown, I-687, would have cut through some of the older suburbs nearer to the city. Also, some projects at SUNY-Albany and at the State Office Complex had clear "urban renewal" goals, along with the construction of some actual public housing in the city itself. So, Albany is an emblem of the idea of urban renewal through large expressways accentuated through the 50s-through-70s ideals of a "Model City" and Capital for New York. Almost needless to say, it failed. And Albany has only recently begun to recover... Ironically, its economy held stable through government jobs...

[Xascul 7]

I would agree with adjasi with large city that LA is probably the worst city planned, since its okay if you have a car, but when one does not have a car, then its impossible to get from place to place. I really felt that the people who designed LA took into account some alternternative forms of transportation other than cars

[BeagleWeezles 0]

Originally posted by: nycsc4

I live in St. Louis and its not so much the planning of the city and the planning of STLMetro, more the condition of the roads and the naming of streets in Downtown STL.

If you are going by street names in Downtown St. Louis, they say it is the hardest city to get around in because not enough of our streets are numbered.

Missouri has some of the worst roads in the country - luckly MODot (Missouri Dept. of Trans) got 1 billion dollars to fix them, so they are much better and the worst freeway in STL is getting torn out next spring, for a bigger better, brand new one. bout time.

but as for capacity and usage, our freeways are pretty good. I-64/US-40 is the one getting torn out, and US-40 out in the county just got widened again. St. Louis City and STLMetro have a total of 7 freeways so that helps. (I-64 | I-70 | I-170 | I-270 | I-44 | I-55 | I-255)quote>

I'm not sure if there was an update to this post in the past four years--but its November 2010, the I-64 project has since been completed (circa 2009, before schedule!)--its straighter, cleaner and any St. Louis resident should be proud that MoDot and its contractors completed construction before the scheduled deadline and without breaking the budget.

Highways, and roads in general are integral to St. Louis, many cities I've driven through (most recently to the Jon Stewart Rally, I have Indianapolis in mind)--redirect their main byways around the city center...I think 70/65 actually splits in central Indy, I'm not positive. St. Louis is the crossroads not just for 70, but 55 going south, 64 going east, 70 west/east and 44 going southwest. Its a mess...and crossing the river from Illinois for someone unfamiliar with the area is confusing as heck, as critical turns all take place within 5 minutes of entering Missouri--at one point you have 44, 64 and 55 all within 2 exits of one another...and don't count on Illinois drivers letting you squeak by--they're worse than Jersey motorists

But, I don't want to get hung up on Highways--I actually despise them but in St. Louis (and county) efficient transportation cannot be found unless you take the large freeways. Oh, but the question arises, if this last part is true, how come St. Louis only has a population of about 340k--its certainly no giant--why the extra highways?

The county. St. Louis county is has about 1.1 million at last glance (wiki is out of date), certainly don't take my word at the exact but when people think of urban sprawl--look no further than St. Louis. In 1959, St. Louis city peaked at about 850k, thirty years later it would dip to about 240k. In that time, development in the county boomed--subdivisions, massive highway construction projects and a movement not just of people, but major economic movers from the central city to the fringe counties. St. Louis county has a reputation--the most municipalities in the nation (USA), 91 to be exact--individual governing units hover around 650. In some parts of mid-county, you'll drive through seven different 'towns' before reaching the next major intersection.

Now, St. Louis county is beginning to dry up--where is everyone going? The next county over--St. Charles, one of the top 10 fastest growing counties in the nation.

So what's the worst planning decision in St. Louis? Probably the initial 1876 declaration by city officals that the city, and county were officially divorced from one another. Annexation fever which has spawned massive cities in the southwest like Phoenix--not present in St. Louis where the city drew the line in the sand and in about 1940-1955 saw itself boxed into a corner with no place left to go--thus developers jumped onto the vast expanse of cheap flood plains out west...

Planning and sustainability projects aren't really 'our thing' here in St. Louis...the county and city are politically aligned, but two very distinct populations inhabit the county and city. NIMBY is huge in the county, Metrolink (light rail) faced a steep battle trying to expand into the southwestern regions of the county, and the county seat itself--a project that was initially rejected 15 years ago (mostly due to very real and still existing racial tensions) took twice the amount of money when it was completed a few years back....

Overall however, for someone like me studying Public Policy Admin...its certainly an interesting place.

[+Guest MCjohnstown]

Well,London has APALLING traffic problems, and despite the congestion charge, the average traffic speed is 20mph. No matter how good the mass transit situation is, you will still find quite a lot of people going everywhere by car. London was built up during the Georgian and Victorian periods, and simply was not built for cars.