The Irresistible Urge to Build Cities from Scratch

Post by michaelbuckbee » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

jermaustin1 wrote: post #28

jackpeterfletch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In countries where they're common place and part of the licensing curriculum, roundabouts are far superior for throughput and traffic flow than any other kind of intersection of comparable size. To get any further improvement you start having to look at junctions with over head ramps and tunnels.

I think because the US only just started adding them, and various other intersection experiments, it will take us some time to become fully comfortable with them. My wife's family comes from a small town outside of a small town in Louisiana and I remember when they opened the traffic circle there [1], the entire town hated it because they had never in their lives had such bad traffic, because no one knew how to use a…

Post by village-idiot » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

umichguy wrote: post #25

village-idiot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a few roundabouts in my town in SoCal, small ones, and they all have stop signs.

That's kind of stupid...takes the point away from roundabouts. They're designed to keep the traffic flowing in low /medium conditions when a traffic light or stop sign would bring it to a halt otherwise. Saves on fuel etc.

Post by close04 » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

ElBarto wrote: post #34

barry0079 wrote: post #3

I'm a huge fan of the winding maze like structure of cities built upon the old. It's nice to be able to wander and explore. I suppose blank slate cities (like most in America) are a lot more convenient to navigate though.

All cities started as a blank slate. Recent US cities grew very quickly in a rather organised way and a grid was the quick and simple way to handle that.

Post by ElBarto » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

close04 wrote: post #35

ElBarto wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All cities started as a blank slate. Recent US cities grew very quickly in a rather organised way and a grid was the quick and simple way to handle that.

> All cities started as a blank slate. Not at all, many cities evolved from towns, that evolved from villages, that evolved settlements, etc. That slow organic growth is different from the very accelerated "add one more tile" or "do it in one go" growth. Imagine the difference between having a baby that grows into an adult, and having an adult from the get go.

Post by doombolt » Wed, Nov 07, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

cylinder wrote: post #5

Are there any cities which are a series of concentric urban rings with parkland between them?