See also "Why UPS drivers don't turn left and you probably shouldn't either" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25379743
Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic
11–20 of 174 posts
Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic
#12While I don't know of the safety impact of removing left turns, the actual trip time impact in a busy city is severely understated. In my city (700k people), an old European town, city center has seen the removal of a few key left turns in the past few years. Consequences for traffic outside city center: probably none. Consequences if you want to drive from within the city center to the outside (e.g. go back from a s…
Usual car-oriented person rant about how this measure affects you personally and harms your convenience.
Complaining about traffic in the center of an “Old European town” tells me you might be doing things wrong from the get go.
Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic
#13While I don't know of the safety impact of removing left turns, the actual trip time impact in a busy city is severely understated. In my city (700k people), an old European town, city center has seen the removal of a few key left turns in the past few years. Consequences for traffic outside city center: probably none. Consequences if you want to drive from within the city center to the outside (e.g. go back from a s…
Usual car-oriented person rant about how this measure affects you personally and harms your convenience. Complaining about traffic in the center of an “Old European town” tells me you might be doing things wrong from the get go.
I am presenting a counterpoint to the claim in the article that "it's just 1 more block" in a real world scenario (under somewhat different condition though: non-grid street network).
Do you think the phenomenon I described does not exist, or are you saying it's not relevant?
Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic
#14Google maps, and other similar routing apps, should offer a no left turn option!
And while we're at it, in the UK at least they should have an option for not sending you down bidirectional single track roads. No, that 35 mile drive down twisty single track country lane with occasional passing spots will not save any time over the 40 mile motorway. Even if the road is _technically_ 60mph, you'll never reach that speed unless you're on a motorbike...
There's this awful route Google Maps will give you, through the twisty back roads of SF because it thinks it can get you to the 101 faster. But it's sending everyone that way, so there's huge traffic on these narrow neighborhood roads. It's not a shortcut if everyone knows about it.
I think map apps should be optimizing for something more complex, like least amount of directions within a five minute arrival window. Saving two minutes of driving time isn't worth having to make eight more turns.
Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic
#15While I don't know of the safety impact of removing left turns, the actual trip time impact in a busy city is severely understated. In my city (700k people), an old European town, city center has seen the removal of a few key left turns in the past few years. Consequences for traffic outside city center: probably none. Consequences if you want to drive from within the city center to the outside (e.g. go back from a s…
I am biased but why do we even need cars in the city center, or at the very least why should they be convenient? Could there not be a situation where you walk to the edges of the city center to pick up your car and leave from there? There are specific accessibility concerns that certainly need to be accounted for, but the idea that the average driver loses 20 minutes on a trip that should be 5-10 minutes doesn't seem…
I was waiting for this response. As someone who doesn’t live in the city center, and has no easy means of mass transportation to get there, my response is: fine I just won’t go then. You lose my money.
In NYC or Chicago that’s probably not a big deal. In the vast majority of the rest of the US, that’s how you kill a city center. I can tell you in my case, given the homelessness issue that’s been getting worse the last decade, if you make it harder to get to the downtown area it will become a ghost town.
Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic
#16While I don't know of the safety impact of removing left turns, the actual trip time impact in a busy city is severely understated. In my city (700k people), an old European town, city center has seen the removal of a few key left turns in the past few years. Consequences for traffic outside city center: probably none. Consequences if you want to drive from within the city center to the outside (e.g. go back from a s…
I am biased but why do we even need cars in the city center, or at the very least why should they be convenient? Could there not be a situation where you walk to the edges of the city center to pick up your car and leave from there? There are specific accessibility concerns that certainly need to be accounted for, but the idea that the average driver loses 20 minutes on a trip that should be 5-10 minutes doesn't seem…
In my town you have largely 4 options:
- walk
- drive
- take a bus/tram
- bike
Walking is too slow and cumbersome for most people (e.g. 6-8 km one way to work seems like too much to do every day), and impossible if you want to go shopping anywhere except on your way to work.
Public transport is really slow and not as flexible as you want (many places without good connections, wait times 15-20 minutes, transit times 20-50 minutes).
So you are left really with bike (flexible, constant travel time regardless of traffic, keeps you fit -- but very susceptible to bad weather) and car (flexible, fast, great for transporting items -- but very susceptible to traffic).
Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usual car-oriented person rant about how this measure affects you personally and harms your convenience. Complaining about traffic in the center of an “Old European town” tells me you might be doing things wrong from the get go.
I am presenting a counterpoint to the claim in the article that "it's just 1 more block" in a real world scenario (under somewhat different condition though: non-grid street network). Do you think the phenomenon I described does not exist, or are you saying it's not relevant?
I’ve driven in places that forbid left turns and the impact is nowhere near what you say it is - your example appears very specific to your town where things seem particularly bad but also your phrasing (“punished” by traffic - guess what, if you’re driving, you are traffic) is not very objective for a rational, general counterpoint.
Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic
#18While I don't know of the safety impact of removing left turns, the actual trip time impact in a busy city is severely understated. In my city (700k people), an old European town, city center has seen the removal of a few key left turns in the past few years. Consequences for traffic outside city center: probably none. Consequences if you want to drive from within the city center to the outside (e.g. go back from a s…
I think the trilemma is something like: improve traffic capacity, reduce conflict points, forgive wrong turns — pick two. The increasing popularity of GPS makes it easier to drop the last item. Of course, it's going to take some getting used to.
Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic
#19While I don't know of the safety impact of removing left turns, the actual trip time impact in a busy city is severely understated. In my city (700k people), an old European town, city center has seen the removal of a few key left turns in the past few years. Consequences for traffic outside city center: probably none. Consequences if you want to drive from within the city center to the outside (e.g. go back from a s…
>Extra time: +5 minutes to walk why does removing left turns make it longer to walk? Can pedestrians even make "left" turns?
A lot of times when they pull left turns it means they’re pulling out the stoplights, putting barriers of some kind down the middle and you can’t cross at that spot at all anymore on foot or in a car. If you have to park on the opposite side of the street from where you’re going you may be walking blocks just to cross.
Sure you could try jaywalking but that’s probably not a bright move in a lot of cities.
I’ll be honest I have no idea why you all are downvoting. This literally happened in a city near where I grew up and it is a giant pain. I presume he was actually asking the question because he didn’t understand why it would require more time.
Re: Remove left turns for less dangerous city traffic
#20Better yet, replace intersections with roundabouts. But that would mean knocking down a lot of buildings.