As someone who has driven quite extensively in SF, LA, NYC, and Boston, I don't know why Bostonians are adamant that their traffic and drivers are as bad as these other cities. My #1 frustration with Boston traffic is how "polite" drivers are. Multiple times, I've had the last car in a string of cars stop at a green light to let me turn left which is probably the most infuriating/stupid thing you can do. What I will say is that Boston has a unique set of infrastructure that involves many lights and convoluted intersections (Davis Square - where 7 streets meet) where you are absolutely punished in terms of time and so I think people definitely push it around these intersections. That being said, I biked 2 miles as my commute this entire fall from Somerville to Cambridge and never encountered anything noteworthy.

>(Davis Square - where 7 streets meet)

This doesn't sound very square to me.

I'm totally amazed at how some cities do not have protected left turn signals. During high traffic times, this means you can litterally never have a gap. Which leads to the situation where once the light turns red, 3-4 cars wanting to turn left run the red light. LA was the worst of the places I've experienced this.

> During high traffic times, this means you can literally never have a gap.

It is legal to enter an intersection (i.e. cross the white line) when your light is not red. Therefore at least one car can turn left legally per light cycle. Agree completely that this isn't good enough.

Pretty much all of the Cambridge and Somerville "squares" are really larger areas with nightmares of streets coming in and branching off at all sorts of random angles.

Left turn arrows tend to be eventually installed at the worst of the unprotected lefts. (Or left turns are just prohibited.) Locals just learn to expect a couple cars to do a left on red--and for another 2 or 3 to turn as soon as the light turns green.

The "square" presumably refers to the place (like a town square) and not the streets themselves.

Yes, just like Madison Square Gardens which is a round/oval shape building. People don't realize how silly words can be when one's inner child takes hold.

LA I don't really know. But SF and NYC (especially) are relatively challenging to drive in as well. I do agree that, especially pre-GPS, Boston/Cambridge/Somerville are most challenging by the almost complete lack of any sort of a grid and all the weird intersections. When I moved back to the area with a car after grad school--though not to the city itself--I think it really took me at least a couple of years before I felt comfortable navigating more or less by instinct rather than having to constantly refer to a map.

Even with GPS there are a number of confusing intersections and if you make the wrong choice you can easily add a ton of time to your journey with no easy way to go back.

Well mostly because I heard news reports where they told me they’d measured and found that to be the case. I live in SoCal now and despite all the bitching people do I’d much rather drive in LA.

Most of the complaints come from people who live in the fairly well off ring of suburbs from ~I95-495 and are used to lackadaisical, un-urgent traffic that tends to characterize these places.

These people have little reason to got Lowell/Leominster/Worcester/Fall River (one ring outward) or Providence/Hartford/New Haven/Springfield (one ring further still) so Boston is just what they complain about.

If Lexington or Sudbury is your frame of reference then Boston is a f-ing zoo. If Lawrence is your frame of your reference Davis Square (or Kelly Square) is same shit different day.

The whole country has been aggressively pushing the virtues of selfishness for the past 30 years. The eventual outcome shouldn't really be a surprise.

I don't know what its going to take for half the country to finally wake up and realize it can't continue along this course and the philosophy of selfishness has failed.