Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy

Re:Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy by acveilleux on Sunday March 29, 2015 @12:12AM (#9283843)

My favourite part of suburbs is the grid of street maximally designed to make driving over them less efficient than avoiding them.

Intuitively one would think this decreases traffic but instead it turns the neighbourhood into a kind of watershed where all traffic quickly converges to the same few progressively broader street.

The harder the grid planner tried to inhibit through-traffic, the worse the effect.

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Re:Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy by jkimmel on Sunday March 29, 2015 @12:27AM (#9283872)

I live in downtown Orlando, FL.

We have a perfect (pathetic) example of this phenomenon.

Most of the older buildings in the downtown core rest along brickpave streets that are awful to drive on. Horrible for the suspension, tires, the works. I believe the insistence on keeping them is an attempt to limit through traffic from a nearby East/West interchange with the notorious Interstate-4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_4#Orlando_area).

Through traffic is still a huge issue, and in addition, the poor brickpave road is constantly riddled with pot holes from the heavy trucks and sheer number of vehicles that detour through. I can't imagine what the maintenance must cost relative to regular asphalt.

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Re:Suburban sprawl is stifling the US economy by BrainInAJar on Sunday March 29, 2015 @01:02AM (#9283945)

it also makes them much more dangerous, because corners & de-normalizing seeing people walking on/near the streets

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