10 "most drivable" and "least drivable" cities

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Lounatik

Golden Member
Oct 10, 1999
1,845
1
0
Oh man what a friggin joke. I drive all around Atlanta in a medium duty(35 ft long) truck and I see first hand the lunacy of this damn place. Most driveable? More like most likely to drive you crazy. Here is the thing that most out of staters dont understand about our "Most Driveable" town: You have approximately 15,000 local municipalities who have taken it upon themselves to make sure that you spend the most time in thier lovely little hovel as possible. The end result? Traffic light hell. Not one damn light anywhere is timed to let you make one to the next ( Please see : Peachtree in Buckhead, anywhere in Alpharetta and anywhere in Woodstock)As a result you have massive amounts of cars racing light to light, bumper to bumper, and boom! stop and go traffic begins. Then these people, already agitated that it takes them a half hour to just get a few miles , proceed to our illustrious highways. Where they encounter 2-2.5 hour commutes just to drive 30 or so miles(my wife actually endured this for several years)

The other thing here in Atlanta we have is unbridled growth coupled with an extremely poor infrastructure to handle the resulting traffic. You would think that these municipalities would try to limit growth, but they are only concerned with the tax dollars that will flow from the homes they allow to be built. The feds have forbidden the use of federal tax dollars for road improvements until the metro area gets the pollution problem under control. But here is the paradox: The constant building of homes as far as 40 miles from Atlanta, on roads that cannot keep up with the traffic, leads to more cars sitting still farther and farther away from Atlanta. Idling cars are claimed to be more polluting,so just widen the roads right? Nope cant do that! So the cars keep on piling up on top of each other and pollution gets worse every day and we cant get the roads widened to help alleviate the pollution.

But we are one of the most drivable cities in the US!!!!!!! WOOHOO!




Peace



Lounatik
 

lowtech1

Diamond Member
Mar 9, 2000
4,644
1
0

Some of the least drivable city that I have been through are in order from worst to least.

Bangkok, Taipei, Mexico, Kulalumpur, Saigon, Vancouver (Canada), LA.
 

Parrotheader

Diamond Member
Dec 22, 1999
3,434
2
0
Originally posted by: Lounatik
Oh man what a friggin joke. I drive all around Atlanta in a medium duty(35 ft long) truck and I see first hand the lunacy of this damn place. Most driveable? More like most likely to drive you crazy. Here is the thing that most out of staters dont understand about our "Most Driveable" town: You have approximately 15,000 local municipalities who have taken it upon themselves to make sure that you spend the most time in thier lovely little hovel as possible. The end result? Traffic light hell. Not one damn light anywhere is timed to let you make one to the next ( Please see : Peachtree in Buckhead, anywhere in Alpharetta and anywhere in Woodstock)As a result you have massive amounts of cars racing light to light, bumper to bumper, and boom! stop and go traffic begins. Then these people, already agitated that it takes them a half hour to just get a few miles , proceed to our illustrious highways. Where they encounter 2-2.5 hour commutes just to drive 30 or so miles(my wife actually endured this for several years)

The other thing here in Atlanta we have is unbridled growth coupled with an extremely poor infrastructure to handle the resulting traffic. You would think that these municipalities would try to limit growth, but they are only concerned with the tax dollars that will flow from the homes they allow to be built. The feds have forbidden the use of federal tax dollars for road improvements until the metro area gets the pollution problem under control. But here is the paradox: The constant building of homes as far as 40 miles from Atlanta, on roads that cannot keep up with the traffic, leads to more cars sitting still farther and farther away from Atlanta. Idling cars are claimed to be more polluting,so just widen the roads right? Nope cant do that! So the cars keep on piling up on top of each other and pollution gets worse every day and we cant get the roads widened to help alleviate the pollution.

But we are one of the most drivable cities in the US!!!!!!! WOOHOO!




Peace



Lounatik
I wish they would develop a high speed rail system between Birmingham and Atlanta. The two cities are close enough that it would be a relatively short train ride (at least in comparison to some of the many regular Atlanta commutes I hear about from friends and family who live there.) You could actually live in a comparable (if not nicer) home in Birmingham for the same price with all the same surrounding amenities and depending upon where you work, STILL manage to get to work quicker than somebody living in the outer suburbs in Atlanta. As a Birmingham resident it would be nice since at least 1/2 the flights out of Birmingham seem to have to go through Atlanta anyway, plus it would obviously help Birmingham get more satellite business out of Atlanta.

It'll never happen in a thousand years, but I think it would be pretty cool. The biggest thing is that most Southern cities don't have the public transportation facilities of other areas because we've had more room to sprawl.

 

atom

Diamond Member
Oct 18, 1999
4,722
1
0
Hell yeah, SF and Oakland represent!!! :D

But I'm seriously surprised they are so high. They are probably only that high on the list cuz gas is so expensive here. I rarely see traffic at a standstill like other metro areas.
 

Chaotic42

Lifer
Jun 15, 2001
35,353
2,479
126
Originally posted by: Bignate603
I'm surprised that New Orleans wasn't listed as one of the bad ones. It's utterly terrible. The roads are nasty and all messed up, it seems every street is a one way street, it doesn't follow a grid pattern, there are only 2 real ways to get in or out of the city. Yeah, the weather for driving isn't terrible most of the year because it doesn't snow but actually driving there SUCKS.

I was just going to post that.

They need to have a "worst bridges" list. The Huey P. Long would win in a second.
 

Cyberian

Diamond Member
Jun 17, 2000
9,999
1
0
Originally posted by: thebestMAX
Least driveable and no Floriduh cities mentioned?

It could be the least driveable state in most places!!!!

Who are these clowns???

Ive lived in 18 different states and driven in almost all of them and NONE are as bad as Floriduh! Used to drive over 60K a year in sales but if Id been in Floriduh, Id have quit!!

Of the 10 least drivable cities, Id take at least 8 of them over here.
Too many Old Farts in Florida!

 

BlazingSaddles

Senior member
Jul 1, 2000
421
0
0
Originally posted by: MrDingleDangle
I dunno about Atlanta, but parts of LA there is little that can beat it...

i lived 5 miles from where I went to school and a minimum drive time was 30 min., during afternoons it could get up to an hour and there is no side roads that improve it and the public transportation sux...

nothing to do with the topic at hand, but according to your sig you have the strangest team following ever... cincinati for football, new york for baseball and LA for basketball? just want to cover the entire US or something?
 

Mallow

Diamond Member
Jul 25, 2001
6,108
1
0
wow, and I thought houston had traffic... I guess I don't really know what y'all go through out there.