I'm spoiled from living in Plano, where the traffic on surface streets isn't bad, even at rush hour. The city is set up like a grid with 5 or 6 main north/south streets and 5 or 6 main east/west streets. All of them are between 6-8 lanes across (depending on turn lanes, etc.) They NEVER narrow down to one or two lanes (Lousiana, I'm looking at you with that nonsense), so there aren't bottle necks anywhere. So, the traffic flows well any time of day. The street my school is on is 7 lanes across in front of the school--makes it convenient. The worst traffic, even worse than Baton Rouge, is in Chicago. There is no time of the day, no day of the week when it doesn't take two freakin' hours to get from my husband's uncle's house near O'Hare to downtown.
This is Baton Rouge's biggest problem...planning. There is no grid system, except for downtown, which doesn't have that much volume, anyway. There are very, very few alternate routes to get anywhere. The large majority of neigborhoods have no connectivity to the rest of the city, other than their main entrances. So when the interstate gets shut down (which happens almost weekly), it's carmageddon everywhere. The other problem that we have here is start-up loss. For whatever reason, people here feel like there has to be 15 yards of pavement between them and the car in front of them before they'll even budge. When you're talking about a single stream of traffic and the shock wave impact of start-up loss, it can literally double the length of a queue completely unnecessarily. I have actually analyzed the impacts of this at various intersections, and it's incredible how bad this contributes to our problems. Signal cycle lengths are designated to allow a certain number of vehicles through, based on queueing and the arrival rates during red times. A certain amount of start-up loss is even taken into consideration. But, the average driver here far exceeds that allowance, so the efficiency of the cycle is completely torpedoed. At rush hour, that can actually be the difference in wating through one cycle or having to wait through several, which can push the queue back for miles. What you're supposed to do is start moving when the vehicle in front of you starts moving, not when it's already moved 30'. But this requires paying attention, so we're S.O.L. Drives me frickin' insane.
Driving in Baton Rouge is very frustrating--on many levels. I've become spoiled living in a city that was planned before it had 300,000 people.
Love Plano for that very reason. You're never trapped anywhere and can always try other intersecting streets. US-75 can get bad at times but I generally avoid it. The Turnpike & Tollway both help out a lot too. Just moved to North Dallas from Louisiana and that part I definitely appreciate.
I would agree with this statement to a degree. The San Francisco Bay Area is massive. Not much "small town atmosphere" all the way past Sacramento.
75 is easy to avoid; if I'm going to Dallas, I'll get on it; likewise, if I'm heading to Allen or McKinney. I rarely get on it and never do at rush hour. I really, really hate 635 and only drive on it when I'm traveling to Baton Rouge.
You could've stopped right there. So did I. Well, went out with her a couple of times while she was reigning. She was a Cowgirl Kicker at McNeese. Initials DP. Very sweet and fine but not beautiful. Attractive, just not beautiful. Dam, I was skeered you'd ask that. It was several months back, if my memory serves me correctly. Not really important so I'm not searching.- even if it means I have to concede.
It's easy to plan a community when you have miles and miles of unencumbered open land instead of a meandering Mississippi River, bayou's, lakes, etc.
This is true. It's nothing but ugly, ugly flat land. And one of the hottest Septembers on record. But tonight, thank GOD, it's raining cats and dogs. Thunder, lightening, wind, rain. It's been three months...and I love rain.
