Driving In Chicago (Manhattan, Vienna, Pittsburg: house, design, suburban)

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by advocatusdiavoli

I am deriving in Chicago for three years and I still don't understand how come Chigoans drive like hicks i.e. w/o any respect for commonly acceptet rules.

Actually, "hicks" typically drive quite courteously and obey most traffic laws. The lack of turn signals and disrespect for traffic laws is a city thing, and Chicago is pretty much the only city in the Midwest that has this issue. The "Mass-holes" (not my term) in Boston are pretty bad with this type of thing as well, and it irks other New Englanders.

[gichicago]

Originally Posted by sukwoo

I love Boston drivers and driving in Boston!

Boston is nerve wrecking at first, but just great, since its not a grid layout, one way streets just stop, and big dig just wreaks havoc to roads around the area.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by gichicago

Boston is nerve wrecking at first, but just great, since its not a grid layout, one way streets just stop, and big dig just wreaks havoc to roads around the area.

The great thing about Boston is that most of it was not set up to accomodate cars. It's probably the most walkable city in the U.S. in this respect, and most neighborhoods are scaled appropriately for a wonderful pedestrian experience. But this just makes the driving so much more hair-raising. Natives are used to the irregular street patterns in central Boston, and can thus navigate their cars quite skillfully down narrow streets that cross at strange angles. It's similar to driving in Europe.

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

The great thing about Boston is that most of it was not set up to accomodate cars. It's probably the most walkable city in the U.S. in this respect, and most neighborhoods are scaled appropriately for a wonderful pedestrian experience. But this just makes the driving so much more hair-raising. Natives are used to the irregular street patterns in central Boston, and can thus navigate their cars quite skillfully down narrow streets that cross at strange angles. It's similar to driving in Europe.

As a result Boston has a very low per capita vehicle fatality rate. Perhaps its because traffic never moves faster than 5 mph.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by sukwoo

As a result Boston has a very low per capita vehicle fatality rate. Perhaps its because traffic never moves faster than 5 mph.

The irony is that traffic engineers have widened streets and destroyed the pedestrian experience in the name of "safety". New Urbanists have been pointing this out for years.

[Basekamp]

Chicago also has a low vehicle fatality rate.

Originally Posted by sukwoo

As a result Boston has a very low per capita vehicle fatality rate. Perhaps its because traffic never moves faster than 5 mph.

[oakparkdude]

Originally Posted by Basekamp

Chicago also has a low vehicle fatality rate.

Yes it does. Much lower than Knoxville.

[Lookout Kid]

Lot's of fender benders, few fatalities. I guess this is one benefit of soul-crushing congestion.

[Drover]

Using per-capita data for highway safety statistics isn't particularly useful since commute patterns (do people in larger metro areas have a more distant commute on average?) and differences in transportation infrastructure (say, comprehensive mass transit versus no mass transit) can affect how far and how often people actually drive. A more useful metric of highway safety is fatalities per passenger-mile traveled.

[jdiddy]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

The irony is that traffic engineers have widened streets and destroyed the pedestrian experience in the name of "safety". New Urbanists have been pointing this out for years.

Yeah - I recently read Suburban Nation, and of the many interesting facts in that book was the claim that the Two-Way Yield street, seen sporadically throughout Chicago neighborhoods, actually has the lowest accident rate of any street design. If you think about it makes sense, because when you drive on the design requires you to slow down, increasing reaction time, as opposed to wide suburban residential streets where often driving 25 feels unnatural.

But its all but impossible to build any new residential streets of that width, in the idea that its 'unsafe'.