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Of the listed cities, which city do you feel is the most stressful to drive in? Take into account traffic, pedestrian activity, driving behavior, ease of finding parking, navigability of the streets.
EDIT: Should have included Miami on the poll but forgot
Last edited by Oistrakh12; 04-05-2021 at 06:10 PM..
Gotta be San Francisco --- having the extreme hills, the crowdedness, and the lack of places to park around most of the city is an aggravating combination.
Mine is Atlanta. There’s a lot of pretty stressful places to drive on this list, but Atlanta combines the worst of the worst: an almost unsolvable amount of urban sprawl with no room for more road capacity, a thriving economy, and a population which seems almost neurotically fixated on changing lanes, ALL THE TIME, whether warranted or not, while treating 285 as a NASCAR track. In addition, Atlanta is also the least predictable of commutes: I basically allotted myself 3 hrs to cross Atlanta if, for instance, I headed in in 20 and were to head out on 85N.
A lot of cities hit my bad buttons on an individual level worse than Atlanta, but none hit as many as hard as Atlanta.
Now keep in mind: I have a lot of asterisks and caveats on that one. I grade this as a truck driver, and only on the roads I actually drove, which is by no means all of the roads, road types, or every part of every metro.
The Garden State Parkway in North New Jersey takes the cake.
The norther portion of the GSP is an extremely narrow 6 lanes in each direction highway with no shoulder or median, on a hilly and winding route with most people doing 80 MPH and it was designed in the 60s so the on and off ramps are non existent. People cut you off left and right and there is no room for error.
I feel like with the sunbelt cities because they were built later... at least have some more modern on and off ramp designs and wider lanes overall so it makes the system while not the best overall not as bad as North Jersey.
I imagine the worst is something like NYC or Boston, but those cities don't require me to drive around them, so they don't count for me. Boston is pretty stressful even taking an Uber in; it seems like it's usually faster to walk.
Of cities that I have driven in, I rank Houston the worst. It's very spread out, generally requiring one to traverse it via car, it has absolutely massive freeway systems that are parking lots nonetheless, and it has extremely aggressive drivers with a lot of road rage.
I don't get super stressed driving, but San Antonio kinda stresses me out. I 've had a couple of near death experiences on 281 going north of downtown there. It's curvy and you don't have the greatest sight lines. The majority of people drive normal speed 60-70 mph, but then you'll come around a curve and there's some person in a clunker going 35 mph in the fast lane. It's happened to me enough times there, to where I'm always worried there is going to be someone driving dangerously below the flow of traffic. In Houston, Austin, or Dallas the traffic is worse, and you might get some jerk holding everyone up by going 60 in the fast lane, but never anyone going so dangerously slow as in San Antonio.
I didn't find NYC that stressful, but I've never driven in Manhattan (Other than that stretch of 95 that goes from the Bronx to the George Washington Bridge).
LA has a lot of traffic, and a fair number of pedestrians in areas, but people are generally pretty polite and let you merge when you signal.
Minneapolis has a lot of rude, low-skill drivers and narrow, 2 lane in each direction freeways. Add in bad weather half the year and road construction the other half, it makes it a fairly stressful experience for a smaller metro.
Hmmm...hard to say. I've driven in lots of cities but it's less stressful to drive as a visitor/ tourist than as a resident. I guess I'll say NYC. It can be surprisingly easy to drive in, but it be just as surprisingly bad at random times.
NYC gets a bad rap. Traffic has calmed there IMO compared to the 80’s and 90’s.
LA has aggressive drivers but agree with others, they are skilled.
Seattle is potpourri of aggressive/passive that makes it quite stressful.
Last edited by pnwguy2; 04-05-2021 at 07:44 PM..
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