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Was in L.A. when I was 18 with family and the freeways there scared the b-jesus out of me. I could not believe how FAST everyone drove and right on each other's bumpers. Amazing.
My girlfriend's brother was out in L.A. recently and he mentioned how his relatives seem scared of going on the freeway. To him (he's a Delaware/Cleveland resident), the freeway is the easy part of driving, while city driving can be a pain.
Atlanta is a tough place to learn your way around. Not much of the Street system is gridded and was developed from Indian trails and cow paths. When giving directions, instead of 'turn right, turn left', you find yourself saying, 'veer right, veer left'.
Downtown Boston and Quebec City are the only 2 North American cities I know of, with a European type street pattern, that is, no grid pattern at all, just a spiderweb of streets with no order, that frequently change names.
All of the European cities are basically like that - they basically grew out of meandering cow paths - although Baron Haussman built some straight boulevards through Paris in the 1800s.
I am a D.C. native and agree that the Union Station area is very confusing. However, the city's grid pattern generally does make a lot of sense, with letters of the alphabet street names, followed by one-syllable alphabetical names, then followed by two-syllable alphabetic streets, and then three-syllable alphabetical streets, all of them crossing numerical named streets, with the state-named avenues causing some confusion as they run diagonally to the other streets, sometimes forming traffic circles which can be hectic and scary. Arlington, VA across the river has a very similar one, two, and three-syllable alphabetical-order street system, however, Arlington's freeway system is extremely confusing.
Seattle is pretty complicated. Although it's a grid, it's by no means an orderly one. The topography of hills and several bodies of water along with arterial roads switching or abrubtly ending make it a jumble of streets with not very many direct roads. There are a number of North-South arterials, though very few East-West arterials. Getting across town from the Sound to the Lake involves swtching and turning onto several differnt streets.
Boston is just a giant spaghetti bowl.
If you are talking downtown Seattle from sound to lake then Yesler is the street you want. Jackson would almost get you there, but ultimately you'd still have to cut over to Yesler, which actually curves down toward the lake at the end with two name changes, but it is still the same arterial route. Madison will also get you to the lake.
I do agree though north/south is easy in Seattle, but east/west can be a challenge.
One thing I do like about Downtown Seattle (perhaps the only thing in like about it) is the alternating street direction. 1st Ave is two way, 2nd one way south, 3rd two way, 4th one way north, 5th two way. Most intersecting streets follow a similar pattern. Seems to make the flow a little easier.
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