Jalopnik 
Enter your username and password.
Detroit, 11:49 PM
Tue Dec 8
27 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Ray Wert | | AIM
Road Test Editor:
Wes Siler |
Weekend Editor:
Murilee Martin |
Associate Editor - Houston:
Associate Editor - Detroit:
Editor-at-Large:
Contributors:
John Krewson |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
07:46 PM
03:45 PM
04:07 PM
03:38 PM
03:05 PM
With Austin, Portland, and Seattle on the list...how much of those cities' problems are caused because of "green" bullshit preventing a proper road network.
/has lived in both Portland and Austin, traffic there does truly suck
D/FW is bad, but having been born-and-raised here, as well as driving an airport shuttle and tour bus back in college, I know most of the (some are now gone) surface street secrets.
03:31 PM
Same stuff in Atlanta no new roads or additional lanes until air quality improves.
Yeah 600,000 idling cars pollute less than moving ones.
03:44 PM
04:20 PM
No kidding.
On the east side of town, Ed Bluestein Blvd., is a complete and utter joke.
We'll just not discuss I-35 through that town.
04:23 PM
Sometimes the smart answer, which is also the easiest, gets ignored completely.
This reminds me, at what point is truck traffic going to be banned or significantly restricted during rush-time. "Hour", it ain't.
I noticed, today, on I-20, because of truck traffic, there was a huge secondary backup because they were three abreast where it is four lanes.
Bastards. Maybe intentional, maybe not, douchey regardless.
02:24 PM
02:23 PM
02:18 PM
03:15 PM
03:37 PM
08:09 PM
08:35 PM
02:17 PM
02:14 PM
See, you didn't make the list. Not by a long shot. Stop complaining and learn to drive.
01:52 PM
Those are very surprising results. Here is my guess why they are in there;
Portland is very much a "narrow streets" setup, especially in the downtown area.
The 3 ways to get in/out at long distance to the East is Powell (very bottom red line) Hawthorne (around low mid) and up Sandy area. Other than that it's like going through with a machete.
And Seattle... Well, there's a whole 2 bridge that connect the East-West sound with a huge number of people working downtown, and living on the East side.
Even then it can get really hectic to get around Seattle. At least Portland has some kind of logic to it.
As for SF, been there... And it wasn't that bad actually on Sunday, though it was amazing to see 3 then 7 lanes of traffic gridlocked. That is a lot of cars.
01:32 PM
01:30 PM
03:16 PM
03:26 PM
01:25 PM
Also, in real life you would never spend a quarter of the time in traffic in Portland, for example, as you would anywhere in BosNYWash.
01:31 PM
02:44 PM
02:53 PM
For example... the nightclub district downtown on a Friday or Saturday night... don't bother trying to get a spot that's close to the club/bar you want to go to... just park on a lot near Front St. and walk the rest of the way... you'll spend less on parking and you'll arrive sooner.
My personal favourite spot is a place on Blue Jays Way just north of Front on the East side. It's underground, safe, warm and cheap (usually only $5 or $6)
Also, when going east, avoiding the Spadina offramp is another good strategy if it's really backed up. Instead, take the next exit and then go back west on Lakeshore and then take the side roads around the skydome... but do that only when there's no Jays game or event going on.
Or when getting on the Gardner West... it often makes more sense to stay on lakeshore and get on the Gardner Expressway near the Humber Loop rather than trying to get on by Dunn Ave.
Or when trying to get downtown and the entire QEW/Gardner and Lakeshore is backed up, an alternative is:
-take South Service Road from Hurontario.
-That will eventually merge back onto the highway... but then you just get right back off and take Evans to Kipling.
-go North on Kipling to Queensway and go east on Queensway
-Take Queensway to King. While doing this, have a look at your right to see if things are getting better or worse on the Gardner. When turning right on King, decide whether to get back on the Gardner via Lakeshore or go through Exhibition place to Front Street.
-Take Front in... if it gets backed up, turn left at Bathurst and then take the first right after going over the bridge. That will take you to around the Skydome and parking that's within walking distance of the clubs.
While the traffic can be bad, if you familiarize yourself with all the roads, there's usually a way to bypass the worst jams.
03:24 PM
Last time I was in the area, was for a seminar in Mississauga last spring. Needless to say, there was no sensible way to avoid QEW rush hour traffic both ways (on a Friday, no less). It was easier getting into town than out, since I crossed the Peace Bridge at something like 6am (and hour into my drive), so it was smooth sailing until I was fairly close to where I needed to be. It took an hour longer to get home than it did to get there. Ick.
...but again, as the hapless out-of-towner, I get screwed. Such is life.
01:22 PM
"Every single college town of 20k people after a major sporting event, as 300k people try to find their cars and leave on two-lane roads"
Yes, I'm in the SEC. Why do you ask?
01:35 PM
My town qualifies on size, but we're the Chicago Cubs of the Big 10 so our home games only draw 50K (at most) masochists, binge-drinkers and thirty/forty-somethings hoping to pull an undergrad.
01:35 PM
Besides, being in the SEC, don't Tim Tebow's almighty powers extend to parting the sea of red taillights?
01:37 PM
80k people at the game, another 100k-200k just in town to tailgate and generally take up space.
01:39 PM
Around here, we're all involuntarily consumed within the Nick Saban Ego Forcefield.
03:53 PM
01:20 PM