I don’t drive so my nomination could be taken with a grain of salt but still if there is anything more confusing out there, I’d like to know.
In Queens there is a place where the Grand Central, the Triboro Bridge approach and The Jackie Robinson converge. There is also a subway supraway (more commonly know as the el) and exits for the Clearview and Northern State. It looks just like the opening scene in the Jetsons. There’s ground level 6 lane highway going in all directions, there are 4 lanes that go underneath the ground level road, there are skyways that crisscross overhead–If you do not know exactly how to get where you are trying to go, you will probably not get there.
This was even more confusing than the Bronx/Manhattan approach to the GWB/West Side Highway/FDR Drive-- I can’t tell you how many people end up in New Jersey when all they wanted to do was go to Sylvia’s.
Have you ever driven through “The Stack” in L.A.? It was the first one of these things in the country. It’s not so confusing if you just follow the signs. There are others that are more confusing.
By the way, the opening scene of the film “Falling Down” begins in a traffic jam at the very lowest level of “The Stack.” The guy just walks out of his car and then walks across L.A.
If you stuck me on a road leading up to that thing, I wouldn’t know what the hell to do. Do those roads on top really have squiggly lines on them, or is that just an illusion? If it’s real, what do they mean?
Not so bad until you realize that EVERYONE is trying to get to another lane at the same time, and no one is willing to allow another car to get ahead of them.
This isn’t rush hour - nooooo. This is a light traffic day.
It’s built over an old canal, which restricted the possibilities for any other option. IIRC the alignment of roads leading to it was also problematic.
Zig-zag lines are used to indicate the vicinity of a pedestrial crossing, such as here, and parking or obstructing these sections of road is a driving offence (as opposed to a more minor parking offence).
Anyway, the magic roundabout doesn’t look nearly as scary from ground level - File:Magic RoundaboutP db.jpg - Wikipedia (bear in mind that mini-roundabouts, indicated with road markings only, are nothing unusual in Britain).
Hmm… once I read the explanation and watched the video of someone driving through it, it stopped being weird and started being cool. Why can’t we have neat stuff like this in the U.S.? Sitting and waiting at a traffic light for four or five minutes is bullshit.
P.S. How is the Magic Roundabout any more or less confusing than any other roundabout? Here’s a roundabout I travel through frequently and it’s a horror. It doesn’t help that so many heavy traffic streets feed into it.
But I thought that all roundabouts were this bad. I’m not a driver so I’m genuinely curious as to what makes a roundabout bad.
P.S. I removed the link because I cannot get the google maps to do what I want. It’s Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn for those who care to look.
This map doesn’t really do it justice, but in Pittsburgh, KS (a town of about 20,000 people!), there is an intersection where three or four state highways, several city streets, two or three federal highways, and a couple of county roads all converge. I got discombobulated there one afternoon and it took me four hours to get home (I was about 20 miles from home). It is the most lost I’ve ever been.
