Norway, Wisconsin. Tiny little town right on the border between WI and MI’s UP. I’d always hit it journeying from Madison to Houghton to see my boyfriend, who attended Michigan Tech.
Like I said, tiny little town - shouldn’t be a problem, right? Not. Although it only has like 300 people, it’s 40 miles long. At least it feels like it. It’s situated between a series of hills and valleys, so you’re always climbing or turning or descending or what not. Just when you think you’re at the end, there’s another turn and whoop! there’s more! And for those 40 miles, you get to go only 25 mph.
I don’t know if there’s many cops to enforce it - they don’t really have to. It’s too twisty to go very fast anyway.
Hmm. this is a toss up. I’ll say Thorton IL and also Tinley Park IL(suburban, light industry, retail sections). Both have 4-6 lane traffic, one restricted roads. Both keep the speed limit to about 25-30, and both have really poor traffic patterns–major congestion and headaches. I have never “breezed” thru either place, at any time of day, frankly.
Three towns in NC: Mt. Airy, Shelby, Salisbury, and any 10K population Bumfuck Egypt town that sees proximity to the Interstate and dollar signs.
They decrease the speed limit and time the stoplights to always show red. In the former, it’s so their cops can issue speeding tickets and fatten the city coffers with fine money. In the latter, it’s to make sure passersby stop and see the signs of area businesses that sell gewgaws that attract buyers of the tacky.
Vanceboro, NC - notorious speed trap. Roads built for 50, limit 35.
The notorious New Rome, OH speed trap disappeared along with the town. A nasty story.
Pretty much the entire length of I-95 in New Hampshire. All 16 miles of it, including the toll plaza. I’ve seen as many as 4 troopers on the Piscataqua Bridge approach, pointing their radars toward the Maine side, looking for non-NH plates on cars that can’t slow down in time for the lower Portsmouth limit.
Lots of speed traps in Maine. Pretty much every small town.
Until I moved here, I lived on Clarington at Palms. I didn’t drive through Culver City that much; except for after the earthquake the freeway fell down, and when I’d get off at the Culver exit and take residential streets to Madison (which turns into Clarington). I wouldn’t say that the drivers there are ‘loathsome’; it’s just that some of the streets (notably Venice Blvd.) are incredibly crowded at times. Of course, that was of little concern when I was on a motorcycle. (And then, you really were in my way! But that’s why they have lane-splitting.)
La Grange, Texas. SH 71 may get some traffic, but I’m sure that the bypass that TxDOT put in ten years ago was done because some legislator was pulled over one too many times when driving between Houston and Austin and decided to cut off La Grange’s money supply. The police would only ticket for genuine violations, but anything wrong with your vehicle or your driving would get you pulled over. I pulled off for gas the last time I drove through town. When I pulled back onto the road, a trooper that had just passed made a u-turn and followed me.
I’m voting for Irvine, CA. Large, well-maintained roads with nice turning lanes, etc. But…THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME! My parents have lived there for about 15 years and I still can’t find my way around. The whole place is a maze of identical shopping malls and Spanish-style housing developments and there aren’t any landmarks. Every time we go there they’ve put in another huge cookie-cutter mall and another housing development.
A lot of people hate driving through here if it isn’t their destination. There’s no way to traverse San Francisco without driving on surface streets, so most people skip it altogether and go through the East Bay.
My dad and I tried that once when I was in school in Santa Cruz and he was bringing me home (North Bay) for a holiday. Turns out the East Bay has terrible traffic too. Who knew? At least in San Francisco I could usually get him to stop at a panaderia on 19th St. to pick up some pandulce.
Kokomo, Indiana. It’s nothing but a series of unending lights. The only redeeming aspect of driving through is that at the end (provided you’re going north) you get to drive past the Koko-Motel (or is it Kokomo Motel?). Anyway, best hotel name in existence.
Driving south is even worse, since you blow your load immediately upon arriving.
The main drag of Manassas is Route 234/Sudley Road. It is absolutely crammed with strip malls, chain restaurants, big box stores, gas stations, check-cashing places, gun stores, fast food joints, K-marts, Wal-Marts, you name it. To go about 3-4 miles on this stretch of road on a Saturday it could take you 40 minutes or so to get to your destination due to horribly timed traffic lights, some of the most idiotic drivers I’ve ever encountered, and an odd number of pedestrians hauling ass across the 4-lane highway. I’ve even seen some pushing baby strollers while running then trying to lift it over the median to run across the other 4 lanes.
It’s the kind of place where it wouldn’t be weird to see the shopping mall Santa Claus wearing a NASCAR hat.
Tucson Arizona is no fun to drive through with it’s million miles of construction. Taking side streets won’t help because if there’s no construction, there should be. Also, not nearly enough major arteries for a town that size, just piddly little tracks interrupted by sooo many stoplights and signs. Be careful at night because they have very low watt street lights (to better see the stars) and if you’re not familiar with the town you’ll not be able to read, even the big street names, in time.
May I mention that San Francisco is kinda scary and hard on the clutch?
St. Stephen, NB (Canada) - the border town next to Calais, Maine. Cars parallel parked on both sides of the street, crowded in - and I don’t think there’s anybody there who looks both ways before they cross the street - they just walk out. I think they live by the saying: “They’ve got brakes! I have the right of way!” Yeah. My father used to tell me that would be written on a lot of tombstones. “I had the right of way.”
Bunch of lousy jaywalkers. I can understand jaywalking if it’s reasonable, but sheesh. Traffic slows and speeds up according to who jammed on their brakes to avoid hitting yet another blissfully unaware pedestrian. Even the most weathered stick-drivers come out of there visibly shaken (and the nervous stick-drivers never return!)
Carrboro and Chapel Hill, NC. Streets that were made in the horse and buggy days, and apparently after the invention of the automobile, the street planners thought nothing of continuing on in that pattern. It’s very confusing to drive in either of these two towns with the way the streets change names and meander off here and there. Carrboro just makes me grind my teeth. It’s way over capacity, always packed with cars and there are stop lights every block. Good thing you don’t have to drive through that town to get to anywhere else. This area also has an affection for certain numbers - either that or we just aren’t trusted with more than a few. We have Route 86, which starts off in Chapel Hill as S. Columbia Street and then becomes Airport Road before just taking on the route name, and Old Route 86, which becomes Churton St. for awhile and then goes back to Old Route 86 farther north. These roads are a few miles apart and run roughly parallel to each other for about 20 miles. Try explaining that when you give directions, especially that now the decision has been made to change the Airport Road section to Martin Luther King Drive/Historic Airport Road.
We also have 70 Bypass and 70 Business (which splits off and then rejoins 70 Bypass, so it can then become Hillsborough Rd. while 70 Bypass splits off from there and shares the road with I-85 for awhile, before becoming an exit that goes east through Raleigh and takes on the name Glenwood Road).
I won’t even go into the Inner Beltway/Outer Beltway mess in Raleigh - they’re both I-440.
