Quote:
Originally Posted by atlantaguy
All very valid points.
The thing is, traffic sucks in every major metro from Coast to Coast. Some of the older/colder places do have public transit options that the large Sunbelt metro's can't match, but not for everyone.
In Seattle for instance, the choices are pretty much limited to a bus at this point in time for the large majority of commuters. I laud them for embracing and utilizing public transit, but Seattle is an outlier when it comes to this. With a couple of exceptions, choice riders reject this option in most large metro's across the country.
|
Another advantage the older/colder places tend to have is a street grid. Boston is an outlier in that respect, but even Boston functions better with its dense development patterns than does a place like Charlotte or Atlanta, where the roads, like those of Boston, are basically paved historic cow paths. It's even worse in multi-nodal urban areas like the Triangle, Hampton Roads, and Greenville-Spartanburg, where you have multiple clumps of paved cow paths or, in the case of Hampton Roads, cow paths
and all sorts of bays and rivers to add that extra-special touch of mayhem to any attempt at a comprehensive urban area.
What it comes down to is the fact that older/colder cities had the good fortune to develop at a time when dense development was coupled with an intelligent transportation plan. Newer/warmer cities either developed late and ended up with cow paths, or else those that were smart enough to build a grid still ended up too sprawled to make utmost use of it. Then again, I've never been to Houston, Miami, Los Angeles, or Phoenix, so I wouldn't have personal knowledge of how they use their grids, or how much of each urban area is grid versus cow paths. I just know what I read and see on here.