[jd3189]

Instead of freeway loops downtown, it would be interesting if we went the way of most European cities ( and Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) and just had peripheral highways outside the downtown and core urban neighborhoods that feed into the city via large boulevards, arterials, and parkways.

After all, the fact that crossing through the heart of a major city to get to the other side often involves dealing with heavy traffic tells me that people would prefer avoiding the city center if it's not the destination. And if the city center is the destination, drivers could still get there via arterials radiating from the perimeter highway.

For example, the Downtown connector that passes through Atlanta's core often has the worst traffic in the US. I've been through that shit so many times that the only thing I like about it are the views of the skyline. The Perimeter highway in Atlanta allows drivers on their way to Macon, Augusta, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Savannah, etc to avoid downtown. Yeah, the downtown connector/I-20 theoretically would be the fastest way to get through Atlanta. In real life, it's far from it.