WORST parking lots to enter/exit

[webny99]

Exiting the Taco Bell in Webster, NY to access Hard Rd NB and NY 104 is obtusely annoying. The main restaurant exit is about 100 feet from Hard Rd, but left turns onto Hard Rd are banned (understandably given the current intersection setup, but it actually needs to be signalized). The only legal way to make that movement requires four left turns as shown here, or a right, three lefts, and another right, as shown here. Unsurprisingly, this is enough of an inconvenience that people ignore the left turn restriction all the time. This also applies to the adjacent Dairy Queen and Fairfield Inn, but their traffic is primarily exiting via the rear exits onto the street that connects to the main BJ's exit roadway, so they generally only have to make two left turns.

Either way, whoever designed this did not think it through. What other parking lots/stores are highly annoying to enter/exit?

[hotdogPi]

Exiting the Staples in North Andover MA requires going through an adjacent lot first. This one isn't badly designed, though; it forces everyone out at the traffic light to avoid tricky left turns.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.677509,-71.1319889,3a,75y,312.39h,92.91t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1spedG4yApnNV52TbgBliVsA!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DpedG4yApnNV52TbgBliVsA%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D198.43275%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

[webny99]

Exiting the Staples in North Andover MA requires going through an adjacent lot first. This one isn't badly designed, though; it forces everyone out at the traffic light to avoid tricky left turns.

[link snipped]

Is the exit to MA 114 on the right supposed to be one-way (enter only)? If so, it's very poorly signed, and seems wide enough for two cars, so I would not have known.

[VTGoose]

Exiting any parking lot where the landscape designer thought that thick bushes and lots of plants is appropriate. Don't know why they hate drivers, but obstructing the view of oncoming traffic seems to to be their goal -- any many succeed at it.

[doorknob60]

I hate getting out of the Albertsons Market Street (or other businesses in that complex, but the Albertsons is smack dab in the middle making it probably the most annoying) in Meridian, ID, particularly going onto Eagle Rd southbound.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Albertsons+Market+Street,+3499+E+Fairview+Ave,+Meridian,+ID+83642/43.6116188,-116.3547534/@43.6165046,-116.3536923,16.84z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x54ae55453c1a2e0d:0x54e7684e3ce06d95!2m2!1d-116.351204!2d43.617692!1m0!3e0?entry=ttu

Your options:

1. Turn right onto super busy Eagle Rd at a stop sign, then get all the way to the left and take a U-turn at the Fairview light. This is probably the fastest way but I don't like the right turn there (and sometimes the stop sign gets way backed up).

2. Slowly make your way through the mass of parking lots all the way down to Pine Ave (next to Mister Car Wash), then turn left onto Eagle at the light. This is what I often do but it feels like it takes an eternity.

3. Turn right onto busy Fairview Ave at a stop sign, then take a U-turn at Records, then a left turn at Eagle. You gotta wait for 2 sometimes lengthy lights, and the right turn can be tricky (though not as bad as onto Eagle).

4. Go through the parking lots and exit at Records, then turn left on Fairview and left on Eagle. Similar to option 3.

Oh and did I mention, the Eagle/Fairview light is the busiest intersection in the state?

I try to just work it in my plans to not go southbound out of here, but it doesn't always work out. Sometimes I'll just turn right on Fairview and take that back to Boise rather than doing the above to get to I-84. When I lived near Overland/Eagle, I would sometimes go all the way over to Cloverdale then back west on Overland, which could still work out faster despite going a mile in the wrong direction.

Getting out of the shopping center a mile to the north where Trader Joes is used to be similarly bad. But that was before they extended Records Ave, so now you can turn right onto Records, right onto River Valley, and left onto Eagle which is easy.

[1995hoo]

In terms of exiting (entering is easy), I detest Kingstowne Town Center here in Fairfax County, specifically the lower portion where there is a Giant Food, a vet's office, a Chick-Fil-A, and various other businesses. Here's a map link. There are two primary exits. The one at the top of the map is a pain because you can only turn right and it's too close to the traffic light you immediately hit, meaning if you want to turn right out of the shopping center and then turn left at the light, you frequently encounter what is seen in this May 2018 Street View. People who know what they're doing will, if traffic permits, cut left (technically illegal) and then hook around to join the end of the left-turn lines, but some people are timid and refuse to do that and hold everyone else up (unless you just go around them). The other primary exit is theoretically easier, but, like many shopping centers, incoming traffic doesn't stop, so in the late afternoon or on weekends you may be sitting at that stop sign for a long time trying to exit. Then there is a lesser-known third way to exit if you loop around behind the Giant Food store. That's the best of the three options, but it's also a bit dangerous. Why? That route is supposed to be one-way; there are "Do Not Enter" signs for traffic coming in the other direction. But the Papa John's drivers think the "Do Not Enter" signs don't apply to them and blow through it without exercising any caution as a shortcut to the back door to their location, so there's always the concern about the risk of being in a head-on collision if you use that route.

I also hate exiting the Home Depot on Frontier Drive in Springfield because there is a traffic light with no right-turn lane, so one person going left or straight backs it up. It takes long enough to get out via that light that I tend to park downstairs (to the right in this Street View) and use the exit and entrance from the next shopping center to the south.

[webny99]

...
I also hate exiting the Home Depot on Frontier Drive in Springfield because there is a traffic light with no right-turn lane, so one person going left or straight backs it up. It takes long enough to get out via that light that I tend to park downstairs (to the right in this Street View) and use the exit and entrance from the next shopping center to the south.

We could have another whole thread on poor lane configurations at plaza entrances/exits. This one is bizarre. Not only does anyone going straight hold up anyone turning right (while the middle lane, which might as well be exit only to 104 EB with how thru traffic avoids it like the plague, is often sitting there empty or with just a few cars), the through lane is very poorly aligned with the through lane on the other side of the intersection. There is zero reason why this should not be left turn only, left/thru, and right turn only.

Just one intersection to the north, the 104 EB service road at Holt Road is as bad or worse. Although it's not a plaza entrance, there should be at minimum four lanes here with a minimum of two lanes with a right turn option. It can back up for almost a mile during holiday shopping season.

[kiwislark]

Exiting the Taco Bell in Webster, NY to access Hard Rd NB and NY 104 is obtusely annoying. The main restaurant exit is about 100 feet from Hard Rd, but left turns onto Hard Rd are banned (understandably given the current intersection setup, but it actually needs to be signalized). The only legal way to make that movement requires four left turns as shown here, or a right, three lefts, and another right, as shown here. Unsurprisingly, this is enough of an inconvenience that people ignore the left turn restriction all the time.

In fact, there is a white SUV in the Google Street View doing just that and turning left onto Hard Road.

[CtrlAltDel]

I haven't quite been able to find it yet, but a while back someone took issue with how counterintuitive navigating can be in Texas, when there are parking lots that open onto frontage roads, and so on. When making a pit stop for gas on a road trip, for example, it's not always best, or possible, to essentially retrace your route to get back on the freeway, but rather to wend your way through the parking lot to get to an intersection with a perpendicular road.

[JoePCool14]

For Texas, it's basically a struggle anytime your driveway empties out close to an intersection on a feeder road on the upstream side. Difficult to not only get onto the feeder road, but doubly so if you're trying to turn around as well. I got to watch that when I was in the Dallas area earlier this year.

[Rothman]

Getting in and out of the Holyoke Mall in Massachusetts was a pain through the 1980s due to the intersection of Lower Westfield Road and Holyoke Street.  Traffic used to back up through there and you were stuck for quite a while, even on just a typical weekend, let alone the holidays.

Haven't been back there in decades, but just went on to GSV and saw that their big sign for the multiplex at the mall is no longer there.  Used to be impressed with the number of available screens down there (until I saw what is now the Cinemark West Springfield 15, which I believe used to have a satellite building with even more screens when it was a former...Showcase Cinema or something like that)...