Largest area with the nicest surface streets

[blawp]

I'd wager to say that Southern Orange County has some of the nicest surface streets in the United States. Just about every road is signed at least 50 MPH, and most roads are 6 lanes or wider. There are dual left turn lanes at almost every intersection. The engineering is phenomenal.

Does any other area of the country even come close? There are just so many beautiful surface streets in Southern Orange County.

[NE2]

Phoenix is so much better.

[Brandon]

I'd wager to say that Southern Orange County has some of the nicest surface streets in the United States. Just about every road is signed at least 50 MPH, and most roads are 6 lanes or wider. There are dual left turn lanes at almost every intersection. The engineering is phenomenal.

Does any other area of the country even come close? There are just so many beautiful surface streets in Southern Orange County.

Chicago has a great grid for getting around, and many of the streets are tree-lined with real trees, not those palm things.

[Takumi]

Phoenix is so much better.

Nah, Houston is totally the best

[mukade]

One thing I will say is that southern California HAD the best streets and roads in the 1970s and 1980s. They were amazing. When I was on a project in So Cal from 2007 to 2010, I was surprised how things had deteriorated so much. Poor, ugly (and non-standard) signage (esp on freeways), poor pavement quality in quite a few places, and lack of modern design on many freeways amazed me.

Most states have improved over the years, but California seems to have gone downhill - at least in the areas where I was. Maybe it is the fiscal irresponsiblity of politicians there. Personally, when I see states outside the cold snowy areas of the country with anything but great roads, I am amazed. States in the Midwest and Northeast have to spend tons of money just to keep roads drivable, and some areas up there are better than California in some ways.

Of the areas where I have visited, I would say Dallas-Forth Worth area has the best roads: wide roads, good freeway signage (although I hate Clearview), generally smooth surfaces, modern design.

[Revive 755]

Chicago has a great grid for getting around, and many of the streets are tree-lined with real trees, not those palm things.

Chicago may have a nice grid, but the lousy signal coordination makes the street system as useful as the Circle interchange.

[bulkyorled]

Phoenix is so much better.

You really don't like California at all do you.
Actually you don't seem to like anyone, probably because they don't like you back. 

[NE2]

I have nothing against California. It's blawp that I don't like.

[blawp]

One thing I will say is that southern California HAD the best streets and roads in the 1970s and 1980s. They were amazing. When I was on a project in So Cal from 2007 to 2010, I was surprised how things had deteriorated so much. Poor, ugly (and non-standard) signage (esp on freeways), poor pavement quality in quite a few places, and lack of modern design on many freeways amazed me.

Most states have improved over the years, but California seems to have gone downhill - at least in the areas where I was. Maybe it is the fiscal irresponsiblity of politicians there. Personally, when I see states outside the cold snowy areas of the country with anything but great roads, I am amazed. States in the Midwest and Northeast have to spend tons of money just to keep roads drivable, and some areas up there are better than California in some ways.

Of the areas where I have visited, I would say Dallas-Forth Worth area has the best roads: wide roads, good freeway signage (although I hate Clearview), generally smooth surfaces, modern design.

Care to cite any examples or are you going to malign an entire state because I-80 is rough in certain spots? The 710, 5, 101, 10, 210 and 60 freeways have all been repaired in the last couple of years through LA county. We still rank higher than all other border states in several quality of life categories. And we are still the only state to write STOP at every stop bar. And we paint our speed limits on the pavement.

[Scott5114]

The Kansas City area always seems easy to get around. They struck the right balance of freeways, major arterials, and minor collectors. Having a good set of minor collectors is important because if there's a problem on a major street you can more easily route around it using the minor streets. The streets are mostly in good condition and signage is typically top notch (Kansas signage in general is good, and while MoDOT isn't quite as good as KDOT is, it is still much better than, say, OK or NM).

[OCGuy81]

Thank you!  As an Orange County resident, I tend to agree.  Call it bias, but I do find the surface streets here laid out really nicely.  I WOULD like to see signals become synced better, but perhaps I just need to adjust my speed!

Phoenix has my vote for second.

[hobsini2]

Phoenix is so much better.

Nah, Houston is totally the best

Houston blows dead bears... Oh wait we are talking about the streets themselves and not the city/bad drivers/etc. ok that's fine.

[agentsteel53]

I'd wager to say that Southern Orange County has some of the nicest surface streets in the United States. Just about every road is signed at least 50 MPH, and most roads are 6 lanes or wider. There are dual left turn lanes at almost every intersection. The engineering is phenomenal.

Does any other area of the country even come close? There are just so many beautiful surface streets in Southern Orange County.

which is all well and good, but you're still in Orange County.

"oh look! another headquarters of a major bank!"

the nicest surface streets are in the Sierras 

[BigMattFromTexas]

Care to cite any examples or are you going to malign an entire state because I-80 is rough in certain spots? The 710, 5, 101, 10, 210 and 60 freeways have all been repaired in the last couple of years through LA county. We still rank higher than all other border states in several quality of life categories. And we are still the only state to write STOP at every stop bar. And we paint our speed limits on the pavement.

Bro.. Are you like "Mr. California? It's like you're trying to advertise for the state or something... Trust me. I prefer Texas over California any day..
But on topic, Phoenix is very good on their streets, as stated. Another good one is Des Moines. Good grid, easy city to get around in.
San Antonio isn't so much well planned, it's just an easy city to get around in as well.
Angelo is probably ranked among the worst.. Here's a quick little example of our transportation stupidity:
https://maps.google.com/?ll=31.450046,-100.456839&spn=0.012539,0.022724&hnear=Texas&t=h&z=16
BigMatt

[JREwing78]

One place that certainly WON'T qualify is Michigan. Take your pick of cities or counties - doesn't matter. They've been bearing the brunt of the defunding of their highway system over time, while MDOT scrambles to keep the state highways in presentable condition waiting for the state legislature to allow them to raise the gas tax.

How many states can boast counties turning primary county highways back to gravel? That's right. They couldn't afford to rebuild their decrepit paved roads; it was cheaper to turn then back to gravel than to patch them up.

[agentsteel53]

How many states can boast counties turning primary county highways back to gravel? That's right. They couldn't afford to rebuild their decrepit paved roads; it was cheaper to turn then back to gravel than to patch them up.

lots of places do this.  bypassed old alignments come to mind.  US-10 in North Dakota was once completely paved, and now is gravel in many sections, because it is used primarily for ranch access, while through traffic uses I-94.

nothing wrong with not overmaintaining a road.

[tradephoric]

Here is an example of a major intersection in Orange County at the intersection of Beach Blvd & Edinger Avenue:



The pedestrian interval required to cross the northern leg of this intersection comes to 57 seconds when using the new MUTCD standards.  If you assume equal splits for each thru direction then the required cycle length to satisfy the pedestrian intervals comes to 114 seconds.  Add an additional 20 seconds for each left-turn phase and you are north of 150 second cycles. 

With such long cycle lengths it can be very difficult to coordinate an arterial street network.  The arterial network surrounding the intersection of Beach Blvd & Edinger Avenue is made up of a very defined ½ mile by ½ mile grid network with traffic lights at the intersecting ½ mile road.  The perfect cycle length to achieve dual coordination for this grid network (assuming all streets have a 50 MPH) is 72 seconds.   This short of a cycle length along the arterial network is simply not possible when you need 114 seconds to fit the pedestrians.

[roadman65]

After being in California, I can say the Southern Part of the state has a nice surface street grid.  You can almost get back to the street you missed at the last freeway exit without getting back on the freeway.  One way or the other, either left or right, you will find a parallel boulevard where you can go back to the last crossroad real easy.  The grid is layed out pretty much in rectangles and even once going SB  on I-405, I missed the exit for Ventura Boulevard.  I got off at the next exit and even with the zig zagging streets of Sherman Oaks, I made it back to Ventura Boulevard real easy.

Then when going from Carson, CA to Knots Berry Farm, I was able to find my way on surface streets instead of using CA 22 and Beach Boulevard.  I did start out on CA 22, but needed to eat breakfast so I toured the park on a full stomach, and when I found a restaurant on a parallel street; I left there without returning to CA 22 and ended up at Beach Boulevard where I needed.

Try doing this in Florida where each subdivsion has its own street grid without connections to each other and the circular streets in some that make you loose yours sense of direction.

[agentsteel53]

LA's street grid is much, much nicer than San Diego's.  San Diego has never heard of a straight line, and there are way too few arterials. 

[tradephoric]

I have been interested in cities arterial street networks and how efficient (or inefficient) they are for some time.  Here is a post i made in another forum that relates to this subject....

What cities have the best and worst road networks to deal with traffic congestion?  So much focus is given to a cities freeway network when this question is asked but does a robust arterial network help alleviate the traffic congestion in a city? The chart below tries to account for the arterial streets within a city and what effect they may have on traffic congestion (the chart also includes current INRIX congestion rankings).

Methodology:  A 5-mile radius circle was drawn around the center of each of the 15 largest metro regions in America.  The total number of freeway lanes and major arterial lanes crossing into the city center were counted (little sub-streets crossing into the city weren't counted).  Each arterial lane was counted as half of a lane to give the total weighted number of lanes for each metro...for example LA has 157 arterial lanes and 47 freeway lanes entering into the 5-mile radius, total weighted lanes = (157/2) +47 =125.5.

The Metro population / Lanes entering downtown attempts to determine how much capacity each lane of traffic would need to carry if every single person living in the metro area was attempting to enter into the city center.  The cities with the lowest population / lane would potentially be the cities with the least traffic congestion.


A couple of observations:
Riverside has one of the highest population / lane ratio but has the best INRIX congestion ranking.  May be due to Riverside acting more of a suburb to LA then acting as a completely separate metro.

San Fransisco has the most limited access into its downtown core with only 36 arterial lanes and 14 freeway lanes crossing into the city.

Houston & Dallas both have a large number of freeway lanes entering into its downtown core.  Also surprised by the sheer number of large 6-lane roads and boulevards crossing into downtown.

Atlanta has the highest percentage of freeway lanes entering into the downtown core.  30% of the lanes crossing into the city are by freeway. Also, many of the 75 arterial lanes crossing into the city are 2-lane winding roads. 

Phoenix has the most rigid arterial street network with very defined mile by mile blocks.  Detroit also has a rigid network of arterial streets especially in the suburbs.  There are several major arterial roads that are wide, straight, and spoke out from downtown Detroit (Woodward is a straight shot connecting Downtown Detroit to Pontiac for instance). 

[agentsteel53]

Riverside is a larger metro area than San Diego?  I'm kinda blown away by that fact.  San Diego is a fairly important city, while Riverside is an indistinguishable blob of concrete jungle.

also, I believe the metric is flawed because a lot of Los Angeles traffic is not looking to enter or leave the area - they're just trying to get to a different point inside it.  the arterial grid of LA is set up quite well to allow for that, generally speaking.  there are a lot of arterials in LA.  sure, traffic is bad there, but it isn't terrible if you know what you're doing.

[NE2]

San Diego is hillier than the immediate LA area, innit?

[blawp]

San Diego is hillier than the immediate LA area, innit?

OC is hilly too.

[kphoger]

I'd wager to say that Southern Orange County has some of the nicest surface streets in the United States. Just about every road is signed at least 50 MPH, and most roads are 6 lanes or wider. There are dual left turn lanes at almost every intersection. The engineering is phenomenal.

Does any other area of the country even come close? There are just so many beautiful surface streets in Southern Orange County.

Chicago has a great grid for getting around, and many of the streets are tree-lined with real trees, not those palm things.

Chicago has a great grid, but I don't find its streets to be particularly nice in any way.  That is, nothing really stands out to me about them, except that you can drive a LONG way on them from point A to B with no reasonable expressway alternative.

[tradephoric]

Thank you!  As an Orange County resident, I tend to agree.  Call it bias, but I do find the surface streets here laid out really nicely.  I WOULD like to see signals become synced better, but perhaps I just need to adjust my speed!

Creating good dual coordination of traffic signals along Beach Blvd from the Pacific Coast to the 405 in Orange County is simply not possible due to the signal spacing and geometry of the intersections.  There are major intersections stopping both directions of travel every ½ mile along this 50 MPH arterial and have 130+ feet pedestrian crossings at the intersections.  These two facts make it impossible to provide good dual coordination along this road without violating the MUTCD standards.

Here's an example of a well designed 50 MPH arterial in Metro Detroit where good dual coordination is achieved.  This is as close to a perfectly designed arterial that I've ever driven (if the main metric is moving traffic as quickly as possible from point A to B):