One of the things I like about living in a “young” city like San Antonio is that the streets are planned on a grid. Boston streets are not! One of our tour guides said that the reason for this is that they just paved over cattle trails and foot paths from years ago. If it was good enough for the cows, then by golly, it was good enough for cars!
Thank goodness for GPSs! (Global Positioning Systems)
As I mentioned in my previous entry, my daughter rented a “Zip Car” two different days. YOW!!! You cannot imagine how many times the GPS’s “woman” had to say “Recalculating” for us! I counted at least three times when a one-way street simply stopped and became another street (with a different name) going the opposite one-way direction. Good grief! And for two directionally-deficient gals, this caused a lot of… frustration (and laughter!)
Another difference I noticed between Boston/Cambridge roads and San Antonio’s >>> Apparently they lack white paint out there to delineate lanes. I noticed (many times!) where two lanes became one lane and then it went back to two lanes… with absolutely no notice!
My San Antonio taxes are also going for such “niceties” as protected left turn lights. But I guess that they don’t really need those protected left turn lights in the left lanes because drivers wouldn’t know if there was a left lane for the left-turn-only arrow >>> since they seem to lack the white painted lines.
I don’t know how they do it! No wonder most people rely on the public transit system! I know I would!!!
Maria BearMountainBooks says
They had white lines in Rome, but they seemed to be “suggestions” only. Cars went right down the middle if they could, motorcycles and scooters slid between cars, everyone zig-zagged wherever they pleased. White lines? Whatever for????
Stephanie says
In response to Maria, one thing I noticed by driving in the LA/Pasadena area in California is that motorcyclists never seemed to believe that the white lines were meant for them. Yeah, the cars obeyed the lines, but if you were on a motorcycle, there was no need to do so during times of high traffic.
I can’t say I blame motorcyclists – it would get awfully uncomfortable balancing on one of those things for an hour during rush hour when you’re just trying to travel five miles!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Maria, I have been following your blog… Your trip to Italia sounds like it was way tooooo much fun!
Sonia says
Well, as a Bostonian who has temporarily relocated to China, let me tell you, I LOVE my Boston streets and traffic! Boston isn’t bad once you’re used to it. The crazy streets are a part of its charm anyways. As for the public transit system…no thank you! The MBTA is going bankrupt…if you actually look at the stats, driving (or walking) is quite a bit safer than anything on the MBTA