I was fascinated by this video of driving around Los Angeles in the 1950’s and ’60’s. I’ve only been to Los Angeles a couple of times, so the landmarks mean nothing to me, but the uncrowded roads are a shocking reminder of how much traffic has changed.
How bad is traffic/congestion where you are?
October 11, 2019
I’ve never been to Los Angeles but I imagine the traffic is much heavier now. I enjoyed the song in the video. I haven’t heard that one in a long time.
My sister lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and says the traffic is horrible now. We thought it was bad the last time we were there and apparently it has gotten a lot worse.
traffic not great in Auckland (NZ) city either…just today
I was at cross walk lights on corner of Grafton and K’Rd (Karanghape) roads, and the traffic coming up, through, or around – had to diverge into one lane because the 2nd lane is blocked with cones and workmen (in fact the foot path is blocked]. I was waiting, when we got the green man to cross and 2 cars thought they should try to cut us off! so 2 cars on the intersection instead of gliding off along K’Rd…
neither car should’ve have even been there, as they would’ve been able to see – plenty of signage showing the driver!
there are huge delays when there is a traffic accident on a main arterial road, which often will be miles away traffic wise…sometimes creating especially in the late arvo/evening a grid lock which can really be bad…again miles away.
a lot of holdups are because of construction – there is a building boom of sorts in Auckland, in an attempt to fix a couple of things including the “homeless” and “creating warm/dry homes” ….sometimes they close roads which doesn’t help.
That sounds like a real mess. We’re still lucky about traffic, but businesses are trying to get more tourism and say there will be a lot more congestion. That bothers us more than it does them. 😀
Oh, I so enjoyed that video….enjoyed seeing the old cars. I was in LA a few years ago…and traffic was horrible. Right here where I am there is nothing bad, but over at Indy at certain times it is thick.
I felt the same way about the old cars. It brought back a lot of memories. 🙂
Indy=Indianapolis
those must have been the golden days! busy but not oppressed by hordes of traffic and people. I enjoyed that clip very much! I’ve never been there.
and now southern California is burning.
our town this weekend is quiet. they’ve all gone to Texas for the Red River competition. OU/TX football.
traffic here is like everywhere else of any size. it’s just a fact of life.
another pointer to the over population problem I guess. it just got out of hand when nobody was looking!
The sad thing is it will get even worse. It is what it is.
I’d never thought about tourism as increasing road congestion but of course that makes sense – so many tourists rent cars or travel on tour buses, that must add to the traffic. Belfast is said to have some of the most congested roads in the UK but I don’t agree. Some roads are always congested but the others are mostly free-flowing. And a lot more people are using park and ride facilities.
It’s good that the congestion isn’t everywhere, and that people use the park and ride. It helps a lot.
Park and Ride, doesn’t work terribly well here…Albany bus station is a good example – the “parking” area was suddenly not big enough, people were parking illegally – so I think they expanded it and decided on more connecting shuttles, but still it hasn’t really worked
Avondale train station was revamped, an area nearby was to be Park/Ride but it still full of rail materials, piles on concrete/fill and no “park”
New Lynn has a Park…but it’s one like a “pay to park” and it’s in a very unlit area, after shops around it close…no one wants to “pay to park”…