I’m currently enjoying a few days away in York, which was a late birthday present for the other half. What should have been a stress free experience of a little road trip however quickly degenerated into a tumult of arguments. What was this all over, you say? Simply put it was down to the road layout of the historic city of York.
Whilst the place is absolutely lovely, with plenty of charm and character, the road system is an absolute nightmare. Having always stayed on the outskirts rather than the city itself I never faced this problem. However, on arriving and being entrapped by the many one way roads, we found ourselves at one point missing a significant right hand turn. This prompted the sat nav to inform us that the hotel was now over one mile away. It had previously been the much shorter less than 1/3 of a mile distance had we managed to take the turn.
In short – poorly designed road systems are the bane of us all. They increase pollution, congestion and driver frustration. They decrease efficiency of the road network. I’m sure there are many reasons that the city/town planners can give me for the layout, but we found it a huge frustration. Hopefully the rest of the trip will be far more peaceful than the one-way-hell start!
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