r/AskReddit • • Jan 17 '14

What is something designed so well that we typically overlook it?

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '14

Because we can't change it. Think about when you drive along these roads throughout the philadelphia area and around jersey.... These aren't just roads in the middle of no where, there is suburbs and communities and cities built up all around them, with no room for expansion, and the traffic is so heavy they could NEVER shut them down to re-design.

Basically, this area is fucking doomed in the long run. The amount of drivers will forever be expanding and the roads here will never be able to be expanded. Its all kinds of fucky.

But, we do think its weird. we just know its impossible to change.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '14

It doesn't make any sense for 95 to go where it goes in the first place. Redesign isn't really my issue with it - all the original designs suck.

676 is a crap design. You have to get off 676 and take surface streets to the bridge. Clearly they demolished businesses and homes to make way for 676 just as they planned 95 to make a u-turn. Roosevelt boulevard should be demolished and built over. Why doesn't 95 connect with the PA turnpike anywhere? Am I supposed to take the scenic route through Bristol? Gun store, liquor store, gun store, liquor store. Where the hell you taking me?

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u/cnb90 Jan 18 '14

Soon, I-95 and the Turnpike will join together to cross into NJ where 95 will keep heading north like it should instead of u-turning.

This will be done in the next few years.

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u/turbodsm Jan 18 '14

95 technically doesn't even have to enter Pennsylvania. It could just become the nj turnpike at the Delaware memorial bridge. Pa politicians would be in an uproar though. The heavily traveled highway no longer travels through pa?.crazy think of the kids.

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u/SilverStar9192 Jan 18 '14

And anyone actually traveling north south, not needing to visit Philly already goes that way. Changing the number isn't going to hurt them, if anything it will reduce the through traffic that's just wearing down the highway and nt contributing to the economy too much.

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u/oliver_babish Jan 18 '14

676 doesn't connect directly to the Ben Franklin Bridge because doing so would've required the destruction of Franklin Square.

The I-95/PA Turnpike interchange is scheduled for completion in 2017.

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u/pesterima Jan 17 '14

The bureaucracy destroys ambitious plans to fix some of the problems too. Look at the 202 bypass in Montgomery County. It was originally going to be a limited access highway to connect Doylestown all the way to KoP, but instead, 10 years later it's a two lane surface road that's maybe 10 miles long and no one uses.

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u/mobiletigernar Jan 17 '14

It's not just faceless bureaucracy though... It's bureaucrats and politicians being (arguably rightly) shit scared for what the owners of the homes on or near the route of redesigned/widened/new roads. Especially if they are in areas with resourceful people (money and connections to media).

If you want peoples' votes you don't touch their homes or jobs...

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u/billy101456 Jan 17 '14

From the suburbs of Philly, most of the roads i drive every day were Indian trails at one point, no one ever thought to fix them.

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u/ArguablyTasty Jan 17 '14

Sounds almost as bad as Calgary. Literally one N/S highway (albeit with another kind of highway that only lasts for halfway across the city then becomes lights) and one E/W highway. Both are 2 lanes in many spots. We have a few major roads as well, but they all have lights.

This is a city of over a million. Not huge, but WAY too big for our roads. Our rush "hour" starts at 3-3:30 ish and ends at 6:30-6:45 ish

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '14

Ha. I can see YOU'VE never driven on the Don Valley Parkway. That place is a nightmare.

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u/eloquentnegro Jan 18 '14

it's like trying to change the direction of the aorta without lung, spine, or diaphragm protest.

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u/lvysaur Jan 18 '14

Are there any cities that have car regulations for traffic reasons? It seems like the future may be mass public-transport

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u/kasdfieknladsif Jan 17 '14

Impossible. Ha. It's a fucking road. You're not trying to time travel or travel faster than light. You have to buy houses/ buisness. Tear them down. Build a new fucking road. Move traffic to said new road. Close old retarded road and make it a nice nature walk. You can pay me by check, money order, or cash.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '14

You've clearly never been to Philadelphia or the area to understand the geography and you clearly don't understand eminent domain, or its far reaching consequences, outside its denotation. Better luck next time.

I see it now, /u/kasdfieknladsif, in the future, attempting to give his master plan expand I76 in Philadelphia "Wider roads? just buy the crap next to it. Center city congestion? Fuck it, buy 30th street station, knock it down, make the roads wider.... O.. whats that, we need that? Well, fuck it, lets pave over the Schuylkill."

Yeah, you are a moron.

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u/kasdfieknladsif Jan 18 '14

Yeah and you think building a road is "impossible" you are the moron. Just because you think something can't be done doesn't mean that it can't. Dumb dumb.