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Good to finally see some hexagons put to use in city planning. The more-area-per-perimeter effect is a great template for a future where automobiles are less co

Good to finally see some hexagons put to use in city planning. The more-area-per-perimeter effect is a great template for a future where automobiles are less common and there are more people. Plus they just look cool.

nashashmi 10y ago
This is the first time I have come across hexagonal city planning. A search on Google reveals this is a well established and researched principle, but I have not really found any actual cities planned this way. I am just thinking about the the intersections of hexagonal systems. In locations where you have 4 roads intersecting, the roads are not 90 degrees. This is not ideal in intersection design. Second, at locations where you have these diagonal streets coming together, it seems like traffic bottleneck/nightmare. Currently existing intersections like this have been now simplified into roundabouts or simpler 3-way intersections. I am going to continue pondering on this subject, but these are my immediate thoughts.
- hasbroslasher 10y ago
  I think hexagonal cities are going to require different traffic patterns. I think it would make the most sense to have cars drive in "circles" around the hexagons, and then having the left (outermost) lane available for left turning onto another hexagon. That way, it's really easy to do U-turns (just drive, uninhibited, around the hexagon) and you could build highways at varying distances that act as loops (like major metro areas already have). This sounds like an interesting problem to model computationally! I wonder what the optimal hexagon:car size ratio is? (essentially how many times longer should the side of a block be than a car) Granted, I think that it's going to become necessary at some point to have cars and pedestrians operating on different "floors" - in major metro areas, pedestrians are already massive cluster fuckers and getting around downtown SF or NY is incredibly inefficient in an automobile (at least during the day).

nashashmi 10y ago

This is the first time I have come across hexagonal city planning. A search on Google reveals this is a well established and researched principle, but I have not really found any actual cities planned this way. I am just thinking about the the intersections of hexagonal systems. In locations where you have 4 roads intersecting, the roads are not 90 degrees. This is not ideal in intersection design. Second, at locations where you have these diagonal streets coming together, it seems like traffic bottleneck/nightmare. Currently existing intersections like this have been now simplified into roundabouts or simpler 3-way intersections. I am going to continue pondering on this subject, but these are my immediate thoughts.

hasbroslasher 10y ago
I think hexagonal cities are going to require different traffic patterns. I think it would make the most sense to have cars drive in "circles" around the hexagons, and then having the left (outermost) lane available for left turning onto another hexagon. That way, it's really easy to do U-turns (just drive, uninhibited, around the hexagon) and you could build highways at varying distances that act as loops (like major metro areas already have). This sounds like an interesting problem to model computationally! I wonder what the optimal hexagon:car size ratio is? (essentially how many times longer should the side of a block be than a car) Granted, I think that it's going to become necessary at some point to have cars and pedestrians operating on different "floors" - in major metro areas, pedestrians are already massive cluster fuckers and getting around downtown SF or NY is incredibly inefficient in an automobile (at least during the day).