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No offence, and I can see that you've been downvoted but how do you actually propose solving this "unnavigable" problem? By bulldozing existing property that is

No offence, and I can see that you've been downvoted but how do you actually propose solving this "unnavigable" problem? By bulldozing existing property that is owned by multitudes of private landowners and building new roads or something else?? Honestly, what's your solution?

VBprogrammer 7y ago
I doubt there is a good solution to the problem in general but having ridden a motorcycle aimlessly around central London on my own little sight-seeing trips I can certainly get on board with the idea that London has been designed to be minimally navigable without knowing exactly where you are going (or having a GPS which does the same). This is at least partially due to one way streets, turning restrictions, traffic restrictions (bus / cycle only routes), no entries etc.
- 72deluxe 7y ago
  It's the same for most cities and even towns, I'd imagine, eg. Sheffield (baffling one-way system to visitors), Birmingham (one way streets, central road by New Street actually leads to an underground car park if you're not a bus), Coventry (roads that go nowhere in the city centre, bus lanes that appear and then disappear after only a few hundred metres, cut across roundabouts etc). Try Redditch with its unnavigable ring road system - how do you actually get to the Vue cinema in the central shopping centre, even with a GPS??? Even towns with a grid layout (eg. Leamington) have no right or left turns across the grid so you have to follow a certain route around the town. I think it's just symptomatic of hundreds of years of town growth.
- UncleEntity 7y ago
  Probably because its been "designed" over a couple thousand years and they don't have cars for the majority of that.
  - VBprogrammer 7y ago
    I doubt many donkey and cart owners encountered the no right turn onto Piccadilly! All of the things I mentioned are very much 20th century additions.
jotm 7y ago
If this was a real thing, I'd say building bridges/roads above the city would be the only viable (yet extremely difficult) solution. Maybe underground in some places. Would look pretty dystopian probably
- 72deluxe 7y ago
  Underground is not possible there due to the amount of underground infrastructure dating back hundreds of years. Look at the upheaval at adding a new tube station and the cost and mayhem that caused (can't remember where the last station added was but I seem to recall a new one on the Central Line last time I was in London a long long long time ago).
  - Reason077 7y ago
    Underground road tunnels are certainly possible. London's clay is over 400 feet (120m) deep (deeper as you go east, shallower as you go west) leaving plenty of easily-tunneled space if you go below most of the existing infrastructure. There is currently a "super sewer" tunnelling project (Thames Tideway Tunnel) which goes down to a depth of about 75m, below other infrastructure. The Elizabeth line and other tube lines are shallower, for access reasons and because building stations at a great depth is more expensive. But a road tunnel could go deeper, especially if it only permitted zero-emissions vehicles so that ventilation is easier. Of course, it'd all be very expensive. And there is an argument that building more road relief capacity is not a desirable thing as it just encourages traffic elsewhere.
- zhte415 7y ago
  This was tried with varying levels of success over the past 150 years and is known as the tube.
  - jotm 7y ago
    Ah yeah, the sky tube. Funny how you all focused on the "maybe underground" part.
BurningFrog 7y ago
I don't have a solution. I don't even live in London. I do think that if the city tried to make navigation more user friendly, a few simple ideas could improve things. I suspect no such effort has ever been made. I know this is very hard even in companies that live or die by their their products being user friendly, so for a city that don't have those incentives, it probably will never happen. Not sure how bulldozing would help. It doesn't seem like a charitable interpretation of my post :)
- fanf2 7y ago
  Making navigation more user friendly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map
- 72deluxe 7y ago
  I know they have tried signs to help drivers but having driven there, sometimes you have about 6 signs on one post and 6 on another pointing the opposite direction, and at 40mph (which nobody around you does - they're all in a rush or seem to be living in a high-speed time warp with a distortion of how long a second is...) it is nigh-on impossible to read all of the signs and make a sensible decision without changing lanes at the last minute to the anger of your fellow drivers and peril of your own life and safety. If they introduced one-way systems to reduce the number of signs in a given area, it'd still lead to having to have "knowledge" to know about the one-way system and how to get on/off it at the appopriate place so that wouldn't be an improvement. If they reduced signs, it'd require knowledge of the area. If they added more signs to help make it more navigable, it'd be impossible to read at speed (like it currently is). There is honestly no solution. At some point you will have to actually learn something of the locality. We wouldn't apply the same logic to writing software - "people shouldn't have to learn a programming language! It's not fair!" - no we have to have knowledge of the machine we are writing for and an understanding of the language we are using. And I say this having driven there before GPS and driving into the (new at the time) congestion zone accidentally and getting a fine.

VBprogrammer 7y ago

I doubt there is a good solution to the problem in general but having ridden a motorcycle aimlessly around central London on my own little sight-seeing trips I can certainly get on board with the idea that London has been designed to be minimally navigable without knowing exactly where you are going (or having a GPS which does the same). This is at least partially due to one way streets, turning restrictions, traffic restrictions (bus / cycle only routes), no entries etc.

72deluxe 7y ago
It's the same for most cities and even towns, I'd imagine, eg. Sheffield (baffling one-way system to visitors), Birmingham (one way streets, central road by New Street actually leads to an underground car park if you're not a bus), Coventry (roads that go nowhere in the city centre, bus lanes that appear and then disappear after only a few hundred metres, cut across roundabouts etc). Try Redditch with its unnavigable ring road system - how do you actually get to the Vue cinema in the central shopping centre, even with a GPS??? Even towns with a grid layout (eg. Leamington) have no right or left turns across the grid so you have to follow a certain route around the town. I think it's just symptomatic of hundreds of years of town growth.
UncleEntity 7y ago
Probably because its been "designed" over a couple thousand years and they don't have cars for the majority of that.
- VBprogrammer 7y ago
  I doubt many donkey and cart owners encountered the no right turn onto Piccadilly! All of the things I mentioned are very much 20th century additions.

jotm 7y ago

If this was a real thing, I'd say building bridges/roads above the city would be the only viable (yet extremely difficult) solution. Maybe underground in some places. Would look pretty dystopian probably

72deluxe 7y ago
Underground is not possible there due to the amount of underground infrastructure dating back hundreds of years. Look at the upheaval at adding a new tube station and the cost and mayhem that caused (can't remember where the last station added was but I seem to recall a new one on the Central Line last time I was in London a long long long time ago).
- Reason077 7y ago
  Underground road tunnels are certainly possible. London's clay is over 400 feet (120m) deep (deeper as you go east, shallower as you go west) leaving plenty of easily-tunneled space if you go below most of the existing infrastructure. There is currently a "super sewer" tunnelling project (Thames Tideway Tunnel) which goes down to a depth of about 75m, below other infrastructure. The Elizabeth line and other tube lines are shallower, for access reasons and because building stations at a great depth is more expensive. But a road tunnel could go deeper, especially if it only permitted zero-emissions vehicles so that ventilation is easier. Of course, it'd all be very expensive. And there is an argument that building more road relief capacity is not a desirable thing as it just encourages traffic elsewhere.
zhte415 7y ago
This was tried with varying levels of success over the past 150 years and is known as the tube.
- jotm 7y ago
  Ah yeah, the sky tube. Funny how you all focused on the "maybe underground" part.

BurningFrog 7y ago

I don't have a solution. I don't even live in London. I do think that if the city tried to make navigation more user friendly, a few simple ideas could improve things. I suspect no such effort has ever been made. I know this is very hard even in companies that live or die by their their products being user friendly, so for a city that don't have those incentives, it probably will never happen. Not sure how bulldozing would help. It doesn't seem like a charitable interpretation of my post :)

fanf2 7y ago
Making navigation more user friendly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map
72deluxe 7y ago
I know they have tried signs to help drivers but having driven there, sometimes you have about 6 signs on one post and 6 on another pointing the opposite direction, and at 40mph (which nobody around you does - they're all in a rush or seem to be living in a high-speed time warp with a distortion of how long a second is...) it is nigh-on impossible to read all of the signs and make a sensible decision without changing lanes at the last minute to the anger of your fellow drivers and peril of your own life and safety. If they introduced one-way systems to reduce the number of signs in a given area, it'd still lead to having to have "knowledge" to know about the one-way system and how to get on/off it at the appopriate place so that wouldn't be an improvement. If they reduced signs, it'd require knowledge of the area. If they added more signs to help make it more navigable, it'd be impossible to read at speed (like it currently is). There is honestly no solution. At some point you will have to actually learn something of the locality. We wouldn't apply the same logic to writing software - "people shouldn't have to learn a programming language! It's not fair!" - no we have to have knowledge of the machine we are writing for and an understanding of the language we are using. And I say this having driven there before GPS and driving into the (new at the time) congestion zone accidentally and getting a fine.