> In London cab drivers have to spend up to four years learning the street network before they can get around without a map. Chicago or New York taxi drivers ca

> In London cab drivers have to spend up to four years learning the street network before they can get around without a map. Chicago or New York taxi drivers can achieve much the same thing in a day. This is such a patently false assertion that it goes well beyond hyperbole. Roads meeting at right angles doesn't mean you magically know how to get to destinations unless the road naming also follows a logical progression. Midtown Manhattan is an example, but that's only a part of New York City, and you still have to worry about things like Central Park and streets that don't span the entire island. It'll still take a cabbie a long time to figure out things like where the corner of Cermak and Bell in Chicago or Willoughby and Marcy are in New York. In fact, they'll learn in the same way I suspect most people do, which is to become familiar with major roads in an area, how they connect, and they learn destinations relative to that.