[TAG] Re: Re: England was nice

[Heather Stern]

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 10:53:08AM +0100, Martin J Hooper wrote:
> Rick Moen wrote:
> >Here's the roundabout at the bottom, looking at right angles to the
> >Marin Street ascent:
> >http://www.berkeleyheritage.com/berkeley_landmarks/images/Marin_Circle_fountain1.jpg
> 
> Good grief you've got roundabouts in America... ;) :)
> 
> I always thought that roads in American cities always were parallel to 
> each other and the corners were always at right angles to each other - 
> Sorta like a grid...
> 
> All the maps Ive seen on Google Maps for eg has those sorta roads...

Sometimes it's planned.  And sometimes a bowl of spaghetti is dropped there.
Sometimes, they bothered to cook it first, and the result is even more
interesting...

Occarionally I have seen pieces where a grid was obviously intended, then a
blockage happened, and they just dealt with it.  Airport frontages, curvy
mountain roads so we don't need to teach cars to fly, etc.  The "obvious"
part is only from the air or the google-maps vantage, though - the macrame 
cords we end up driving around in don't feel all that organized.

I gave a cheerful description of getting directions from local sorts in semi
rural to completely rural areas and made my English friends laugh: "My god,
you've been here all your life!"

-* Heather Stern * star at starshine.org * The Answer Gang's Editor Gal *-
   The Linux Gazette (http://www.linuxgazette.net/) is under the LDP