(no subject)

[camwyn]

Dear Boston:

You are a wonderful city and I am enjoying working here a great deal. I could not ask for a better welcome. Thank you for that.

However.

Would it KILL your four hundred year old ass to PUT UP SOME STREET SIGNS? Christ Almighty, Boston, at any given intersection I come to I can count on there being maybe ONE sign on ONE corner indicating what the cross street is- and this being such an old town there's not even a guarantee that it's the same street name on the opposite side! I've seen more street signs in Newark and in Newark they steal the street signs to slow down pursuit by the cops!

I'm not asking for a grid or a change of the city layout. I"m just asking that you label your streets, or at least put up more and bigger landmarks. C'mon. Gimme a break here. I'll meet you halfway but only if I can find my way there.

Thank you.

Comments

[filkerdave]

If they told you what street you were on they'd have to kill you.

[camwyn]

I thought that was Camden.

[genarti]

Yyyyyyyyeah.

I think my favorite (well, 'favorite') is the part where often they'll label the small side streets, but not label the major artery. So you're lost, and you think "Oh, well, here's a big road! I'll figure out what it is, and orient myself that way!" And then you can't figure out what the major road is, until you happen to find a business that names itself after the road or puts its street address on the awning in fancy letters or something.

You do get used to it, and you come to take a certain pride in being able to navigate a system that's set up so that you can't navigate it unless you already know what you're doing. But that doesn't make it any less of a stupid system.

[camwyn]

That was my problem this weekend. I was trying to find my way from the REI store near the Fenway/Kenmore stop to an orange line T station- any orange line station, I just wanted a T line I could bring my bike on- and I was looking at a map on my phone. There were two very large streets in the immediate vicinity and one of them was the one I wanted, but the other wasn't. So of course the only street sign that I could find was for one of the dinky-ass side streets... frackin' useless.

[innerbrat]

Now I can only think of that comparative map of Boston and New York with the line: Boston: Because fuck you.

[camwyn]

Yep. I've got that saved on my home computer.

Boston may not be London but you have to spend several years gaining The Knowledge if you're gonna navigate, i think.

[innerbrat]

London was never that bad. I got lost a couple of times around Covent Garden and Leicester Square when I was in college, but a surprising amoount of the city is at least grid-system esque.

[camwyn]

Whereas Boston has people who'll tell you "No, really, if you go west on Newbury Street it's totally a grid! Sort of! The streets start being in alphabetical order! ... only there's this bit in the middle where they're not BUT OTHER THAN THAT."

I'm fine with having to memorize how to get from place to place instead of relying on a grid, but I can't bloody memorize information that they don't bloody GIVE me.

[ymfaery]

But London has street signs!

..granted, sometimes they changed every block, but they still HAVE them.

And since in central London there's practically a Tube station every two or three blocks, not to mention all the bus stops, it wasn't that hard for me to navigate.

[thewickedlady]

Boston loves to mock people getting to know the city. I was so excited when I finally got a smart phone about two years ago that had gps map in it. I could figure out where I was at 1am in an area I didn't know!!

[camwyn]

That's the problem. The smart phone with GPS mapping only helps if I can verify that the phone's GPS is giving me the right location, which it wasn't always this weekend. When it shows me standing in the middle of a block I know I just passed, when I'm standing on a corner, I kind of want to know what street corner I'm on so I can look at the map picture whether the blue dot is right or not.

[telophase]

I've got a friend whose dad is a retired trucker, who has driven in every state in the Lower 48, who says Boston is his #1 most hated city in which to drive.

[tam_nonlinear]

Boston has a well-earned reputation for being a horrible city to navigate. From the roads based on cow trails to the clusters of one-way only streets to the lack of street signs.

Although nowhere even vaguely near that level of horror, I will note that Annapolis MD has areas where the street signs have footnotes ("Elm St, Formerly Baker St. Also Known as Such Way"), which is also panic inducing for those of us with poor navigation skills.

[hellkitty]

Oh, yes, Boston. When I was there for PCA last year, the hotel concierge gave me a sort of official looking street map of Boston. I marched forth, sure of my mapreading skills, to find the conference center.

Disaster ensued. And I'd look at my map and say, Okay, here's X street, which I am on. If I am going the right way, the next street will be Y, if I'm going the wrong way, it will be Z. And I'd find the next street and...it was something else entirely.

And that's walking. I've heard it's a million times worse when driving.

[camwyn]

At this point I'm going to buy a compass- I don't trust the compass app on my cell phone and the GPS isn't always right- and start navigating by means of Google Maps Shows The T Station Is Sort Of Over THAT Way. Granted, this method works better in New York because one can only get so lost in Manhattan before hitting the water, but at least I'll be less likely to blow a blood vessel.

and I'll probably wind up having to swim home as a result but oh well.

[cameoflage]

I'm glad my awesome telescope ring has a compass thrown in. If I go to Boston I may actually need to use that.

I don't think I've ever even been to a major city that didn't primarily use a grid system. I will be so far in over my head when the time comes to navigate an old, messily-laid-out New England or European city.

[attractivegeekery]

But Cam, if we put up street signs that would require us to admit that we don't know where we are at all times.

The side effect of living here as long as I have is that I'm incapable of reading street signs when they're available. Is this the street? Or is that the street the sign is talking about?

I JUST DON'T KNOW!

[shati]

I think growing up around here is why I can't navigate anywhere. In my formative years, it was futile even to try.

[derien]

But Camwyn, it's Tradition! There are no street signs so that if the British try to invade they'll get lost. And they try, every summer. ;)

ps

[derien]

(I learned the above from The Lizard of Oz, in about 1978.)