My principle problem with Milton Keynes is that to the unfamiliar eye at least, it all looks exactly the same. It's the only place where I've ever taken a wrong turn, and not realised for several miles.
I've also ended up in a car park that looked exactly like the one I wanted, outside a building that looked exactly like the one I wanted, but in reality was over a mile away.
In fairness though, I was going in and out in rush hour over a few weeks when working with a client based there, and never saw much in the way of rush hour jams until I got well outside the town centre.
--
04 Grand Scenic 1.9 dCi Dynamique
00 Mondeo 1.8TD LX
|
My principle problem with Milton Keynes is that to the unfamiliar eye at least it all looks exactly the same.
Just like Paris you mean? When lost in Paris it's quite easy to stop, enter one of the four or five charming bars you can see and have a lovely drink and something delicious to eat while considering your options.
Surely Milton Keynes offers the same comforts?
:o}
|
|
|
I've also ended up in a car park that looked exactly like the one I wanted outside a building that looked exactly like the one I wanted but in reality was over a mile away.
The game's up DP. You are Captain Jack Harkness and we know where you live.
|
|
|
|
I only ever go there for a factory shop, and often get lost going there as well (despite maps, been there before etc).
Biggest problems for me are the signage (although to be fair, things like V and H numbers for a grid do help) and the fact you can't see the houses from the main roads. I have a pretty good idea where you point a tv aerial anywhere in the UK (job related) and really do use it for navigation to give me a compass!
|
I sometimes do enter on Milton Keynes. It's designed like a typical North American town :) All roads look peculiarly identical with one another!
It is also a town where you'll be screwed without a car! There are several places where no footpaths are available. And distances between important places are massive.
On a different note, last weekend I had a horrible experience in Blackpool.
I entered there for the first time with a print out map (didn't show 1-way streets). I was frustrated to find so many one way streets on the town. For one whole hour I tried to solve a jigsaw puzzle of one way streets. In some roads, I couldn't find road names at the beginning of the junction! After reaching each traffic light whether I can (or can't) turn left/right.
:(
|
In the early 1970s a close friend worked in the planning department at MK and had access to the top honchos. I repeatedly complained to him about the quality of the signposting and he repeatedly reported the problem to his superiors. I noticed little change and I still find it difficult, both in finding the localities and also the through-routes. It's epitomized in the minimal signposting to the Open University, which must be one of the largest employers in the place and with the largest number of visitors (shopping centre excluded).
One of the most influential planners there at the start of it all was an American, with a PhD from MIT. I met his MIT supervisor some years later, and it was clear where it had all come from. The Americans are of course happiest laying down rectilinear grids on flat land, such is their stunted concept of planning.
And as for that V and H nonsense. For those who may not know, V means north-south (and vice versa) and H means east-west (and vice versa) -- you're supposed to be looking at an imaginary map, just like the maps the planners created. Absurd.
|
|
|
Curious. I like MK. I find it very easy to get about due to the long wide roads. But then I have an OS map so maybe that is the secret. Oh and I have a compass. That is essential when walking round the town centre since it all looks so alike.
On a different note last weekend I had a horrible experience in Blackpool. I entered there for the first time with a print out map (didn't show 1-way streets). I was frustrated to find so many one way streets on the town. For one whole hour I tried to solve a jigsaw puzzle of one way streets. In some roads I couldn't find road names at the beginning of the junction! After reaching each traffic light whether I can (or can't) turn left/right.
Ah yes. I once got lost in Reading. I ended up going round in circles for half an hour, trying to get back on a road that would allow me to go in the direction I wanted to go in.
The place I hate driving in is London. It is so busy that it is near impossible to read the signs and avoid a collision. And not only do you have to look up at road signs, you have to look down at the road markings so as not to end up in a turn right only lane when you want to go straight on. And the road markings are so confusing. Sometimes it is as if they are having a laugh. Oh and of course the trend now is to purposefully create congestion to convince us to travel on the dirty smelly expensive inconvenient buses.
|
Living in Northampton I quite often go to MK and I cant say as its any harder to navigate than anywhere else, just has a logical layout of roads, so if you do get lost, you can work out what direction you should head. Having an OS map is essential when going to any unfamiliar place, MK is no different.
One big plus is that if you do take a wrong turn, you can almost guarantee theres a roundabot not far off and you can correct yourself.
Id second the London citing, its a horrid, badly designed place for people who have a fatalistic attitude to both navigation and the condition of their soon to be bashed car. Driving to Kensington is fairly straightforward but id still rather stick pins in my eyes thanks.
|
This is amusing to read on a motoring forum as I work in the urban design field and a significant number of the design features of MK are assumed to be far too car orientated for current urban design thinking (overt separation of cars and pedestrians/cyclists, distributor roads with large amounts of landscaping on either side, cul de sac layouts of resi areas, lowish density, large number of car parks/parking provision, separation of land use). At the moment English Partnerships (ironically based in MK) has been in battle with MK council about "deMKing" a main distributor road and building a new part of the town with proper street frontages, better legibility, more "normal" relationships between buildings, mixed use, higher density.
I had heard that in some US suburbs the identikit nature of junctions and roads and with minimal singage was seen as an anti crime measure ie the crims can't find their way in and out!
|
|
Not just you. Like Stuart I live by Northampton and accessing the shopping area or the railway station at MK is a piece of cake. But I've never been to the Giffard Park local centre the same way twice.
|
|
I've been going to MK irregularly for quite a few years, and I get lost almost every time to a greater or lesser degree. I've driven to remote rural addresses in France, Belgium and Holland without taking a single wrong turning (and without satnav), but it's taken me 30 mins of driving in circles to find the well-know Swedish shop.
|
Hmph. You should try Polperro.
Spent a whole morning once trying to get out of the place and continually passing the same "Welcome to Polperro" sign.
|
As we will shortly be moving to an outlying village, to MK, I'm a bit surprised at the complaints, here!
So far, the worst thing I've come accross, or around, is the high number of roundabouts, avery few hundred metres. Yes, I know this is the idea to do away with the need for traffic lights, but, I'll no doubt be discovering the cost of excess tyre wear, as reported by plenty of residents!
& did the illegal speed limit fiasco get rectified, there? Something about some roads being designated 40 limit, but should have been national limit. ???
Whatever you all think, it'll be better than Luton. If the unskilled road users we have here, also inhabit MK, there does seem to be more space to avoid them, there, a bit easier!!
VB
|
The only problem I have with MK is that it all looks the same, every view from every dual carriageway is identical.
As for Luton, I prefer the spoke design of it's road system to the grid of MK and I can't really complain about the nutters on the road there as I'm one of the nuttier ones. If there was room to make all the arterial roads dual then life would be as motoring friendly as MK.
I also enjoy driving in London but not in rush hour!
--
I read often, only post occasionally
|
|
After the anonymous nature of MK, what we really did like was the original Milton Keynes village - had a really good lunch in an old pub there.
|
In defence of Milton Keynes.
The roads are based on the American grid system. If you are on the corner of say H6V3 it should only take a room temperature IQ to work out how to get to say H2V12.
The city was designed to keep cars and people seperate. You can walk/cycle from anywhere to anywhere without touching a road on paths called redways. Wonderful in principle but devised for an era when we had a functioning police force and isolated paths weren't automatically lethal at all times of day let alone night.
Designed on a massive scale that it never achieved so the isolated estates you see were meant to be hubs. As the spoke roads/houses never got built they remain isolated but this makes it possibly the greenest city in UK.
WAS free car parking everywhere including the railway station. No council was going to leave that alone for long.
Even today four cars at a roundabout in rush hour is a long wait.
All in all far worse places to live.
|
"All in all far worse places to live"
Philosophical at least....!
|
I've no beef with the concept of MK. Finding the station is a doddle; Silbury Boulevard or whatever for shopping ditto if you've been there once. But it does all look the same.
The H/V grid system is fine and logical, but not all streets are thus marked, and it's only helpful if you can relate H and V to a map you're holding. And once you get out of the central grid area into the outlying estates (they sound like villages) it's like a maze. And as I said in my original post, the signposting off main roads is inconsistent and DOWNRIGHT UNHELPFUL.
Point about having an OS map is well made. I do normally but this time my navigator provided the mapping...
|
I've never been to MK (lucky me?) so I can't comment on it.
I lived in Reading for six months. The only thing to do is park your car and walk. Though why the powers that be insist on building so many ammenities in the only-accessible-by-car commercial parks around the town I have no idea...
As for London, and Paris, the only sane way to get around - unless you have to carry a vanload of stuff with you - is on the tube/metro. Even the bus is a non-starter with the amount of traffic (and you have to know the bus route to find your destination!)
|
As the spoke roads/houses never got built they remain isolated but this makes it possibly the greenest city in UK.
I just had to interject and mention that Sheffield is the greenest city in England: snipurl.com/1qumn
With regard to MK I think I've only been once and my main memory is everywhere looked the same and the street name signs made me think toytown/ Legoland, but it seemed harmless enough.. Didnt see the town centre, I just had to visit an industrial estate..
;o)
|
I find MK the easiest city to navigate by a clear margin. Just make sure that you ask which H/V intersection you want before you go, and its a piece of cake to get anywhere. And if there's traffic on the orad you're using, you can move to a parallel one easily.
And its great on a bike too - the cycle paths aren't the rotten bit at the side of the road which you get elsewhere.
Big thumbs up from me.
|
|
It would seem that Glenrothes in Scotland is based on the Milton Keynes grid system of design and equally confusing & easy to get lost. !!!!
|
trying to get out of the place and continually passing the same "Welcome to Polperro" sign<<
Surely if you repeatedly kept passing this "Welcome to" sign, then you had repeatedly found your way "out" - but kept going back in again! ;-)
Billy
|
Exactly so. The way out leads, I conclude, directly to the way in with no other choices.
Clearly we got out eventually, but I seem to recall having to invoke a rip in the space-time continuum to do so.
|
|
I fail to see why a 4x4 is essential for Milton Keynes. I have been to it and through it without a 4x4 and had no desire to be in one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
