purty pikters

Some photos from Philadelphia and Washington DC. More to come as I get more free time. 

Also, the last picture is not from Philly or DC. I was too lazy to edit my other photography post, so I stuck it in here.

An Open Thread To The City Of Philadelphia

Here in the comments, please post everything you hate/love about Philadelphia.  I'll start:

Philadelphia, please do not post one-way traffic signs and then, after realizing that they are facing the wrong way, simply bend them around the post to somewhat match what you're going for instead of removing them and reinstalling them.  Those of us who can actually see don't like this, and I don't think it takes much to see why it's obnoxious.

Philadelphia, thank you for your seaport museum and Moshulu.  Both are fantastic and worth visiting.

Your turn.

Measuring the Efficiency of the National Highway System Via Google Maps

In the interests of cataloging the tremendous feats of engineering pioneered by past generations, I have taken it upon myself to conduct a short and meaningless study.  It works like this:

1) Use Google Maps to plan spring break trip with significant other.

2) Pick a significantly distant city.  For my study, I've used Philadelphia (to Miami University).

3) Note the drive time and quantity of turns you've been instructed to make.  For my example, I got ~19.5 hours and 33 turns.

4) Now, turn on the 'Avoid Highways' option and note the drive and turn numbers again: 31 hours and 146 turns.

5) Rinse and repeat.

Some things to consider:

• Imagine highways didn't exist.  How would your life be different?

• Each time a car makes a turn, it has to (essentially) stop, execute the turn, and re-accelerate.  Each of these loses efficiency.

• Not all turns or merges have this qualification.

• Highways are more expensive to build and require different maintenance than surface streets.

• The speed limit is higher on highways than on surface streets.

• Congestion on highways often eliminates, at least periodically and somewhat substantially, some of their benefits.

• Cars often are more efficient at higher speeds.

• Highways are often funded federally.

• Surface streets are oftentimes more 'personal' than highways. (ie: You can't stop at a neighborhood diner on a spur of the moment when you drive on a highway unless you are previously aware of its location.)

• Some have preferences one over the other that are difficult to quantify here.

Just a thought I had.