>>That's because Oslo, like probably most of the other European cities, wasn't really planned for this much of traffic. One way streets are only a half measure (pardon the poor pun). I've had the same experience driving through Budapest, Novi Sad and Belgrade, where I'm supposed to be more or less at home
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>When we were there last year, the traffic is Budapest was awful.

Glad to hear that the old place hasn't lost any of its charm ;). Before driving there, I thought I knew how to drive and park in a tight downtown. It took me a whole day of driving around to learn what I thought I knew.


>>Nice but now seems quite counterproductive. You get only local traffic, only the people who live here and their visitors, driving down the street - but then they do have to drive a lot, because there's nothing for a few miles, nothing but more houses (which are never sold - they sell homes only... is "house" politically incorrect now?), so whatever anyone wants, they have to drive to it. So you don't get a neighborhood, people walking by and saying hello, you get a long dormitory with just as long a parking line. And if you get to live close to the only entrance to it, you get all of the traffic, but still nothing much nearby - you too have to drive.
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>This is actually a different problem than the cul-de-sacs. It's the separation of homes from businesses and retail.

Cul-de-sac is the extreme aspect of that separation. I've seen it around here, taken to the extreme - the soil is flat, and apart of a few bays and lakes there are no landscape features which would dictate the shape of streets. Any building lots are created by cutting old forest. But it's so obvious, when looking at a map, that practically every neighborhood is planned as an insulated country, with almost no contact with its neighbors; even when there is no fence, there is no connecting road. And it's not typical of just housing projects and gated communities (or what other name tags they may have), it's the same with the businesses. Each lot has to have its own parking, with its own entrance from the main street. If you happen to enter the wrong parking - because the entrance was obscured by the vehicle in front of you, in many cases you can't just drive over. They're all separate universes.

>There's been some movement in the last few years toward what are called TNDs, traditional neighborhood developments. My husband's company built one a few year ago: http://www.livingplaces.com/PA/Bucks_County/Doylestown_Borough/Lantern_Hill.html

Great - looks very nice, specially that they took the liberty to reintroduce color into the landscape. I thought color was restricted to traffic signs and rear lights, everything else had to be gray, drab or creamy - which was true even for the cars, until last fall.

Still, look at the layout of the streets on the map: http://www.livingplaces.com/PA/Bucks_County/Doylestown_Borough/Lantern_Hill_Map.html

What's the shortest route from the corner of Broadale rd with Murray dr to the east corner of Pearl dr? Are the people from the first two streets neighbors to those in Pearl dr in any meaningful way?

IOW, there's only so much a single builder can do; any changes which would cut deeper - i.e. change the ways their built neighborhoods interact with the neighboring neighborhoods (which is no way, currently) - would only come after a large change of mind of pretty much everyone involved in urban planning. Meanwhile, we're stuck with what we have.

>But again, a lot of local governments won't approve them. They think people don't want to live right by stores and businesses.

Because everything was built on cheap gas, and the stores are far away from houses, so everyone drives and businesses have practically zero walk-in customers. They're all drive-to.

If the same shops were nearby, they'd be within walkable distance to many more customers, to the point where maybe only a quarter of their business would be with motorized customers. That's how it is everywhere else - what one needs every day is usually available in the little shop on the corner; for your weekly shopping, there's the big box shop at the edge of town. The US are actually the only country I saw where the big box shop is your daily grocery.

>>It may be bad if your street is the only shortcut between two neighborhoods - but if there are several, you get only your share. And that's still locals only; most people won't know about it and would drive where the signs show.
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>Yep. I live in a much older neighborhood (several houses on this block are about 100 years old), with a grid of streets. There are a few place where people drive too fast, so now and then, the police come along and give a few tickets. Seems to work in the long run.

Exactly - it works everywhere. I grew up on quite a busy street, with a big industrial complex beginning just three blocks away, but apart from big trucks whizzing by every now and then, four bus lines (that's 8 vehicles an hour) and the twenty minutes of rush hour, can't say we suffered much from traffic. Don't remember that anyone died. The only regular trouble was the railroad crossing, which would be slammed into regularly, and which was always repaired, repainted or in need of a job :). Ah, and the scooters with their unshielded spark plugs which would be heard over FM for a whole minute, coming and going.

So... I don't see why do people object to street traffic. If it were trucks at 60mph all day, I'd understand, but regular traffic at 35 or even 45 mph shouldn't be such a problem - today's vehicles aren't so loud. Well, they can be... my neighborhood here can be quite colorful that way; there's even a sign "please, no loud music" on the parking across the street.