[hypercube33]

Compare it to something like Eau Claire where you try to go easy on any given road ...you won't and it'll curve south or north almost guaranteed. I think Madison is a heavily planned city (Though I could be confused for Milwaukee as it's been a while since I read about either) where it's laid out as close to a north south grid as possible.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Probably Milwaukee.

Downtown Madison is sandwiched between 2 lakes, and most of the city orients North East for the roads that run between them.

[bilbo0s]

This is the correct answer.

I mean, yes, Madison is heavily planned. But so is any city you build on an isthmus. You have to heavily plan the layout or it won't work. At the same time they made a north-east flowing layout. Now it may be a "grid" if you rotate a grid 45%, but when someone generally thinks of "grid", they think of a grid oriented in cardinal directions. Obviously, this is not possible in Madison because of two giant lakes.

Minneapolis has more of a "grid" layout that most people would consider a true "grid" layout.

Milwaukee and Chicago obviously have grid layouts on steroids because of their history and the nature of the original people inhabiting those places. They are places built for moving men and material to the front so to speak. And they don't too much care what they have to do to make that possible. Giant hill of rock in the way? They'll happily blow right through it. City keeps flooding because it's basically a swamp/marsh? No problem, they casually lift the entire city into the air and continue right on building. Just a whole lot of things most other places probably wouldn't do.

[lapcat]

> You have to heavily plan the layout or it won't work.

This is presuming that Madison roads "work", but they don't! They're a mess.

Note also that the state capitol was originally built at the present site in 1837, before the rise of the automobile. And North Hall, the first building on the University of Wisconsin campus, was built in 1851. I'm not aware of any grand road plan.

[hypercube33]

Insightful information, and yeah, I incorrectly remembered :)

Another interesting thing not talked a lot about online is that these midwest cities typically have a ton of documented (or not?) underground tunnels. There used to be a cool website for the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) that showed them off. My parents recall walking from the University of MN to further parts downtown where you can transition to skyways and basically never go outside. I guess -40' weather really pushes people to become moles in a sense. I think a lot of big cities also have huge tunnel systems for heating fuel (coal delivery and the like) and other utilities

[lapcat]

> I think Madison is a heavily planned city

LOLNO Madison is complete mess because it's on an isthmus. Also the state capitol is right in the middle of the isthmus, so all of the streets there have to go around the capitol grounds. And then there's Schenk's Corners for example, just a total nightmare. The entire city is going in every direction at once.

The only way you can figure out how to get around Madison is to live here for decades (which I've done), via rote route memorization.

Before Madison I actually lived in downtown Minneapolis, and I always appreciated the orderliness of its streets.

[hecanjog]

Milwaukee has grid areas downtown, but the street layout between there and south to bay view gets a bit weird and jagged in between. The story I heard was it's leftover from two competing shipping(?) businesses who wanted to make some passages difficult as some kind of competitive advantage, but the details are pretty fuzzy. :) Milwaukee gets pretty windy and non-grid-like though.