Re: Oh got to love US tech bros
"If you think the US grid layout is difficult...."
In most of the US urban sprawl, i's not so much the layout as the functionality. In most of Europe, you have streets (low-speed, with shops, pedestrian and cycle traffic, odd layouts especially in old villages/towns) , and you have roads (generally high(er) speed, no or few pedestrians, few designated on/off points and connected with roundabouts). Roads (which could be highways, but also A-roads and B-roads) are relatively easy to navigate. Streets, much more challenging. But most distances are covered on roads.
But in the US urban sprawl, you have a vast number of 'stroads' (look it up), which are the equivalent of an A-road, except with 3-lanes each way, a side-access to a strip mall, car wash or burger joint every 200m, connected at junctions with left-turning lanes that might or might not have traffic lights. So you get fast traffic mixed in with slow traffic, cars merging in and out all the time, cross traffic across your lane at junctions. A large proportion of US traffic passes through this sort of mess. Sure, the grid layout is helpful to determine direction, but that's not the problem!