Joshua / March 4, 2007 5:31 PM

i could do without any of the nearly 6-way intersections like damen/fullerton/elston, armitage/milwaukee/western, and halsted/clybourn/north.

logan/milwaukee/kedzie is always good for a wrong turn and some backtracking.

michigan and oak before lakeshore is pretty tricky.

i guess that's 5 from the northside anyway.

kate / March 4, 2007 6:42 PM

Figuring how to get from Kedzie to Milwaukee took a few loops around Logan Square and a curse-filled phone call.

Thurston / March 4, 2007 7:02 PM

I have witnessed a lot of confusion at the Clark/Broadway/Diversey intersection. Lots of prohibitions on turning left there - perhaps the five way is even trickier than than the six.

matt / March 4, 2007 8:32 PM

Any of those god-forsaken "Michigan Left" intersections in the Detroit suburbs... WTF?!

However, at home: where Western turns from one street into two by 35th... gets me every time.

Robyn / March 4, 2007 9:03 PM

Getting to the intersection of Logan and Western is a beeyatch when you are trying to get there from I-90 Westbound...getting off at the Fullerton and Western exit, then continuing through the intersection, on the up ramp then down the off ramp has made for more than a few tense driving experiences...

Jeremy / March 4, 2007 11:55 PM

I always have to pay extra attention at Union Park, when Ogden, Ashland, Washington and Warren all converge. It also throws me off that Washington changes direction to one-way westbound at Ogden.

I think the traffic would move much more smoothly if the City replaced every 6-legged intersection with a roundabout. At least once everyone learns the rules of the roundabout (the car in the circle ALWAYS has the right of way).

Jeremy / March 4, 2007 11:57 PM

I always have to pay extra attention at Union Park, when Ogden, Ashland, Washington and Warren all converge. It also throws me off that Washington changes direction to one-way westbound at Ogden.

I think the traffic would move much more smoothly if the City replaced every 6-legged intersection with a roundabout. At least once everyone learns the rules of the roundabout (the car in the circle ALWAYS has the right of way).

Shylo / March 4, 2007 11:59 PM

The intersection of MIlwaukee and Des Plaines by the Blommer factory. Whenever I ride in to work down Milwaukee, I think I'm going to bite it crossing that one. No idea what I'm doing there. But hey, it smells of chocolate.

maardvark / March 5, 2007 1:35 AM

I'm with Joshua on the Damen/Elston/Fullerton intersection. It's like a six-way, but no! There's a tiny little island in the middle, resulting in multiple lights for the same intersection. And then the ramps on and off the Kennedy are, like, right there. So it's really more like a nearly-eight-way. And no one can figure out if northbound Damen is one lane or three there. Throw in the trucks trying to get out of the Vienna Beef factory, and you've got all the ingredients of a traffic hellhole.

For pure confusion, however, any of the intersections on the subterranean streets win hands down. Not least because they're unmapped and rarely explored. I've been with people who have wandered for hours just trying to get to the surface street. Just picking one at random--Garvey and lower Wacker.

Spook / March 5, 2007 7:57 AM

faith, religion, politics

Jack / March 5, 2007 8:16 AM

The Stony Island/South Chicago/75th (?) street one is rather complicated, especially with the exit to the Skyway plus the local/express Stony Island ridiculousness. Makes getting to Leon's a pain.

mike / March 5, 2007 8:21 AM

Sheffield/Willow/Clybourn

Willow is set back from the other two streets and continues at an odd angle, causing a lot of people to hang wide-arching lefts several seconds after their yellow has expired. That and the traffic in that area is a nightmare. The confusing part is that you can enter the intersection and have no clue where the other cars left over from the previous light came from or where they're going.

fluffy / March 5, 2007 9:42 AM

Lincoln, Belmont, Ashland, blah blah.
That intersection is hard to figure out even as a pedestrian.

jaye / March 5, 2007 9:43 AM

i dont know how many times i have been standing at damen/north/milwaukee and have had someone ask me which way is damen or which way is milwaukee...

4point44 / March 5, 2007 9:49 AM

the intersection of space and time. hands down.

Alice / March 5, 2007 10:11 AM

My new one was yesterday, driving south on Orleans, when suddenly at Ohio your only choice is to end up on the Kennedy. We had fun going around the block on that one.

Otherwise I agree about the six-corner and nearly-six-corner intersections. As a passenger, my directions always end up sounding like this:

"Now, you're going to make a right at this intersection onto Ashland. A wide right. No, wide. Wide!! WIDE RIGHT!!! Crap, now we're on Belmont.

jen / March 5, 2007 10:19 AM

alice - the term you're looking for is soft right. from lincoln, it would be a hard right onto belmont. ;)

i concur with the damen/fullerton/elston clusterfuck. but the kedzie/logan loop/milwaukee is pretty easy after you do it once - the only frustrating part is how the lanes appear and shift around the western part of that loop. like, you're on kedzie then your only option is to turn onto wrightwood - crap!

skafiend / March 5, 2007 10:31 AM

The Stony Island/South Chicago/75th (?) street one is rather complicated,

Gotta go with Jack on this one. The confluence of that many street, coupled with the disorienting canopy of the skyway, plus the penchange for many drivers to floor it going through here to beat the light, PLUS the presence of a couple of fast food joints that are like a bug light to Saturday night partiers make this double helix of an intersection downright scary to drive through at times. Not only to you have to avoid the speeders, make sure you hit the right cross street, but you have to occasionally be on the look out for the odd stray bullet from a White Castle confrontation gone bad. Forget fender-benders; you can get full-on t-boned here on a regular basis.

skafiend / March 5, 2007 10:34 AM

The Stony Island/South Chicago/75th (?) street one is rather complicated,

Gotta go with Jack on this one. The confluence of that many street, coupled with the disorienting canopy of the skyway, plus the penchange for many drivers to floor it going through here to beat the light, PLUS the presence of a couple of fast food joints that are like a bug light to Saturday night partiers make this double helix of an intersection downright scary to drive through at times. Not only to you have to avoid the speeders, make sure you hit the right cross street, but you have to occasionally be on the look out for the odd stray bullet from a White Castle confrontation gone bad. Forget fender-benders; you can get full-on t-boned here on a regular basis.

Carrie / March 5, 2007 10:39 AM

How about any one of the Sheridan/Sheridan intersections? Does we have to keep that name for it despite the fact it keeps making 90 degree turns?

Also, Alice, I always call them "hard" and "soft" turns on those 6-ways.

Carrie / March 5, 2007 10:40 AM

How about any one of the Sheridan/Sheridan intersections? Does we have to keep that name for it despite the fact it keeps making 90 degree turns?

Also, Alice, I always call them "hard" and "soft" turns on those 6-ways.

Stephen / March 5, 2007 10:49 AM

The intersection of N. Wood St., N. Wolcott Ave., and N. Milwaukee Ave. (there's a Walgreen's and a 7-Eleven on this corner).

How's this for confusing? Wolcott is diagonal, turns into Wood St. (which is not diagonal) and is bisected by Milwaukee... which (depending on whether you're on the Wood side or the Wolcott side) cuts across at either a 90° angle of a 45° angle. When Wood/Wolcott has the green light, it's never clear what constitutes a "turn" or "going straight" and as a result nobody really knows who has the right of way.

fluffy / March 5, 2007 11:24 AM

In Texas they'll say "take a dogleg at Belmont" which means a soft turn.....I always want to say it when giving directions, but I don't.
Last week, 3 middle aged suburban women asked me where the Blue Man Group theatre was. This was by Clark, Halstead and whatever that other street is....Anyway, they were standing right below the big sign with a bald blue man.
:-}

Annie / March 5, 2007 11:30 AM

I live on the Kedzie/Logan/Milwakuee circle, and it's even harder to walk around than to navigate by car. And forget about trying to explain it to someone.

Western & Pershing is a fantastically awful intersection. You have both Western Ave & Western Blvd, and Pershing narrows from 4 lanes to 2, AND there's L tracks going diagonally above it, so there's pylons places here & there. It's confusing & dangerous, a true joy to drive through.

p / March 5, 2007 1:32 PM

i saw a boy kissing a boy at broadway & wellington once when i was young dude.

snuh / March 5, 2007 2:30 PM

i care not for ridge/touhy/rogers intersection.

Emerson Dameron / March 5, 2007 2:46 PM

Ashland/Cermak/Blue Island seems to mindfuck drivers more than I'd think it would. So does Western/Clybourn/Belmont. The area around Chinatown (Cermak/Archer/Wentworth) confuses me terribly as a pedestrian.

clark griswald / March 5, 2007 2:48 PM

most round-a-bouts.

J / March 5, 2007 4:18 PM

Any intersection with Lincoln nearby is a pain because you're always going to end up not making it through without hitting a red.

J2 / March 5, 2007 4:44 PM

I really hate Peterson & Ridge - the first time I did that, I ended up right where I started.
I also become confused by the Ogden exit on 90/94 going south - I know that I can somehow get to Milwaukee Ave...

hucklecat / March 5, 2007 5:33 PM

Congress and Plymouth, downtown. Drivers on Congress always miss the stoplight, resulting in lots of accidents and near-misses.

hucklecat / March 5, 2007 5:36 PM

Congress and Plymouth, downtown. Drivers on Congress always miss the stoplight, resulting in lots of accidents and near-misses.

sharkey / March 5, 2007 10:01 PM

Once I was biking eastbound on 26th from California to Western, and somehow got confused about when to turn on to Western and turned on Rockwell instead. It quickly becomes an overpass with no bike lane, no shoulder, no sidewalk, no exit. Cars drive in two lanes with about a lane and a half of space to work with. I sucked it up and pedaled like hell to 35th--at night, too. Scariest bike ride of my entire life.

sharkey / March 5, 2007 10:01 PM

Once I was biking eastbound on 26th from California to Western, and somehow got confused about when to turn on to Western and turned on Rockwell instead. It quickly becomes an overpass with no bike lane, no shoulder, no sidewalk, no exit. Cars drive in two lanes with about a lane and a half of space to work with. I sucked it up and pedaled like hell to 35th--at night, too. Scariest bike ride of my entire life.

Blake / March 5, 2007 11:44 PM

Spinsterdom and Sanity? They just never seem to meet up the way Spinsterdom and Craze-itude do....

Nick / March 6, 2007 10:37 AM

I always have trouble figuring out how to get to Chinatown when coming off 90/94 going south (or north for that matter since I have had to turn around and still couldn't figure it out). There is an exit on I-55 to Chinatown but I can't get there by exiting 90/94 to I-55. I can see it as I am turning onto I-55, but it is right before where you get onto I-55 from 90/94. Someone needs to put a sign on 90/94 telling me where I should turn at and directing me there.

Nick / March 6, 2007 10:44 AM

This is more of a series of confusing intersections, but trying to get from Lake Shore Drive to the downtowny part of 57th St in Hyde Park (on the other side of the Metra tracks) is a real nightmare. I've known this area for years and years so it is not bad for me, but giving anyone directions to get there is very difficult.